Voltz, from Energisa, wants to be the fintech of utilities companies

In a process of selecting new ideas for investment carried out in 2018, the energeticthe 5th largest energy distributor in the country, operating in 862 cities in 11 states, placed among the finalists the creation of a digital payment account.

But what started out as a more internal project, a push for customers to pay their bills more easily, ended up taking a greater proportion in the face of the opportunities that opened up – and also because the rules of the energy sector do not allow acting directly in financial services.

Thus was born volts, a fintech of the group that, with just over 1 year of operation, is already starting to plan higher flights: to become the fintech of choice for other companies in the utilities sector. “We want to be a company with excellent solutions for energy and utilities. And the reception of the idea has been positive because we are at the forefront and can develop scalable offerings,” says Daniel Orlean, co-president and founder of volts.

For Tiago Compagnoni, also co-president and founder of fintech, there would be no problems with other companies using volts because it was created independently of the energetic. So much so that he, Daniel and the technology director, José Dantas, are partners in the business. In addition, as each utility company has its area of ​​activity, there is not a major competitive conflict between them. The development of this new line of action, however, is still at an early stage.

Voltz’s portfolio

Like any self-respecting digital bank, the volts offers its customers the account and a credit and debit card, with MasterCard. But she also has loans, bill payments with Pix (including her own electricity bill, energetic), insurance, assistance and cashback.

A little over a month ago, it launched a credit offer to pay overdue energy bills and has closed an average of 100 operations per day, with an average ticket of around R$1,100.

The banking structure is bankly (of Access Groupbought by Méliuz) and the credit is made with the IQ Tech and the OpenCo.

According to Tiago, the idea is to evolve to a model of its own licenses as the company advances, but it does not necessarily intend to have authorization to be a complete bank.

With more than 200 thousand cards issued, the volts has the goal of reaching 1 million customers by the end of the year and having 5 million in 2026 – its 5th year of operation. Today fintech has a team of 100 people.

In addition to consumers, volts serves suppliers of energetic and the distributor itself. In just over 1 year of operation, it has already advanced R$ 450 million to the company’s suppliers. Energisa has relationships with a total of 20,000 companies, which shows the size of the opportunity. “Financing the chain is something important because at some point this supplier will pass on the savings he has to us”, points out Daniel.

At the beginning of the year, fintech launched 3 new products: credit for customers of delinquent energy distributors, prepayment of receivables for suppliers and credit for structured operations.

sustainable business

The investment in volts integrates the strategy of expanding the scope of action of the energetic, going beyond the transmission of energy. The plan is called 4D because it involves decentralization, decarbonization, digitization and diversification. According to Daniel and Tiago, the plan is to build a sustainable, profitable company. “We are not going to waste money to acquire customers”, says Daniel.

He also reinforces that the business model is not based on remuneration for the interchange fee paid by card brands for each transaction made by customers. “We were born remote and in the age of Pix. We already knew that it was not possible to build the model on top of the interchange fee”, he reinforces.

Source: Startups