Uruguay’s Payments Startup dLocal Files For IPO, Report Says

Payments startup dLocal has confidentially filed for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO), Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources.

The company, based in Uruguay, is working with banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase, on a listing that could happen before the end of the year, according to Bloomberg, although timing isn’t finalized. dLocal is set to be valued at over $5 billion in any listing.

The company said it started offering payment services in Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam last week, per Bloomberg. The company has offices in 29 countries across Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.

Formed in 2016, dLocal is led by CEO Sebastián Kanovich. It provides cross-border payments for global companies like Amazon, Spotify, Booking Holdings, GoDaddy and Uber, according to Bloomberg.

dLocal investors include General Atlantic, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Bond and Alkeon Capital, Bloomberg reported.

The company will join a number of others set to go public, including Paymentus Holdings, PicS Ltd. and Flywire, which have all filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), according to Bloomberg. Marqeta is also looking at filing its own IPO as soon as this year.

In addition, Paysafe went through a public merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) this year, Bloomberg reported. Payoneer has also agreed to do the same.

Last year, Kanovich told PYMNTS that cross-border experiences have to come out with some measure of local experience for the end user. Multinational enterprises need to understand the unique payment needs of customers depending on where they reside and how they shop.

“Payments, it’s not rocket science,” Kanovich said. “You obviously need to be good in technology, have a great product — but at the end of the day, it’s accumulation of common sense, and you need to build one block on top of the other.”