Stark Bank is selected by Y Combinator

The program aims to boost startup growth and support Series A funding

Stark Bank, fintech B2B leader in open banking in Brazil, announced that it was approved by Y Combinator, the biggest accelerator in Silicon Valley, to take part in their 2020 winter program, in the USA. Y Combinator provides seed funding for startups and during their program they work intensively with the founders to get the company into the best shape possible. Today, their portfolio together is worth more than $155 billion, and has companies such as Stripe, Airbnb, Rappi, Dropbox and Brex, among others.

Rafael Stark, founder and CEO of Stark Bank, considers the program better for entrepreneurs than an MBA in renowned universities such as Stanford:

“They offer the right mindset for business, teaching you how to improve your product, encouraging you to take up aggressive goals and how to achieve these targets faster. The program gives you access to incredible networking and extensive know-how about what worked and failed with other companies, and what they did to grow fast. Additionally, they paid for our participation in the program. Before YC, I never imagined that it could be possible to meet the goal of multiplying our December revenue five-fold. They opened our eyes and we multiplied it by seven”.

Founded in 2018, Stark Bank created the first open banking platform in Brazil, allowing tech companies to do all their financial operations through an API. This technology allows startups to execute a large number of transfers, payments and charges automatically, eliminating errors and human fraud. This enables teams to be more productive while the startups scale.

Before Stark Bank, these companies used shipping files with traditional banks to run high volumes of payments, which could take up to three days for ten thousand operations. With Stark Bank’s API, it all happens in thirty seconds and, as a result, the financial teams gain more control, security and productivity, focusing on their core business.

The fintech wants to reach R$10 billion in transaction volume in 2020 and to launch the first corporate credit card for startups in Brazil. In 2019, it registered a monthly growth of 81% in revenue and 89% monthly growth in volume handled on its platform. Recently, the company received a seed investment round from Iporanga, which has invested in other brazilians startups with notable success such as Loggi and Quero Educação. The invested money is being used to continuously improve the product.

“Today in Brazil we have more than 12 thousand startups and this number grows 30% per year. We also have 11 unicorns, five of them achieving this status in 2019, with more like them coming. We believe that this boom of tech businesses will accelerate the Brazilian economy and has the potential to move $1 trillion by year. We will boost all the entrepreneurs that, like us, want to change Brazil for better using technology”, says Rafael Stark.