The startup is streamlining B2B payment flows and projects a 10-fold growth this year.
Six months after announcing its pre-seed, B2B payments platform Barte has raised a $3m seed round. The Brazilian fintech will use the money raised to establish itself as the premium B2B payments platform in Brazil, aiming to recreate the 10x growth it achieved in 2022. The round was led by NXTP and Force Over Mass, with participation from existing investor VentureFriends.
One of the biggest headaches for Latin American SMEs is working capital management, influenced by outdated payments infrastructure and little to no access to capital. It's very common for entrepreneurs to struggle with low transaction approval rates, manual processes and poor visibility, leading to cash flow constraints even for viable businesses.
Founded in 2021, Barte is solving this problem through a B2B payments platform, streamlining processes and providing access to working capital financing. They initially focused on some of the most affected segments of this market, such as service providers and B2B merchants, creating higher levels of automation while retaining the flexibility needed for B2B purchasing flows. Following a pre-seed announced six months ago, the company has now raised a seed round led by NXTP and Force Over Mass, surpassing the $4 million mark in capital raised so far.
This new round was led by NXTP, a LatAm B2B focused fund with six unicorns in its portfolio, and Force Over Mass, a London based fintech firm with this marking their first investment in Brazil, while being followed by current investor VentureFriends.
"In 2022 we grew volumes by more than 10x. We consolidated ourselves as the reference for B2B SMEs seeking to optimize payments until they don’t need to think about it anymore - and it's great to relieve an increasing number of customers from what is still a major pain point in LatAm. The round is a vote of confidence from new and previous investors in our execution, and will help us to take the next step as a company and further scale our operations and product" says Caetano Lacerda, Co-founder & CEO.
Alexander Busse, Partner at NXTP, commented “Barte is going after a massive market opportunity to digitize SMB financial workflows and plug the trillion dollar financing gap that currently exists for small businesses in Latin America and Brazil. Caetano and Raphael are uniquely positioned to take on this challenge and their customer centric approach to growing the business has led to phenomenal traction. We are convinced this is just the beginning”.
Apostolos from VentureFriends added "We have been very fortunate to back Caetano and Raphael when Barte was just an idea and we have been impressed by their execution and swift transition to a revenue generating company with an indispensable product for SMEs. We are very excited about what comes next"
Origin and Next Steps
Although thousands of companies already use Barte's solution, the startup is just over a year old. Barte was founded by Caetano Lacerda and Raphael Dyxklay, with the former bringing financial services and deep tech expertise from stints in London at Deutsche Bank and Tractable, and the latter having led product management fronts in successful LatAm cases such as Creditas, Loft, and Olist.
The company is expanding rapidly and projects to grow tenfold in 2023. The secret, according to Dyxklay, is to focus on specific segments that have more complex payment processes. Niches such as B2B retail, suppliers, and marketplaces are good examples the company has expanded into successfully.
“Our focus is to simplify everything around sending or receiving payments. Our customers gain the power to leave their processes on autopilot without giving up the specifics of what they have designed internally. We provide this option without the need for technological integration, a constraint for many SMEs'' says Dyxklay.
Vision
In the long term, Dyxklay mentions they aim to change the way companies transact in Latin America - ensuring that these interactions take the region to another level of efficiency.
"Latin America is experiencing a great window of opportunity in payments. Regulatory advances and open finance are just the tip of the iceberg. However, B2B companies with more complex processes than the standard self-service purchasing journey risk being left behind. At Barte, we're ensuring that this doesn't happen," says the founder.
The founders also recognise that payments is only part of the problem, with access to capital being the other. “While the problem starts on managing and executing payments, access to capital is the other side of this equation. Through our platform we are able to build more robust credit models, unlocking financing for an underserved segment” says Lacerda. With this in mind, the company mentioned the structuring of a specific debt vehicle, but mentioned it was too soon to comment on details.
About Barte
Founded in 2021, the Brazilian startup is a B2B payments platform that centralizes SME transactions, with the main objective of simplifying complex payment processes and unlocking growth. With one year in the market, it has a customer base exceeding 2,000 companies and projects growing more than 10 times in 2023. Supported by major investors such as NXTP, Force Over Mass and VentureFriends, and Global Founders Capital, it has raised more than $4 million to date.
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