Pomelo Secures $55M to Modernize Latin American Payments

Pomelo, the Buenos Aires-based payments infrastructure company, closed a $55 million Series C funding round on January 20, 2026, co-led by Kaszek and Insight Partners. The round included participation from Index Ventures, Adams Street Partners, S32, Endeavor Catalyst, monashees, and TQ Ventures, bringing the company's total capital raised to $160 million since its 2021 founding.

The financing arrives as Latin America's digital payments infrastructure undergoes rapid modernization, with legacy processors struggling to meet demand from fintechs and banks seeking cloud-native, API-first solutions. Pomelo's growth trajectory—revenue increased more than 250% over the past two years—signals investor confidence that the region's fragmented payments landscape presents significant consolidation opportunities.

The capital will fund expansion beyond Pomelo's core card issuing business into globally scalable products including a stablecoin-native global card, payment tokenization, and AI-powered chargeback management, positioning the company to capture emerging payment rails as Latin American markets embrace cryptocurrency and real-time payments.

The Series C represents a significant milestone for Pomelo as it transitions from regional card processor to comprehensive payments infrastructure platform. The round's co-leadership by Kaszek, Latin America's premier venture firm, and Insight Partners, a global software investor with $90 billion in assets under management, reflects both regional expertise and international scaling ambitions.

The round marks Adams Street Partners' first growth equity investment in Latin America, underscoring how Pomelo's execution has attracted institutional capital typically reserved for more mature markets. For Insight Partners, the investment deepens its fintech portfolio, which includes payments companies across North America and Europe.

Pomelo's expansion strategy addresses a fundamental infrastructure gap in Latin American financial services. While North American and European markets consolidated around processors like Stripe, Marqeta, and Adyen, Latin America's regulatory complexity and market fragmentation left banks and fintechs dependent on legacy systems built for a pre-digital era.

"This round firmly establishes Pomelo as a core financial infrastructure platform for Latin America," said Gastón Irigoyen, CEO and Co-Founder. The company processes billions of dollars in payment volume and has achieved what Irigoyen describes as "best-in-class retention and customer satisfaction", suggesting strong product-market fit.

The investor thesis centers on three converging trends. First, Latin American digital payment volume continues accelerating, driven by smartphone penetration and fintech adoption. Second, incumbent processors lack the technical architecture to support modern use cases like embedded finance and real-time payments. Third, regulatory frameworks across the region increasingly favor API-based, cloud-native infrastructure that can adapt to local requirements while maintaining regional scale.

"Pomelo has built real payments infrastructure at regional scale," said Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners. "Gaston and the team are executing with speed and discipline, and we see Pomelo emerging as a core platform as Latin America modernizes payments and expands into new rails."

For Kaszek, doubling down on Pomelo aligns with the firm's strategy of backing category-defining infrastructure companies. "The founding team's vision, the strength of the technology, the quality of execution, and strong traction with leading players across the financial system were key to our decision to co-lead this round," said Nicolás Szekasy, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Kaszek.

The stablecoin and tokenization initiatives represent forward-looking bets on payment rails that could bypass traditional card networks entirely, potentially positioning Pomelo as infrastructure for the next generation of cross-border and domestic transactions in markets where currency volatility drives cryptocurrency adoption.

Founded in 2021 by Gastón Irigoyen, Hernán Corral, and Juan Fantoni—Endeavor Entrepreneurs recognized by the World Economic Forum—Pomelo built what it describes as an API-first, cloud-native platform powered by artificial intelligence and directly connected to Mastercard and Visa.

The company's core offering enables banks, fintechs, and enterprises to launch or migrate card programs through API integrations, eliminating the need for legacy on-premise infrastructure. Pomelo's platform handles card issuing, transaction processing, and program management, with clients choosing between using Pomelo's network licenses or their own through BIN sponsorship arrangements.

Pomelo's customer base reflects its positioning as mission-critical infrastructure. The company supports more than 150 customers, including global banks, leading fintechs, and large corporations such as Santander, BBVA, Bancolombia, Western Union, Rappi, Astropay, Stori, DolarApp, Nomad, Cocos Capital, and MACHBANK.

The company's geographic expansion strategy adapts to each market's regulatory framework while maintaining a unified technology platform. This approach contrasts with legacy processors that often require market-specific implementations, creating operational complexity and limiting scalability.

Pomelo's AI capabilities focus on fraud detection, chargeback management, and transaction optimization—areas where machine learning can materially impact unit economics for card programs operating at scale.

Latin America's payments infrastructure market sits at an inflection point. Digital payment adoption accelerated during the pandemic, but infrastructure investment lagged behind transaction growth, creating bottlenecks that legacy processors struggle to address.

The region's fintech ecosystem has matured significantly since 2020, with companies like Nubank, Mercado Pago, and Rappi achieving scale that demands enterprise-grade infrastructure. These companies increasingly seek processors that can support complex use cases like multi-country card programs, real-time authorization decisioning, and embedded finance products.

Pomelo competes in a market historically dominated by established players like Galileo (acquired by SoFi for $1.2 billion in 2020), Marqeta (public, $4 billion market cap), and regional processors with legacy technology stacks. The competitive dynamic increasingly favors cloud-native platforms that can integrate via API and scale across markets without requiring on-premise infrastructure.

Recent comparable transactions in payments infrastructure demonstrate strong investor appetite:

The market context also includes regulatory tailwinds. Central banks across Latin America have implemented open banking frameworks and real-time payment systems (like Brazil's PIX), creating opportunities for processors that can integrate new payment rails alongside traditional card networks.

Cryptocurrency adoption in Latin America—driven by inflation concerns and remittance flows—positions Pomelo's stablecoin initiatives as potentially significant revenue drivers. The company's plan to launch a stablecoin-native global card could capture transaction volume that currently flows through informal channels or cryptocurrency exchanges.

Insight Partners, founded in 1995, manages over $90 billion in assets and focuses on growth-stage software and internet companies. The firm's fintech portfolio includes payments, banking infrastructure, and financial software companies across North America, Europe, and increasingly, emerging markets.

Insight's investment approach emphasizes operational support through its ScaleUp platform, which provides portfolio companies with expertise in go-to-market strategy, talent acquisition, and international expansion. For Pomelo, Insight's network could facilitate enterprise customer introductions and support expansion into markets where the firm has established relationships.

Kaszek, founded in 2011 by Mercado Libre veterans Hernán Kazah and Nicolás Szekasy, has become Latin America's most prominent venture capital firm. The firm's portfolio includes Nubank, Creditas, QuintoAndar, and other category-defining companies across fintech, e-commerce, and logistics.

Kaszek's decision to co-lead the round and increase its ownership stake signals strong conviction in Pomelo's trajectory. The firm's deep regional expertise and network of portfolio company CEOs provide strategic value beyond capital, particularly as Pomelo navigates regulatory environments and competitive dynamics across multiple markets.

Adams Street Partners, a global private markets investment manager with $60 billion in assets, brings institutional credibility and long-term capital. The firm's statement that this represents its first growth equity investment in Latin America suggests Pomelo's execution convinced a traditionally conservative investor to enter a new geography.

Index Ventures, S32, Endeavor Catalyst, monashees, and TQ Ventures round out a syndicate that combines global venture expertise with regional knowledge—a composition that reflects the hybrid nature of Pomelo's opportunity as both a Latin American infrastructure play and a global payments technology company.

Pomelo's product roadmap for 2026 signals ambitions beyond incremental improvement of card issuing infrastructure. The stablecoin-native card, payment tokenization, and AI-powered chargeback management represent bets on emerging technologies that could reshape payment economics.

Stablecoin integration addresses a real market need in Latin America, where currency volatility and capital controls create demand for dollar-denominated payment instruments. If Pomelo can navigate regulatory uncertainty around cryptocurrency-linked products, the company could capture transaction volume that traditional card networks struggle to address.

Payment tokenization—replacing sensitive card data with secure tokens—has become table stakes in developed markets but remains underpenetrated in Latin America. Pomelo's ability to offer this capability through simple API integration could accelerate adoption among fintechs and e-commerce platforms seeking to reduce fraud and improve authorization rates.

The AI-powered chargeback management system targets a persistent pain point for card issuers. Chargebacks represent both direct financial losses and operational overhead; machine learning systems that can predict disputes and automate responses could materially improve unit economics for Pomelo's customers.

Risks remain. Regulatory complexity across Latin American markets could slow expansion. Competition from established processors with deeper pockets may intensify. Macroeconomic volatility in key markets like Argentina and Brazil could impact customer growth and payment volumes.

The company's ability to execute on its product roadmap while maintaining the operational excellence that attracted blue-chip customers will determine whether this funding round proves a stepping stone to market leadership or a high-water mark before competitive pressures mount.

Pomelo's Series C reflects a broader recognition that Latin America's digital economy requires modern financial infrastructure. The region's fintech revolution created demand that legacy systems cannot satisfy, opening opportunities for cloud-native platforms built for API-first integration and multi-market scale.

The company's expansion into stablecoins and new payment rails positions it at the intersection of traditional finance and cryptocurrency—a potentially lucrative but uncertain frontier. Success will require navigating regulatory ambiguity while maintaining the reliability and compliance standards that enterprise customers demand.

For investors, the bet is straightforward: Latin America's payments infrastructure will modernize, and Pomelo has positioned itself as the platform that banks, fintechs, and enterprises choose for that transition. With $160 million in capital, a blue-chip customer base, and a product roadmap targeting emerging payment rails, the company has resources to execute. Whether it can maintain momentum as competition intensifies will define the next chapter of Latin American fintech infrastructure.