El Salvadoran startup Cubo, in an effort to bring its digital payments solutions to Guatemala, Panama and Costa Rica, recently raised USD 3.5 million in seed financing from investors including IDB Lab, a member of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, and three venture capital firms, Colombia-based Latin Leap, Peru’s Seedstars and India’s Soma Capital. Cubo expects the new funding to allow it to reach about 70,000 small businesses – roughly 40 percent of whom are women.
While the sizes of the placements from the other investors remains confidential, IDB Lab’s investment is in the amount of USD 750,000. A portion of this placement was provided by We-Fi, a collaboration organized by the World Bank Group to support women-led small and medium-sized enterprises.
Established in 2021, Cubo seeks to offer an “easy-to-use solution” for smaller companies to complete sales via payment cards and QR codes. Cubo’s customers are mainly microentrepreneurs whose turnover is USD 230 per month or less. Among the firm’s investors is US-based Global Founders Capital.
By Anaya Jhaveri, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
IDB press release
https://www.iadb.org/en/news/idb-lab-invests-digital-payments-micro-and-small-businesses-central-america
ImpactAlpha article
https://impactalpha.com/el-salvadors-cubo-raises-3-5-million-to-digitize-payments-for-small-businesses/
Cubo homepage
https://www.cubopago.com
Latin Leap homepage
https://latinleap.vc
Seedstars homepage
https://www.seedstars.com
Soma Capital homepage
https://somacap.com
IDB Lab homepage
https://bidlab.org/
We-Fi homepage
https://we-fi.org
Previous MicroCapital article on IDB
/microcapital-brief-soleco-deetken-idb-deliver-women-in-solar-training-in-jamaica/
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