A financial technology company aiming to democratize financing for small and medium-sized businesses has moved its headquarters to uptown Charlotte from Brazil.
Monkey's headquarters are now based in One Independence Center at 101 N. Tryon. St. The company, founded in 2016, made the move to Charlotte at the end of last year. It views the Queen City as an opportunity for its receivables marketplace platform to reach a larger client base.
"Brazil is a large country, but in terms of company sizes and volume, nothing compares to the U.S.," Gustavo Muller, CEO and co-founder of Monkey, told CBJ. "So for us, it was a business decision in terms of the market."
Monkey is a capital finance marketplace that aims to improve the space for advanced payment of invoices and credit cards. The fintech is working to better connect companies that want to receive advanced payments for their sales and companies that want to finance those businesses.
Its main product, SupplyPlus, brings together buyers, suppliers and financial institutions under a single platform. Monkey's other financial products include Supply Bank and Sales Plus, which are geared for invoices and credit cards.
"So the idea is to bring the model that we have in Brazil and offer (U.S.) companies the opportunity to fund themselves in a different way with different relationships in terms of financiers," Muller said.
Monkey derives its name from "money is key." It was originally created as a way to enable small and medium-sized businesses to access funding in a more competitive way in the Brazilian market. Muller said the financial system is highly concentrated in Brazil compared to the U.S.
Muller, Bruno Oliveira and Felipe Adorno co-founded Monkey with the idea of transforming the way credit is understood and priced in Brazil. Muller said that banks there determine the price for credit, which can be a challenge for small and medium-sized companies.
"So we saw this as an opportunity and also as a problem to be solved," he said. "In our model, we were able to reduce almost 70% of the funding costs for those companies."
Monkey intends to hire 20 employees by the end of this year, largely for marketing and sales roles.
The company is now focused on bringing its services to the 20 companies it worked with in Brazil that are based in the U.S. Monkey aims to eventually target companies across the entire country, Muller said.
"So, that's the inspiration — to make the financial system more democratic," he said. "We are still doing it, but we were able to provide a solution and have a lot of sellers with us in a more competitive and sustainable way of production."
