Brazil FinTech Cerc Prepares IPO to Raise $100M

Cerc, the Brazilian exchange receivables firm, is raising $100 million as the FinTech prepares an initial public offering (IPO), Reuters reported Tuesday (March 29).

“We are negotiating funding with up to five fund investors to invest in new businesses,” Cerc’s Founder and Chairman Marcelo Maziero told the news outlet. “We should close in 2022 ready for an IPO.”

Launched in 2015, Cerc began as an online platform designed to help owners of receivables use them as collateral to get cheaper credit.

The news comes at the intersection of the company’s expansion and the Central Bank of Brazil’s amended rules last summer that require financial institutions to register credit card receivables on ePlatforms.

The rule change fueled a 1000% increase in Cerc’s revenue as the sector continues to grow this year, Maziero said.

Next month, Cerc expects to seek an IPO with an application to the Securities and Exchange Commission as it seeks to raise cash.

Earlier this month, PYMNTS reported that Brazil has become a hotbed of payments innovation.

Read more: Brazil Is a Carnival of LatAm Digital Payments Innovation

The same country that brought us the samba and the sizzle of Rio de Janeiro is a pioneering a national payment center that is moving faster than the United States.

In an interview with PYMNTS, EBANX CEO and Co-founder João Del Valle and President of global payments Paula Bellizia said that the company and others are taking payments anywhere they can possibly go in 2022.

“We have a young population,” Bellizia said. “We see the adoption of mobile. This is not only a trend, but also something concrete happening in the market.”

The 2022 Global Digital Shopping Index, a PYMNTS and Cybersource collaboration, revealed Brazilian consumers are almost twice as likely to shop with merchants offering their preferred payment method. In 2021, 52% more Brazilian merchants offered digital profiles, and a staggering 76% say they enable voice pay.