The Argentine embedded finance startup Menta — which offers solutions for companies to develop their payment and finance systems — raised a $6 million round led by Silicon Valley fund Base 10, in which funds such as Pear VC, Matterscale, and Gilgamesh also participated.
These funds had already relied on Menta in its pre-seed round in September of the previous year, in which the young company managed to raise a total of $1.7 million that allowed it to go public. Base 10 has already invested in major companies such as Nubank, Brex, Cabify, and Figma, among others.
This new investment tripled the valuation of the fintech, which now plans to consolidate its position in Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, reach new markets and strengthen and diversify its payments and embedded finance solutions for B2B companies in Latin America.
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An innovative, booming market
The market for companies seeking to create their financial solutions is booming in these countries. But many companies still lack the infrastructure, technology, or know-how to carry out this project.
Menta’s solutions, which adapt complete fintech services to local business needs, make building financial systems easier for small and medium-sized companies.
“The payments and financial industry are very fragmented and full of inefficiencies. Developing an in-house payments solution is practically impossible, would take more than two years, involves hiring an army of developers, going through lengthy regulatory processes, and, therefore, completely unfocuses the company,” said Menta CEO Virginia Folgueiro.
“We provide companies with their payment infrastructure that they can distribute to their merchant network and thus include them financially,” she added.
Digital payment is replacing cash in LatAm
For Menta, digital means of payment are about to become the most widely used method for retailers in Latin America — and they want to be at the forefront of this market.
According to data from the 2022 Global Payments Report, produced annually by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), debit cards will overtake cash as the most popular method of payment at retailers by 2025, with a market share of 25.2%.
Open and collaborative platform
Menta’s platform is open and collaborative, enabling companies to integrate all solutions in-house or from Menta’s ecosystem.
Companies can build an ecosystem beyond transactions by providing their retail network with an in-house payment solution. Menta’s infrastructure allows these enterprises to include services such as bill payment, credit, investments, cryptocurrency payments, and loyalty programs, among many others.
And this is materialized with SmartPOS (or smart point-of-sale) charging devices and cutting-edge payment terminals that enable the solutions to implement.
“We seek to create an ecosystem that includes payment solutions and all the products and services that allow merchants to grow in sales, profitability, and efficiency. In this way, we help every company with a merchant network to offer its payment and financial solution, increasing competitiveness and strengthening relationships with its customers,” said Santiago Lorenzo, co-founder, and CTO of Menta, in a statement.
“We have a Plug & Play scheme that, in just one month, allows our customers to be integrated into our ecosystem with no installation costs. At the same time, our model is revenue sharing, so we are allies of our customers, and we only win when they win,” concluded Lorenzo.
