Venture capital firm Headline and Visa have just invested R$15 million in Celero, a Brazilian company specializing in data infrastructure for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The funds will support the startup's geographic expansion, focusing on the Latin American market, as well as increasing its presence in Brazil.
Celero has partnerships with Caixa, Sicredi, and Serasa Experian , and processes and categorizes R$1 billion in transactions per month. Currently, it has approximately 70 proposed agreements with banks and fintech companies in Brazil and abroad.
The intention to initially grow in Latin America is mainly related to the geographical proximity of other countries in the region and the experience gained in the Brazilian financial system.
“The fact that Headline understands banking infrastructure, because of the cases they work on, helps us develop our products and reach more institutions. With Visa, we gain global reach, due to their presence in more than 200 countries,” says João Tosin, co-founder and CEO of Celero, in an interview with NeoFeed .
In the case of Visa, the company has already had an operational partnership since January 2022, in a model where the payment technology company opens doors to potential clients, precisely because the company has access to all financial institutions. Now, with the card giant joining as a partner, the game changes and the scenario expands significantly.
Celero did not disclose its valuation from this funding round, nor its revenue, but the CEO stated that the company's revenue has quintupled in two years. The startup already counted KPTL Investimentos , E3, Allievo Capital, and Tinguí among its shareholders.
In addition to Tosin, the current CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) João Betenheuzer and the COO Pedro Chaves are also co-founders of Celero. The CTO Eduardo Machado is also a partner in the company.
Based in Curitiba, Celero was created in 2016, initially as a digital solution to facilitate cash flow for SMEs. During the pandemic, however, the company pivoted its business and migrated to data infrastructure for legal entities, precisely in the area where it managed to expand and attract managers and technology companies. It currently has 96 employees, with more than 60% of its staff dedicated to the technology area.
“It was at this moment that we discovered that 72% of small businesses use only internet banking to manage their resources. And that's when we understood that we could do this management, acting directly as a white-label platform for financial institutions,” says Tosini.
The startup uses proprietary machine learning models in artificial intelligence (AI) and provides financial management data to both entrepreneurs and financial institutions, which, with this wealth of information, can offer better products tailored to each client's specific needs.
According to the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae), Brazil registered the opening of 5.1 million companies in 2025. Of this total, more than 96% are small and medium-sized enterprises.
“Financial management is about looking at the windshield, not the rearview mirror. You need to look ahead all the time and know what decision needs to be made. When you have predictability, based on access to the data we generate, you can help this company and give insights to the banks,” says Tosin.
