Fintech Qolo Used This Pitch Deck to Raise a $15 Million Series a

Three years ago, Patricia Montesi realized there was a disconnect in the payments world. 

"A lot of new economy companies or fintech companies were looking to mesh up a lot of payment modalities that they weren't able to," Montesi, CEO and co-founder of Qolo, told Insider.

Integrating various payment capabilities often meant tapping several different providers that had specializations in one product or service, she added, like debit card issuance or cross-border payments. 

"The way people were getting around that was that they were creating this spider web of fintech," she said, adding that "at the end of it all, they had this mess of suppliers and integrations and bank accounts."

The 20-year payments veteran rounded up a group of three other co-founders — who together had more than a century of combined industry experience — to start Qolo, a business-to-business fintech that sought out to bundle back-end payment rails for other fintechs.

Specifically, Qolo is integrated at the network and infrastructure level, meaning it doesn't just provide APIs to connect fintechs to legacy providers, Montesi said. Rather, Qolo is the first-party provider of those services, which includes card issuing and acquiring, push to debit, real-time payments, account funding transfers, and disbursements. 

Qolo's Series A round, announced August 25, was led by The Raptor Group with additional participation from other professional investors and strategic partners, who were not identified in the release. This round brings Qolo's total funding to $19 million, according to Crunchbase. 

With the new capital, Qolo is looking to grow its team and customer base. So far, Qolo has about 20 customers and is poised to grow to 35 by the end of the year. Montesi said her customer base is made up of challenger banks, corporate incentive programs, and payroll card providers for migrant workers.

The company has 50 full-time employees and is set to double that number by next year, Montesi said. 

Read the 11-page deck Qolo used to raise its Series A.

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