Mexico City-based YoFio Secures Debt Financing from Cauris
April 12, 2022
YoFio Financial Holding LLC (“YoFio”), a leading provider of mobile-based SME financing in Mexico, has entered into a senior secured credit facility with Cauris, Inc. (“Cauris”). Cauris is a global private credit investment firm that promotes financial inclusion in emerging markets. The investment will be Cauris’ first in Latin America.
Website
Geography
Mexico
Description
Founded in 2019 in Mexico City, YoFio provides business financing to informal neighborhood stores to help replenish inventory or invest to grow their stores. YoFio has developed a proprietary machine vision model that can estimate a store’s true sales volume and risk of clouser out of simple videos and pictures of the store and its inventory. YoFio has recently launched a new facility to enable its customers to purchase via their app their inventory at wholesalers present in Mexico’s markets or “Centrales de Abasto.”
In partnership with the wholesalers, YoFio enables its stores to buy today and pay, interest free, 7 days later. After registering, being validated and underwritten, YoFio’s customers are authorized for a credit line they can use for purchasing inventory at wholesales and receive up to 7 days of interest free financing. Stores can also instantly send funds to their bank account and pay the loan over time. Wholesalers at “centrales de abasto,” can register with YoFio to accept payment payments made via YoFio’s App. YoFio now has more than 1,200 stores and has processed over $2M in loans.
YoFio estimates that approximately 90% of sales of neighborhood stores in Latam are conducted in cash. YoFio has experienced tremendous growth because of its focus on tackling the lack of liquidity facing small, consumer-facing businesses in Mexico, and finding a way to digitally estimate their true sales potential. “Over 2M neighborhood stores in Mexico alone, that generate over $14B in sales, still have limited access to business financing, because they transact primarily in cash. YoFio has developed a digital underwriting model that can deliver flexible business financing to informal stores without the store owner having to set foot outside his stores,” said Alberto Bonetti, Co-founder and CEO of YoFio.
“We believe that YoFio brings an innovative solution to the issue of liquidity and business financing that millions of informal neighborhood stores in LATAM have lacked. Thus we are thrilled to support the company in its mission. This transaction marks our entrance in the vibrant Latin America market and we are looking forward to many more opportunities in the region,” said Azer Songnaba, Chief Investment Office of Cauris.
About YoFio
Founded in 2019 in Mexico City, Yofio uses machine vision to provide microcredit to informal neighborhood stores so they can purchase inventory with up to 7 days of interest free financing, or use their credit lines to invest in and grow their stores. Yofio is currently active in Mexico and seeks to expand into other Latam geographies. For more information, please visit www.yofio.co.
About Cauris
Cauris is a mission-driven investment firm that provides private credit to financial technology companies in emerging markets. Working across the Global South — with financings in Africa, Asia and Latin America — Cauris partners with fintechs that are making financial inclusion a reality for tens of millions of consumers and small businesses. Through debt investments, Cauris enables its partners to scale efforts that provide the traditionally underbanked access to financial services that improve their lives and livelihoods. Cauris aims to facilitate efforts that extend financial services to 100M people in line with its mission to empower individuals and small businesses through access to credit; to enable economic growth in emerging markets; and to accelerate the growth of the global middle class. For more information, please visit www.caurisfinance.com.
