Morning Report: YellowPepper raises $12.5 million from Visa and others to grow its Latin American payment volume.
This morning YellowPepper announced a $12.5 million Series D round of capital led by Visa, with participation from its prior investors. The firm previously raised $39 million in known capital, including a $19 million in 2015, $15 million in 2013, and $5 million in 2010.
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The company’s new capital brings its total to over $50 million, according to Crunchbase records.
Based in Miami, YellowPepper has created a “payment platform” that supports MasterCard and Visa, helping “businesses and banks to interact, manage and accept cashless payments” in Latin America, according to its website. It has reached material scale, claiming to power 480 million transactions annually.
Regarding the 480 million figure, according to Blockchain.info, bitcoin has only just crested the 300 million transaction total in its life. That means YellowPepper is handling more transactions per year at the moment by a healthy margin than bitcoin has ever managed.
Looking at the market, we’ve seen with the rise of payments companies like Square (only a partial comp, but you can feel the directional similarities) that handling transactions can be a massively lucrative affair if the unit economics pencil out. YellowPepper also powers loyalty programs, “peer-to-peer transfers,” and banking tools.
So what should we make of YellowPepper’s new capital? It’s always odd to see a company raise a smaller round after a larger round, which appears to be the case with this Series D compared to its preceding Series C. And $12.5 million is a small figure for a modern Series D. But, with a new, strategic investor on board, and traction in hand, perhaps YellowPepper was more interested in getting Visa onto its cap table than worried about the optics of a slightly smaller-than-expected round.
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