Stark Financial institution, one of many few Latin America startups to obtain funding from Jeff Bezos’ household workplace, is producing earnings from its enterprise of serving to corporations deal with funds, whereas leaving money raised from its funding rounds almost untouched.
The Sao Paulo-based firm dealt with 155 billion reais ($31 billion) of funds in 2023, a three-fold bounce from a 12 months earlier, whereas greater than doubling web revenue to 71.5 million reais, founder Rafael Stark stated in an interview, disclosing the carefully held agency’s 2023 monetary outcomes for the primary time.
The startup, which assists corporations in processing funds, invoices and receivables, is concentrated on gaining home market share from giant company banks, stated Stark, who owns 38% of the agency. Its record of 600 or so shoppers contains Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes SA, Localiza Lease a Automotive SA, Cia Ultragaz SA and fellow startups Loft and QuintoAndar.
“While a lot of tech companies are trying to stop losing money we’re posting high levels of profitability,” Stark, 35, stated. “There’s no need to keep raising money and diluting my stake. It’s better to grow and create much more value further down the road.”
Collection B
In its Collection B spherical in 2022, Stark raised $45 million from traders together with Bezos Expeditions, the Amazon.com Inc. founder’s household workplace, and Ribbit Capital at a valuation of $250 million. Earlier investors included Fabio Igel of Monashees Capital, Stewart Butterfield of Slack Applied sciences Inc., Brian Armstrong of Coinbase International Inc. and Arash Ferdowsi of Dropbox Inc.
Stark stated the agency’s market share in numerous metrics stays small amongst company banks in Brazil, displaying potential for progress. Whereas Stark doesn’t have a proper banking license, it’s capable of lend from its personal money available, and is planning to spend extra on advertising in 2024 after years of conserving a low profile to construct the product.
Stark stated the corporate permits its shoppers to automate time-consuming duties like billing and payroll.
“When a company manages a lot of transactions they can misplace information, and if they’re not organized they can lose a lot of money,” he stated. “We allow the company to be more efficient. That means sometimes a team of 30 people that do manual tasks and commit human errors can be reduced to about five people to do the same work.”
About 30% of its almost 90 workers are engineers.
Stark’s give attention to serving to fellow tech corporations and the flexibility to customise options for shoppers is a bonus in contrast with giant Brazilian banks, stated Bruno Diniz, a managing associate at consulting agency Spiralem, which works with fintechs.
‘Interesting Niche’
“They found a very interesting niche,” Diniz stated. “They’re very lean in their tech stack, which allows them to provide this custom type of service for the big players. And once they create a customer solution for one player, they replicate that and start offering to all the other clients.”
Born Rafael Castro de Matos within the central state of Goias, Stark studied engineering in Brazil and later acquired a scholarship within the US, the place he attended California Polytechnic College and Stanford College. He based his agency in 2018 and legally modified his surname to Stark on all official paperwork.
In drawing parallels to digital financial institution Nu Holdings Ltd.’s progress path, he anticipates a possible preliminary public providing a couple of decade after founding — or near 2029 — and is concentrated for now on Brazil and Sao Paulo, the place the majority of the nation’s largest companies are based mostly.
One obvious distinction at Stark from different tech startups is that workers are anticipated to be within the workplace 5 days per week. To sweeten the deal, he’s constructed out the highest flooring of the constructing to quickly home a bar, restaurant and assembly areas for workers. Stark additionally says he pays above market wages whereas providing a stipend for these residing near the workplace.
“I don’t believe in remote work,” he stated. “We need people who are aligned with what we’re building. So someone who is aligned with their own comfort zone and remote work isn’t aligned with the values of Stark. To do big things, you need to leave your comfort zone.”
