$150M in Funding Makes Mexico’s FinTech Lender Stori a Unicorn

Mexican FinTech Stori has achieved “unicorn” status following a $150 million Series C round that brought the company’s valuation to $1.2 billion.

As Reuters reported Friday (July 15), the round was led by BAI Capital, Singapore’s GIC and GGV Capital. Participating investors include Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst, Vision Plus Capital, Goodwater Capital and Tresalia Capital.

Learn more: Mexican FinTech Stori Grabs $200M in Series C Funding

“The funding will be used to reach more users of our credit card product in Mexico and expand our portfolio with financial education services,” said Marlene Garayzar, the firm’s co-founder and first woman in Mexico to lead a unicorn, said in an interview with Reuters.

Garayzar said credit card penetration in that country was about 12% when Stori began examining the market. Her company offers loans in a nation where a little less than a third of the people have some sort of credit.

“We talked to potential customers to see what they needed and most of them said access to credit, not just a card, since they wanted a way to start building their credit history and get access to credits in the market,” Garayzar said.

Stori, which has more than 1.4 million customers in Mexico, provides loans as low as 500 Mexican pesos ($24) and says it accepts 99% of its applicants, aiming to approve card requests inside of 10 minutes.

Garayzar said the company hopes to have 2 million customers by next year, with designs on expanding to other parts of Latin America.

“Our mission — empowering financial inclusion for millions of hard-working people — is amazingly meaningful and challenging at the same time,” Stori CEO and Co-founder Bin Chen said last year after the company raised $200 million.

See also: India’s Mobile-First FinTech OneCard Nets $100M on $1.4B Valuation

“We are progressing at an unprecedented pace by combining technology, machine learning, data-driven underwriting and an intuitive mobile-based user experience. A lot more will come in our journey to become a top consumer financial franchise in Latin America.”

Stori’s unicorn status came two days after FPL Technologies, an Indian company which offers credit cards under the name OneCard, became a unicorn after a $100 million Series D funding round valued the company at more than $1 billion.