By Gabriel Araujo
SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Mexican unicorn Clara has secured $90 million in fresh debt funding led by U.S. debt provider Accial Capital, the company said on Monday, as it looks to boost its expansion in Latin America.
The funds will help Clara, which offers corporate credit cards and expense management solutions, increase its footprint in Brazil, where it wants to more than double its customer base, and Colombia.
The company, which is now valued at over $1 billion, says Brazil is on track to become its biggest market by the end of 2024.
"We've been in the Brazilian market for over a year and we see the operation continues to grow even faster than the operation in Mexico did initially," Clara Chief Executive Gerry Giacoman told Reuters.
Aiming to get its customer base in the country up to 5,000 companies from 2,000, Clara expects to quadruple the 600 million reais ($114.98 million) processed on its corporate cards last year, according to the firm.
Meanwhile in Colombia, where Clara has over 1,300 clients, the money will help it establish a second office in the country, located in Medellin.
The new funding marks the second debt facility secured in less than a year by Clara, having announced a $150 million debt line from Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) in August 2022.
"It is important to have the right combination, the right mix of capital," Giacoman said about Clara's recent bet on debt financing over new equity rounds, having previously raised capital from funds such as Coatue and monashees.
The executive noted that the move allowed the firm to separate money used to increase liquidity solutions for customers from that used to invest in team and products. But he did not rule out new announcements on the equity side in the future as well.
($1 = 5.2181 reais)