Miami — Ebanx, the Brazil-based international payments platform today announced the acquisition of Juno, a Brazilian startup in the business payments sector.
“Juno has huge talents in the company and we believe this is a huge acquisition for Ebanx and for our strategy in the future,” said Wagner Ruiz, co-founder and chief risk officer of Ebanx.
Ebanx serves as the payment processor for international companies in Latin America such as Amazon, Uber and Spotify, which traditionally would only accept international credit cards. “Spotify is a client, so when you pay for Spotify in Brazil, you’re paying through Ebanx,” Ruiz said. The company, which launched in 2012, today accepts more than 150 different types of payment in 15 countries across Latin America.
“We have more than 70 million Latin Americans buying through Ebanx,” Ruiz said.
Earlier this year, the company raised $430 million from private equity firm Advent. Ebanx continues to be a private company and was last valued at $1 billion in 2019, according to Pitchbook. There is talk of a possible upcoming IPO.
Juno, on its end, is a payment institution licensed by the Central Bank of Brazil which provides billing for SMBs (small to medium size businesses), banking as a service, Visa card issuance, among other services.
“Juno is bringing in more than 35,000 SMB in Brazil,” Ruiz said.
In 2020 alone, Juno processed R$4.7 billion, a figure that meat 130% year over year growth and an average of 200,000 transactions per day, Ruiz said.
In addition to a lot more business, the acquisition will also bring an additional 200 people to Ebanx, increasing the headcount to 1200.
Bloomberg Línea asked Ruiz if Ebanx plans to acquire other similar companies throughout the region, or simply scale Juno to serve its 14 other countries. Ruiz said they haven’t decided on their strategy yet.
“We’re looking at other places where we see the needs. This is a strategy we are building here, but it will help us in other countries also,” he said.
