Miami — Today, CondoConta, a Brazilian neo bank for condos, announced the close of R $20 million in debt financing from Empirica.
CondoConta will use the money to make loans to condo associations who in the last year alone have requested more than R $100 million from the neo bank.
“We only had 10% of this cash, so we told them we couldn’t fulfill all the requests. A lot of them are going to get some of the money now that we’ve received the investment from Empirica,” said Rodrigo Della Rocca, CEO and co-founder of CondoConta.
Before founding CondoConta, Rocca worked in the condo space for 10 years, including as a property manager. Today CondoConta works with more than 1000 condos and more than 300 property managers.
“Brazil has 5 traditional banks, and these banks never really understood how to work with condos,” said Rocca. “They [condos] are not individuals and they are not companies, so the banks don’t know what to do,” he added.
Rocca explained that because more and more people have been spending more time at home due to the pandemic, amenities at condos are getting worn out more quickly and need to be fixed.
“They are also spending much more electricity per month because they [residents] are home all day,” he said. As a result, many condos have decided to implement solar panels in order to make energy from the sun.
CondoConta, which launched in 2019, currently operates in 25 states in Brazil and has about 140 employees. To make money, CondoConta charges an interest rate on the loans, guarantees condo fees, offers reserve funds, insurance, and collections services.
“Working with condos is not as risky, because you’re loaning not to one person, but loaning to a group of people, so if one doesn’t pay, there are others who will pay,” said Giuliano Longo, Partner and Chief Growth Officer at Empirica.
