Finaktiva Acquires Libera to Build a Challenger Bank for SMEs in LatAm

Photo by Finaktiva Instagram

Four months ago, Finaktiva said it would seek to become a Neobank (or challenger bank) focused on providing various financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This came after they raised US$8 million in equity and debt funding and raising US$120.2 million in total, according to Crunchbase.

How have they achieved this? The first step they took was to increase their portfolio, which included credit, insurance, factoring, debt funds, and non-financial support tools. 

Therefore, part of their growth strategy was the acquisition of Libera. Libera is a fintech company, made up of national and multinational companies, that promotes factoring and confirming operations in Colombia. The amount of this transaction has not been disclosed.

More Financing for SMEs

Finaktiva and Libera, both Colombian companies, seek to facilitate one of the main problems SMEs face in the world: access to financial services, reported Colombia Fintech

It also detailed that in Colombia 62% of these companies do not have access to financial services, despite the fact that they generate 30% of the GDP and employ more than 65% of the country’s workforce.

With this recent acquisition, Finaktiva could “be a key player in the fintech sector to strengthen its solution to the financing needs of SMEs,” said its CEO, Pablo Santos. He also said that this would provide SMEs with access to a massive digital invoice financing solution.

For their part, Libera has an ecosystem of national companies with more than 37,000 suppliers or invoice issuers registered to obtain liquidity. Finaktiva has also financed over 1,000 small and medium-sized Colombian companies. 

In the wake of this acquisition, Finaktiva seeks to close the year with more than 100,000 financing operations for over 5,000 SMEs, generating a volume of US$500 million by the end of 2021.

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