Brazilian mobile banking startup Nubank has secured $30 million in funding as it bids to expand beyond credit cards and take on the entrenched banking industry with additional savings and credit products.
The firm, founded by former Sequoia Capital partner David Vélez, is catering to the country's well-to-do millennials with a platinum MasterCard credit service that is managed by smartphone.
Since launch in September last year on the back of a $14.3 million funding round, the company has received 200,000 applications, of which 100,000 are active.
The latest investment was led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from original backers Seqoia, Kaszek ventures and QED Investors. Nigel Morris, managing partner at QED Investors and a co-founder of Capital One, and former MasterCard CEO Gene Lockhart have joined Nubank's board of advisers.
The company, which taps into up to 3000 datapoints when approving an application, says it will use the funds to attract more data scientists as it builds out its number-crunching tech platform to penetrate other sectors of the traditional banking industry.
“We are eager to continue supporting the Nubank team in building a Brazilian leader in a big market,” Doug Leone, partner, Sequoia, told TechCrunch in a statement. “The potential for companies that are truly customer-centric and also compete with better data and technology is just massive, especially in industries that have seen little real innovation in decades such as banking.”