(Reuters) – Mexican payments startup Clip on Thursday said its valuation has jumped to nearly $2 billion after a recent investment led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Viking Global Investors LP, putting it in a small but growing club of Mexican “unicorns.”
The company was the first in Mexico to receive funding from SoftBank’s Latin America fund in 2019. The latest investment round amounted to $250 million, Clip said.
The resources will help Clip “grow aggressively” in Mexico, Chief Executive Adolfo Babatz said in a statement.
Clip, founded in 2012, offers a mobile credit card reader that fits onto smartphones. Businesses across Mexico such as cafes, corner stores and street vendors have embraced Clip as a simple way to accept cards in a country heavily dependent on cash.
Late last year, another SoftBank-backed company, used-car platform Kavak, became Mexico’s first known unicorn – lingo for tech startups valued at more than $1 billion. It was joined in that ranking last month by cryptocurrency trading platform Bitso.
