Chinese GPs provide Series A for Mexican digital bank

Focusing on serving the lower-income population in Latin America, Stori has launched a credit card in Mexico. It can be applied and approved entirely online.

Stori was co-founded by Bin Chen, a veteran banker who had worked in the US and Asia. A graduate of Fudan University in Shanghai, Chen continued his studies in the US where he had difficulty meeting his living costs for the first few months. Eventually, Chen obtained a credit card and completed his studies -but the experience has shaped his subsequent career.

Chen spent more than 10 years with Mastercard in the US and in China, serving as country manager for the local loyalty program. Before that he worked for Capital One, which provides banking services to low-income people in the US. His co-founders are Stori come from a variety of backgrounds, including technology, risk management, and marketing. Two of them are native Mexicans.

“Mexico has a population of 130 million, but only 40% of adults have bank accounts and only 15% of customers have access to loans," the founders said in a statement. "Our mission is to use technology to promote inclusive finance. ”

Stori has raised more than $17 million in funding since its inception in 2018. The latest capital injection will be used to strengthen the company's big data and artificial intelligence capabilities, according to a statement.

Di Yuan, a director at Source Code Capital said that fintech is one of the key verticals as the firm does more overseas. “Bin Chen and the founding team have a lot of experiences in the fintech industry and has demonstrated excellent localization capabilities,” he said.

There are 12 digital banks globally that have each raised more than $100 million since 2017. Among them, Nubank and Chime have both received more than $1 billion. China’s 51 Credit Card, an online credit card management platform backed by the likes of Tiantu Capital, GGV Capital, and Shunwei Capital, raised HK$1 billion ($128.5 million) in its Hong Kong IPO in 2018.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• Financials
• China
• Financial Services
• Source Code Capital
• Vision Plus Capital
• Bertelsmann Asia Investments