A million volts: Energisa’s fintech has already anticipated R$ 450 million

Controlled by the Botelho family group, startup is led by Daniel Orlean and Tiago Compagnoni

In the corners of Brazil, paying an electricity bill is still far from the reality of urban centers. It is not uncommon for Brazilians to travel to another city to pay the tickets at a lottery agency. Spread across 11 states in the country, with energy distribution concessions that serve a population of 22 million inhabitants, Energisa wants to digitize this population using Voltz, the fintech created last year that has already anticipated BRL 450 million in receivables and targets a million accounts later this year.

The idea of ​​creating a fintech to explore the opportunities of the Energisa ecosystem — the group controlled by the Botelho family earns nearly R$40 billion a year and is valued at R$19 billion on the stock exchange — came from CEO Ricardo Botelho after the Questtonó consultancy showed that two-thirds of customers paid their bills in cash at lottery outlets.

With the data in hand, the entrepreneur started looking for executives who could run a separate business, with the quick mindset of a startup. Botelho recruited Daniel Orlean – a serial entrepreneur who founded edtech Affero Lab (sold to Germans from Bertelsmann and recently bought by Bossa.etc) and fintech Biz Capital – and Tiago Compagnoni, one of the names behind Quero, a startup that connects artists and fans.

Orlean and Compagnoni are co-CEOs of the startup controlled by Energisa. The duo began work on developing the product, initially a digital account at the height of the pandemic. The startup has 140 employees and uses fintechs such as Banco Acesso and QI Tech as banking as service.

The startup has been rapidly gaining dimension thanks to the parent company’s ecosystem. The founders’ expectation of hitting the one million accounts mark in 2022 is ambitious, considering that the fintech ended its first year with 300,000 individual customers and 200,000 credit cards issued.

In the process, fintech won the credit. With the Voltz application, which provides a prepaid card with the Mastercard brand to customers, customers have the traditional functionalities of a digital bill and can also pay their energy bills, in addition to renegotiating any overdue bills at the various concessionaires. from Energisa. The group provides funding for credit operations.

In terms of customer relations, Energisa’s fintech is facing an opportunity to direct resources that used to be in the banking system. Each year, the group spends around R$90 million to collect bills through bank slips and R$250 million in bank fees.

If accounts for individuals help digitize a population that still handled household bills in an analogue way, the great opportunity to make fintech profitable lies in the universe of Energisa’s suppliers, who buy the equivalent of R$6 billion a year.

Voltz already advances payments from Energisa to suppliers — the good old-fashioned risk drawn — and also anticipates funds from larger contracts, based on an FIDC. Since it was launched, the fintech has already given R$ 450 million in credit to suppliers (between withdrawn risk and anticipation of receivables).

“We are fishing in the suppliers’ aquarium and in the customers’ lake, but in the future we can reach the ocean,” said Compagnoni, alluding to the possibility of offering fintech services to other utilities (sanitation or energy).

Source: Value Pipeline