The archive · Money & Fintech · Product decision · 2024–2026
Akua's $13M bet: AI-native acquiring rails to break LatAm's processor duopoly
Founded in Bogotá in August 2024 by ex-Mastercard and PayU operators, Akua raised $13M in a year to sell cloud, AI-powered acquiring-as-a-service across LatAm.
Akua
What the business is
Acquiring-as-a-service: a certified cloud processor that lets banks, gateways, and aggregators accept cards and real-time payments.
Starting capital：$13M total: $4.3M pre-seed (Oct 2024) and $8.5M seed (Oct 2025)
How it started
After Colombia's central bank opened merchant acquiring to fintechs in 2022, Carlos Marín (ex-PayU LatAm head of acquiring), Juan José Behrend (ex-dLocal and Pomelo) and Rodrigo Rodrigues (ex-Mastercard) founded Akua in Bogotá in August 2024, deliberately starting in a smaller market to prove the thesis before scaling.
What happened
Akua raised a $4.3M pre-seed in October 2024 and built a fully certified production acquiring platform. It expanded to Uruguay, then closed an $8.5M seed in October 2025 co-led by Flourish Ventures and Cathay Latam, with Atlantico, Honey Island, Krealo, Simma Capital, Propel Venture Partners, and HTwenty participating — bringing total funding to $13M within a year of operations. The platform runs more than 20 AI agents across fraud, chargebacks, onboarding, and reconciliation, cutting operating costs by up to 60%.
How it ended up
Live in Colombia and Uruguay with about 40 employees across Bogotá, Montevideo, and São Paulo; next markets Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and Central America.
Background
Akua is a Colombian payments-infrastructure startup founded in Bogotá in August 2024 by Carlos Marín (CEO), Juan José Behrend (CTO), and Rodrigo Rodrigues (COO) — veterans of PayU, dLocal, Pomelo, and Mastercard. It raised $13M in its first year: a $4.3M pre-seed in October 2024 and an $8.5M seed in October 2025 co-led by Flourish Ventures and Cathay Latam.
Akua sells acquiring-as-a-service: certified, cloud-native rails that banks, payment gateways, and aggregators use to accept cards, real-time payments, and alternative methods without building their own processor. The platform embeds more than 20 AI agents for fraud detection, chargebacks, onboarding, and reconciliation, claims up to 60% lower operating costs, and Colombian gateway OnePay integrated in under 10 hours.
The company was triggered by Colombia's 2022 decision to open merchant acquiring to fintechs, and it deliberately started in a smaller market to prove the model before scaling. As of late 2025 it is live in Colombia and Uruguay, with Brazil, Mexico, Peru, and Argentina as the next targets.
What has to be true
- Colombia's central bank opened merchant acquiring to fintechs in 2022, but legacy processors still dominated — creating a window for cloud-native rails.
- The team knew the pain from inside: Marín led acquiring at PayU, Behrend built infrastructure at dLocal and Pomelo, Rodrigues spent eight years at Mastercard.
- Certification, compliance, and fraud moats make acquiring-as-a-service a repeatable playbook for every Spanish-speaking market.
What can be applied
When a regulator liberalizes infrastructure, sell the rails to everyone entering it: Akua turned Colombia's 2022 acquiring reform into a regional platform business.
Aftermath
As of October 2025, Akua operates in Colombia and Uruguay with offices in Bogotá, Montevideo, and São Paulo and about 40 employees. It plans to use the $13M to expand into Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and Central America, and to deepen its agentic AI modules in fraud and KYC/KYB. The company had not disclosed revenue.
Sources
- Why We Invested in Akua
- Colombian paytech Akua raises $8.5M seed round
- Colombia-Based Akua Raises $8.5M Series Seed
- Flourish aporta em paytech colombiana que quer entrar no Brasil
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