Chilean payroll management startup Buk announced a $35 million raise in an investment round led by Base10 Partners.
This Silicon Valley fund stands out for its investments in leading technology companies such as Figma, Notion, Nowports, Nubank, and Rappi.
According to the company, its objective will be to use the resources raised to expand into Brazil and consolidate its position as one of the leaders in the salary advance market in LatAm.
This is the Chilean company’s second round of financing after having its $50 million Series A in October 2021, which Greenoaks and SoftBank Latin America led. This was also one of a Latin American company’s most significant investments in history, boosting Buk’s valuation to more than $417 million.
Fast growth in the LatAm startup ecosystem
“As a company, we didn’t need that much capital to execute our long-term growth plans. In addition, although the financing round was oversubscribed by other investors, we decided to partner with Base10, given the expertise they can bring to Buk’s current growth phase,” Buk CEO Jaime Arrieta said in a statement.
In addition, the executive says, “given the current market conditions, we are very pleased to have achieved a significantly higher valuation than our last round.”
“This validates our mission to generate value for our clients through building happier workplaces and is the result of our continued progress. This funding is also positive news for the entire Latin American startup ecosystem, as it is proof of investors’ ongoing interest in companies with solid business fundamentals,” adds Arrieta.
Buk was founded in Chile in 2017 and began operations by developing technology to automate administrative processes in people management and payroll management. However, the company recently ventured into the fintech world after acquiring PayFlow Chile, a company with which it has been building a proprietary salary advance system.
Entering the fintech business
According to the company, this system will allow users to access the payment of their working days in an “on-demand” modality, meaning that as they earn and need it, they receive it.
Arturo Prado, Head of Fintech at Buk, comments in an institutional statement that the salary advance platform can be customized according to the parameters required by each company and indicates that: “It is the companies who know their employees best, so no one better than them to determine percentages, caps and frequency of withdrawals that their workers can make.”
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Regarding its investment in Buk, Adeyemi Ajao, General Partner of Base 10, states that “in recent years, we have been following the trend in payroll management as they have emerged, and we believe that Buk’s technology leaves the company well positioned to take on the complicated and abundant challenges that HR presents in Latin America.”