An exciting new IPO was launched this year in Brazil fintech.
Pics: NASDAQ
Price 10.82
Market cap 1.42 Billion USD.
It has already halved in value since the IPO. The market has been brutal for Brazil, for Fintech, and for Brazil Fintech in the past months.
Now valued at 1.4 billion USD, PICS has 44 million active clients. Just looking at these two metrics, it seems like the deal of a lifetime. Is it really?
History
Pics was founded in 2012 in Vitoria, ES:
I also thought it’s Vitoria, España, but ES means Espirito Santo and it is here on the right above Rio:
Anderson Chamon, who is now also vice president of PicPay, was 31 years old at the time and had many annoyances when making payments on a daily basis. Each place had a different logic: some only accepted cash, others only credit and debit cards , and some even preferred checks (this was twelve years ago!).
The idea behind PicPay was simple: pay for everything with your cell phone just by scanning a code
Anderson (Chamon), que hoje é também vice-presidente do PicPay, tinha 31 anos na época e muitos incômodos na hora de fazer pagamentos no dia a dia. Em cada lugar, era uma lógica diferente: alguns só aceitavam dinheiro, outros só cartão de crédito e débito, e alguns preferiam até cheques (isso já faz doze anos!).
A ideia por trás do PicPay era simples: pagar tudo pelo celular só ao escanear um código
So, PicPay was created in Central Brazil by three entrepreneurs. It was a pioneer in P2P QR code payments, B2B money transfers.
And growth was slow. very slow. “Among the few people who already knew the app, Chamon knew everyone’s name.
Many of the users were customers of a café in Vitória, which was the first establishment in the city to accept PicPay as a form of payment: Café Bamboo.”
In 2017 it became part of J&F Group, after the first investments in 2015. The J&F Group is one of the largest business conglomerates in Brazil, present in many industries such as meatpacking, media, infrastructure, energy, etc.
In 2020 it got a payment institution licence that enabled it to launch credit cards and credit products.
Pix was launched on the same year. Pix is a Brazil based payment system, and it is not related to Picpay or Pics NV the company.
To pay, the customer opens their banking app, selects Pix, and enters a Pix key or scans a QR code. The app prompts them to enter a biometric or personal identification number (PIN) confirmation. The money moves directly from one account to another, within seconds. Both sides receive real-time confirmation.
People in Brazil use Pix to pay rent, buy groceries, send money to friends, donate to charities, pay freelancers, and more. Businesses of all sizes, from corner stores to enterprise-scale firms, use it to get paid immediately. (Source Stripe.com)
2021: Guiabolso acquisition: the company then ceased to be a standalone offer and the products were integrated into PicPay.
2022: PicPay became a financial institution, giving it more option to offer loans.
2023: BX blue acquisition: another fintech specialised in payroll loans, and integration of Banco Original retail customer base, as it was facing more and more non performing loans, as a move to streamline operations and cut costs.
2025: Kovr acquisition: a digital insurance company.
2026: IPO on the Nasdaq, raising 490 million $.
The revenue and income development has been a large success:
Business overview
So after avoiding Nubank, Inter&Co for years, am I excited or not? We will see in my review below: