Mattilda, payment processing, private schools, Mexico
Image Credits: Mattilda / Mattilda co-founders, from left, Juan Pablo Bravo, Jesus Lanza, José Agote and Adrián Garza. Not pictured, Ileana Gómez.
Nine months after announcing its seed round, mattilda, a Mexico City–based company providing collections management and payment processing for private schools, is back with a $19 million Series A investment.
In the follow-on round, GSV Ventures is leading the new capital infusion this time and is joined by FinTech Collective, which led the seed, and Dila Capital. The company has now raised a total of $39 million.
Founders José Agote, Jesus Lanza, Juan Pablo Bravo, Adrián Garza and Ileana Gómez started mattilda in 2022 after previously working together at Lottus Education. They designed the company to be an end-to-end collections management platform for schools and to provide a variety of payment options, from WhatsApp links to bank transfers to cash, for parents who often pay monthly.
In addition, mattilda helps schools better predict their monthly cash flow and has a loan program where schools can apply for credits equivalent to three to 12 months of revenue so that schools can grow faster.
Last October, CEO Agote told me that mattilda was approaching 14,000 students that it was collecting payments for. Today, that has grown to 35,000 students. During that same period of time, the company added 10 new employees to bring headcount to 60.
Also, the company formed an exclusive commercial alliance with Santillana, which Agote described as the region’s largest academic content platform servicing over 2 million students in Spanish-speaking Latin America.
“It serves two purposes: It is a huge pipeline that we get access to, in an exclusive way,” Agote said. “It’s also a huge rubber stamp for the industry. We have been able to grow and prove that we have a robust service and platform.”
Agote declined to go into specifics about revenue growth, but said revenue was “growing proportionately,” more than doubling the number of students mattilda is collecting for.
Meanwhile, Agote says there are 5 million students, just in Mexico, “so there’s still a long way to go.”
The new capital will help it do that, and his plans include expanding in that primary market as well as across Latin America. He has a list of countries where the company would fit best — teasing out Colombia as a possible first venue. Also, mattilda is working on some new services and products that will be announced later this year.
“We’re very bullish about the international expansion,” Agote said. “And, the capital allows us to slow down growth and be very selective with which schools we onboard.”
