EmpreX raises USD 2.1MM seed round to launch personal loan solution for Brazil’s 100MM-strong middle class
The company doubles down on its lending technology; a former Goldman Sachs principal investor joins as Co-Founder and CFO
EmpreX today announced a USD 2.1MM seed round and loan funding facility from an
experienced international investor group. Seizing the opportunity presented by a recent regulatory overhaul aimed at modernizing the Brazilian financial market, the firm is building one of the first fully optimized personal loan platforms for the new Open Finance information-sharing reality.
Using this new access to data sources and its proprietary algorithms, EmpreX plans to
gain an edge in credit risk assessment and become a household name in the space, with more customized and affordable personal loan offers.
The lead investor in this round is Jason Nassof, formerly of Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group and responsible for spearheading a number of notable GS Latam transactions, including credit facilities for NuBank in Brazil and Credijusto in Mexico. In the aggregate, he brings experience representing transactions in the region in excess of USD 300MM.
With Nassof joining EmpreX as Co-Founder and CFO, the firm is positioning itself with enhanced capabilities to raise institutional capital and scale up the business in the coming phases. Reflecting on his new investment and appointment, Nassof said:
“Macroeconomic uncertainty has caused banks and other FinTechs to greatly reduce access to credit in Brazil. With this investment, EmpreX is now incredibly well positioned to scale the business and become a dominant and innovative player in the space.”
With the Brazilian economy transitioning out of a banking oligopoly, the opportunity to gain millions of clients with improved and targeted financial services has attracted the startup world’s attention for years. Despite the general trend of improving on solutions that banks traditionally provide, the results for some segments of the population have been underwhelming.
EmpreX CEO Silvan Roth explains:
“Millions of Brazilian middle-class workers cannot provide a house or a car as collateral to lower the risk of a loan, leaving a large unmet demand gap for affordable credit.”
EmpreX seeks to close this gap and manage risk through a deeper analysis of the borrower’s financial situation. Leveraging the new data sharing infrastructure, the startup developed technology to extract additional insights from the borrower’s banking history and translate these into targeted, customized, affordable loan offers.
Founded in 2021 by an international team of scientists and financial professionals, EmpreX joined the exclusive Latitud fellowship and raised a pre-seed round to fund development of the platform prototype. Working in concert with the new Open Finance regime, EmpreX has built a financial services business that is hyper-efficient and optimally positioned to meet the needs of Brazil’s middle class. The firm has over 70k registered users and has originated over 1k loans, with the goal of reaching 20k borrowers by year-end.
