Mexican BNPL Platform Kueski Snags $202M

Mexican buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Kueski on Thursday (Dec. 2) announced it had completed a $200 million equity and debt fundraising round that will help it expand the business, according to a Nasdaq report.

Private equity firm StepStone Group led Kueski’s $102 million equity investment round, while alternative investment firm Victory Park Capital was the main investor in the BNPL firm’s $100 million debt round. Other investors include OnePrime Capital, Glisco Partners, Altos Ventures, Cometa, Richmond Global Ventures, Cathay Innovation, Rise Capital and Angel Ventures Mexico.

“Our goal is to connect the whole Mexican retail economy without requiring consumers to have a bank account, a credit card, or credit history,” said Kueski founder and CEO Adalberto Flores in a statement, adding more than 90% of retail transactions are currently paid in cash.

Kueski’s suite of services include BNPL services, personal loans and salary advances. The company has processed more than 5 million transactions online since it was founded in 2012. Walmart, Nautica, Motorola and Xiaomi Shop are among the companies that rely on Kueski’s BNPL services.

Related: Aplazo Raises $27M in Series A Funding for Mexico BNPL Growth

Fellow Mexican omnichannel buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform Aplazo closed a $27 million Series A funding in November, four months after it grabbed $5.25 million in seed funding. Aplazo plans to use the fresh capital for growth, including adding employees in the product, engineering, sales and merchant departments.

Aplazo’s seed funding allowed the company to boost its total processing volume more than eight times. It has partnerships that will allow the company to expand across Latin America next year.

A recent study predicted that 84 million Latin American shoppers will make eCommerce purchases by the first quarter of 2022, adding that would be about 70% more than would do so without the COVID-19 pandemic.

Also read: PayPal Sees Uptick in BNPL Spending for Black Friday

Meanwhile, PayPal CEO Dan Schulman said on CNBC’s “Mad Money” Tuesday (Nov. 30) that BNPL pay volume was up almost 400% year-over-year on Black Friday. The company completed about 750,000 transactions on the day after Thanksgiving and completed its first month with more than $1 billion in payment volume.