Grupo Bursátil Mexicano (GBM) agreed an investment of up to 150 million dollars with SoftBank Latin America Fund. An amount that will allow the investment platform, which in the last five years has undergone a profound digital transformation, to offer new services to Mexican clients.
GBM was founded 35 years ago. While in its first three decades, GBM focused on providing investment services to high net worth individuals and local and global institutions. But in the last five years, GBM has stepped up its digital efforts and evolved its business model to offer services to small investors.
“Going from a traditional financial company to a technology platform has allowed us to attract assets of all sizes, from 100 pesos,” says Pedro de Garay, GBM co-CEO in an interview.
Thanks to the search for new customer segments, GBM went from having almost 40,000 investment accounts in January 2020 to more than 65,0000 at the end of the year. In the first quarter of 2021, that number increased to more than a million. “This is a growth of more than 30 times since the beginning of 2020,” says Garay.
The operation with SoftBank, which awaits authorizations from Cofece and the National Banking and Securities Commission, will allow GBM to achieve a valuation of more than 1,000 million dollars, according to a statement issued this morning.
Although in a strict sense, GBM does not fit the definition of a unicorn company – those that reach a value of 1,000 million dollars during their first decade of market launch even without having opened their offering on the stock exchange – GBM will join to the group of Mexican companies that have achieved that valuation, such as startups Kavak and Bitso, a car buying and selling platform and a fintech specialized in cryptocurrencies, respectively.
Although, unlike these two, GBM reached a valuation of 1,000 million dollars after 35 years and is already listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange.
GBM plans to use the resources to accelerate its growth, expand to other business verticals and acquire new talent.
“We want to attend to any need and for that we will always need a talented team, profiles that have worked in industries or high-growth companies, mainly in the technology area,” says Garay. “The company seeks to scale the scarce supply of quality financial services in the country, which is dominated today by large banks.”
