Kushki, which enables service providers to bring local and cross-border payments to Latin American and global firms, raises $86M Series B at a $600M valuation
PYMNTS.com :
Context & Ripple Effects
Kushki's $86M Series B at a $600M valuation lands two months after dLocal's $150M raise at a $5B valuation — a signal that cross-border payments processing for Latin America had become one of the region's most aggressively funded infrastructure categories. The Thunes round the prior fall had already established the emerging-markets payments network as a fundable thesis beyond Latin America itself.
The bet paid forward quickly: within a year Kushki closed a $100M Series B extension at a $1.5B valuation, a 2.5x step-up that validated the local-plus-cross-border rails thesis this round seeded.
First-order effects
- Kushki gains roughly $86M to build out payment rails that let service providers offer both local Latin American acceptance and cross-border collection to global firms — directly competing with dLocal's 29-country processing footprint and Thunes' ~100-country network for enterprise payment volume.
Second-order effects
- The round intensifies a capital arms race in LatAm payments infrastructure: dLocal, Thunes, and later entrants like Koibanx (blockchain rails for financial institutions) and Kueski (consumer credit) are all raising at escalating valuations, pushing the contest toward who can sign merchants and payout corridors fastest.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Latin American payments consolidates around a small set of well-capitalized infrastructure platforms — with exit paths like Seamless's SPAC merger showing public markets are open to cross-border payments players — squeezing out underfunded regional processors.
The trend: Cross-border and local payments infrastructure for emerging markets is absorbing venture capital at rapidly compounding valuations, as investors bet on platform consolidation across Latin American payment rails.