2024-10-08 09:30:54
Asaas, an enterprise account that provides automation and management tools to small and medium-sized businesses, has just raised R$820 million in a funding round led by BOND.
The financing also saw participation from SoftBank and private equity management firm 23S Capital. joint venture Between Temasek and Votorantim Group.
For BOND, this is the second investment in Brazil after investing in CRMBonus in May..
Bond was one of the first checks from companies like Uber, Meta, Airbnb, Spotify and Stripe. In Latin America, it has invested in Uruguay’s dLocal and Mexico’s Kavak.
Founder Piero Contezini told the Brazilian newspaper that the Joinville startup began financing in April and conducted a 23-day tour in the United States. “We talked to 30 funds and received some proposals at the end of June,” he said. “We chose BOND because we thought it would help us define our business category.”
Piero said BOND has extensive expertise in this area, as it helped create ride sharing For Uber and home sharing For Airbnb.
In the case of Asaas, the idea is to do what Stone tried (and failed) to do with Linx, which is to create a solution that combines financial services with management software, allowing companies to find what they need to run their business in one place everything.
The startup calls the solution a “commercial operating system.”
“There are some companies in the world that are doing this vertically, such as Toast, which created an operating system for restaurants, from POS to delivery of vegetables and fruits,” the co-founder said. “But they don’t have a financial services part, they only provide third-party services.”
Asaas wants to do the same thing, except that it’s a financial institution and does it horizontally (for all industries, not just one, like Toast).
The startup did not disclose The valuation reaches A funding round took place today, but Piero said the dilution was the lowest of the three rounds and Assas is now close to becoming a unicorn. “We’re already starting to see the horns,” he said with a laugh.
Asaas has 180,000 active customers and expects revenue of 400 million reais this year. The goal is to reach 1 billion reais top line 2 billion reais in 2026 and 2 billion reais the following year.
The plan will use one-third of its resources to strengthen its Basel index, which will greatly accelerate business growth; another third will be used for development, hiring software engineers; and the rest will be used for mergers and acquisitions.
The company has made three acquisitions in recent years, all with the same purpose: adding new products to its portfolio. The most recent purchase was NexInvoice, a company that makes accounts payable automation software.
“In the next acquisition, the idea is to continue this product profile,” Piero said. “In SMEs, it’s very difficult to gain a customer base because most of the time customers cancel their accounts during this transition period.”
Assas was born in software company Piero and his brother Diego. At the time, they created software that automatically collected company invoices—via voice bots that sent emails, text messages, and phone calls to end customers.
When the Contezinis family sold the business in 2014, they made a spin off The birth of software gave birth to Asaas.
Since then, they have started adding new services to the platform, such as digital accounts, prepaid cards, accounts receivable expectations and business management capabilities. Asaas charges no software fees: its revenue comes from commissions of around 1% of client trading volume.
Today, 50% of revenue still comes from this original product, which helps the company achieve what is called “cash out” – receiving money from customers. Another related part comes from the “Cash Out” product, which helps arrange company payments and send receipts in an automated way, for example.
On the ERP side, Asaas provides cash flow management, business proposal issuance and service order solutions.
There is also the credit layer, where startups focus on forecasting accounts receivable to help companies increase working capital.
Piero said that the “cash-out” and “cash-out” parts have developed very well, and the focus in the future will be on improving the management and credit parts.
Today’s funding round is expected to be Asaas’s last before its initial public offering. The co-founder said the company plans to enter the market in 2028, possibly with a U.S. IPO. Until then, he said, the resources from this round are sufficient to fund the company’s expansion plans, which have been generating cash for years.
“The idea is to continue to focus on Brazil before the IPO because there is still a huge market here that we need to conquer. When we go public and have more liquidity, the idea is to return to the issue of internationalization.
Pedro Albequez
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