Spain-based financial services startup Lana has secured $12.5m in funding from investors including ride hailing service Cabify, Nordic 9 reported yesterday.
The corporate joined venture capital firm Base10 Partners and C.Entrepreneurs, the joint venture between insurance provider BNP Paribas Cardif and VC fund Cathay Innovation, in the round.
Lana has developed a mobile app designed for gig economy workers that allows them to pool earnings from different services into a single mobile wallet. It also enables users to pay bills directly and get access to a debit card linked to the app that they can use in the real world.
The service is aimed at workers in Latin America, where the brunt of Cabify’s business is located, and the app was initially tested within Cabify, co-founder and chief executive Pablo Muniz told TechCrunch.
“The idea of creating Lana was initially tested as an internal project at Cabify,” he said. “Soon Cabify and some potential investors saw that Lana could have a greater impact as an independent company, being able to serve gig economy workers from any industry, and decided to start over a new entrepreneurial project.”
The startup intends to initially operate in Mexico, Chile and Peru before expanding into Argentina and Colombia.
Image courtesy of Lana Fintech Internacional S.L.
