SoftBank Backs Endeavor Entrepreneurs with More than $1.2 Billion Invested in Rappi and Creditas

Japanese investment bank SoftBank has shown a vote of confidence in companies led by Endeavor Entrepreneurs through a combined more than $1.2 billion investment into Colombia’s Rappi and Brazil’s Creditas.

The investments are drawn from SoftBank’s recently-launched $5 billion Innovation Fund, or what SoftBank has described as “the largest-ever technology fund focused exclusively on the fast-growing Latin American market.” With the launch of the fund, SoftBank joins a wave of exponentially growing interest in Latin American entrepreneurs from international investors – VC funding in the region nearly doubled from 2017 to 2018 — and their inaugural investments in Rappi and Creditas reinforce the influence that companies in the Endeavor Network hold in the region’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

SoftBank’s investment in Rappi in April of this year was the first from the new innovation fund, and was made alongside SoftBank’s Vision Fund, which plans to invest up to $100 billion in global businesses and technologies enabling the next stage of the Information Revolution. SoftBank Group and the Vision Fund will each invest up to $500 million. According to Rappi, it is the largest technology financing to date in a Latin America-based company. The investment  brought the company’s total funding raised to nearly $1.4 billion.

Founded by Endeavor Entrepreneurs Simon Borrero and Sebastian Mejia, Rappi is an on-demand delivery business in Colombia and Mexico. Originally launched as a grocery delivery app in late 2015, Rappi has evolved into a platform for the delivery of “everything” for Latin American consumers. This new investment will help the company to continue their expansion efforts of growing the number of products delivered in the seven countries where it operates.

Just a few months later, in July, SoftBank confirmed it would invest $231 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund and the SoftBank Group in Creditas, a fintech company led by Endeavor Entrepreneur Sergio Furio. Founder and CEO of Creditas, Furio announced that with the new investment the company will continue their vision of creating and providing an efficient service and lower prices to democratize the access to low-cost lending in Brazil. SoftBank’s investment will allow the company to accelerate their plans to expand their business model in order to improve the lives of the Brazilian population.

Founded in 2012, Creditas started as an originator of loans to Brazilian customers who were willing to offer up collateral in exchange for lower interest rates on their debt. Creditas joined the Endeavor network in 2017 and now functions as an online secured lending platform in Brazil. It is the only digital platform for secured loans in the country.

Learn more about Rappi here, and Creditas here.