Marco Financial

Florida Funders Invests in Marco

Miami, FL (July 19, 2021) Florida Funders, a hybrid venture capital fund and angel investor network recognized as the top VC in the Southeast region by Pitchbook, announced today its investment in Marco Financial, a financial platform for small and mid-size exporters in the U.S. and Latin America. This funding marks the 10th investment in a Miami-based company in the last several years, further establishing Florida Funders’ foothold in Miami’s growing tech community. 

 

Florida Funders invested in Marco Financial’s $82 million seed financing round from Florida Funders’ Fund 2, supporting Marco Financial’s development of enterprise-grade scalable technology, empowering non-financial institutions, expanding its Latin America sales and support teams, hiring in capital markets and more. With many U.S. and Latin America based investors participating, Florida Funders is the only local investor supporting this round.

Marco Financial works directly with Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Channel partners to provide business trade financing by factoring their trade receivables from US buyers. Marco Financial has integrated workflow automation with data intelligence and monitoring to build a proprietary smart risk evaluation and assessment underwriting process. The platform allows exporters to fill a small online application and be vetted and approved in as little as 48 hours for funding and provides financing for up to 90% of invoice value within 24 hours, which historically can take anywhere from 60-120 days.

“Latin America is a huge market, and small and medium enterprises face major challenges obtaining trade finance as many are frequently rejected by traditional banks. Marco Financial’s algorithm and its ability to quickly turnaround financing requests is redefining the finance trade industry,” says Tom Wallace, Managing Partner at Florida Funders. “Florida Funders is proud to support another Florida-based company and we’re confident that Marco Financial will continue to disrupt the activity in South Florida.”

Marco’s differentiating factor is its ability to quickly turnaround financing requests by utilizing a proprietary ‘Marco Score’ risk model which utilizes data intelligence and a strong UI-powered platform to rate the exporter’s creditworthiness. It also provides real-time updates to both the internal teams and the clients about where the application is in the approval process and ability to track payments in real time.

Florida Funders was impressed with Jacob Shoihet, Marco Financial’s Co-Founder and CEO, who studied classical trumpet performance before moving to New York City to pursue a career in music. His first exposure to the Latin American market was during a stint at Gum Gum, a Series C computer vision technology company, where he grew North American and Latin American publisher sales to over $80M. Developing his entrepreneurial ambitions, he enrolled in Antler, a startup accelerator, where he met Peter Spradling, who is originally from Uruguay and currently serves as COO of Marco Financial. Spradling offers valuable experiences in trade finance and the food imports and exports sector to the company.

“There are thousands of businesses in Latin America that desire a partner that understands their business model. Small and medium enterprises need to operate so that they can best service their customers, and Marco Financials fills in this gap,” says co-founder and CEO Jacob Shoihet. “Selecting a local investor was critical in this series and we’re excited to partner with Florida Funders whose presence is strong throughout the entire state.”

Just recently, Marco Financial announced the hiring of Sabrina Teichman as Chief Growth Officer, the company’s first female C-level executive who will be dedicating the majority of her time in Miami. Teichman previously served as the Managing Director of the Western Hemisphere for the DFC, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Headquartered in Miami, Marco Financial saw the region as the perfect go-to market and made the decision to plant its roots in Miami with the city serving as the gateway to Latin America. Starting with only 4 employees as of June 2020, Marco Financial’s team has grown to 21 employees with 15 located in Miami. Marco Financial is seeking to expand its presence in the state and seeks to hire home-grown local talent. Their goal is to double their team size by the end of 2021. 

Florida Funders is constantly and actively looking to grow and add investors to their network. They have fully deployed their Fund 1 and are hard at work seeking new investment opportunities. For more information on Florida Funders, please visit www.floridafunders.com. Keep up with the latest news from Florida Funders on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

 

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