QI Tech, a little-known fintech, processes credit for 1 in 4 Brazilians and aims for an IPO in the USA
Valued at around US$2 billion, the company founded in 2018 becomes on-demand banks for Vivo and Wellhub and expects to earn R$2 billion, with a margin above 50%.
BY THE X-TRADER NEWS NEWSROOM · REPORTING FROM INFOMONEY · 4 MIN
QI Tech, a financial infrastructure fintech that almost no one sees, has already processed transactions for one in four Brazilians, according to InfoMoney. Created at the end of 2018 to transform ordinary companies into banks, the company is valued at around US$2 billion and expects to earn R$2 billion, with an Ebitda margin above 50%, according to founder and CEO, Pedro Mac Dowell.
In an interview with InfoMoney's Do Zero ao Topo podcast, presented by Mariana Amaro, the executive stated that the company is growing by more than 50% per year. Behind services for clients such as Vivo, Wellhub and AliExpress, QI Tech says it has handled more than R$490 billion in payments via Pix, issued R$100 billion in credits and kept R$180 billion under administration.
An infrastructure model, not a bank model
Mac Dowell explained that the idea was born from the difficulties he faced as a credit manager: only banks can lend, and the banking structure was not designed to be used by third parties. In an email sent in December 2017 to Jorge Paulo Lemann, he described the project as a mix of AWS and Stripe, in which the customer pays as they use. The company gave up traditional core banking software and developed its own system, a decision that the CEO classifies as the main watershed.
The operation is divided into four fronts, according to the executive: risk solutions, with anti-fraud and customer verification (around 10% of the business); bank as a service, with accounts, Pix and cards (around 20%); credit as a service (45%); and fund administration. In the latter, QI purchased Singulare, which, according to him, had around R$80 billion under custody and administration, for approximately R$800 million.
He stated that the company issues between R$9 billion and R$12 billion per month in credit, in around 20 million automated operations. In his opinion, Pix and payments are commodities, and the greatest value is in credit. Wellhub, for example, uses the structure to finance gyms with its own resources deposited in a fund.
Tax obstacle and foreign capital
The beginning had regulatory scares. The first direct credit company authorized by the Central Bank, the company discovered, when it began operating in May 2019, that the IRS did not recognize it as a financial institution, which, in theory, would require issuing an invoice for each TED. According to Mac Dowell, after around 20 days without collecting the tax, the São Paulo Secretary of Finance published a regulation in the Official Gazette. “It was chilling, several nights of not knowing if it was going to work,” he said. The episode illustrates the weight of tax bureaucracy on those who innovate in the country.
The capital came from major investors. Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC contributed R$270 million, and the arrival of DAE, between 2023 and 2024, took the company to unicorn status, with a valuation of US$1.2 billion at the time and fundraising of almost R$2 billion, according to the CEO.
IPO in the USA and what this says about the Brazilian stock market
Mac Dowell said that the company has been preparing for a year and a half to go public and that the target would be the United States. For a company with this margin and growth profile, he stated, multiples between 30 and 60 times would be possible. The CEO, however, sees duality: the IPO brings visibility and capital, but increases exposure and bureaucracy, and he cites cases of companies that do poorly after opening.
His reading is that, by 2027 or 2028, good American companies, especially those in artificial intelligence, will have gone public, and money from foreign investors will be able to seek returns in emerging markets like Brazil. This is the executive's projection, not market data. For investors, the case shows the appetite for financial technology businesses capable of growing with high margins, at the same time that the choice to list in the USA reinforces the difficulty for the Brazilian stock market to retain its best growth assets.
Automatically translated from Portuguese.
