Digital Bank Neon Delivers Strong Performance During 2021

Neon, a fintech company and digital bank focused on improving the lives of working Brazilians, announced an overview of the company's growth and momentum that led up to its recent US$300M Series D round, resulting in a valuation of US$1.6B and its achievement of Unicorn status.

In 2021, Neon grew its revenue by 3x and the expectation is that it will more than double its revenue in 2022. Additionally, Neon doubled its employee base from 800 to 1,600 employees in 2021 and expects to hire an additional 700 employees by the first half of 2022 to support its growth goals. Neon has raised $726 million to date with investments from companies such as BBVA, BlackRock, General Atlantic, Monashees, PayPal, Quona Capital, Vulcan Capital, and others.

According to Crunchbase, Latin America saw $19.5B in investments in 2021, more than triple previous annual investments, making it the fastest-growing region in the world for VC funding in 2021. The potential growth in the region seems set to continue with massive, record-breaking investments in Latin American tech companies. Last December, Dealroom declared Latin America to be fintech's hottest market with massive opportunity, with data from The World Bank that LatAm has a financial service market of $1 trillion a year. In 2020 the World Bank reported that 207 million people (55%) in Latin America were underbanked.

Focusing on the underbanked population of the Brazilian working class, Neon has a bold purpose: to reduce financial inequalities and provide a better future for all.

The purpose can be challenging, but the data indicates that the market has an appetite for it, as the increased need for digital services amidst the pandemic helped accelerate Neon's rapid growth trajectory as its platform offers an alternative to face-to-face banking solutions. As a result, Neon reached 15 million customers in 2021. While Brazil is the largest economy in Latin America, 80% of the country's population is low-income. Neon's focus is on the financial emancipation of this group, which includes microentrepreneurs (MEI) and people with informal formal employment. Today 88% of Neon’s customers belong to what is known as the C, D, and E classes in Brazil. Neon currently handles an average of more than R$5.8 billion (approximately US$1.2 billion US) per month in transaction.

"Our mission is to always provide all our customers with simple and fair ways to obtain credit," said Pedro Conrade, founder and CEO of Neon. "This is our contribution to rebalancing financial inequalities and making a difference in people's lives. Neon has grown tremendously and is increasingly solid, but one thing has never changed, our purpose - to improve the finances of Brazilian workers - is what drives us. Our expectation for this year is to more than double our revenue."

​(Source: Finextra)