The archive · Money & Fintech · Product decision · 2010–2026
Asaas bets Pix Automático makes recurring billing cardless for Brazilian SMBs
Joinville's Asaas, profitable since 2010, raised a R$820M Series C betting Pix Automático lets Brazilian SMBs collect recurring payments without cards.
Asaas
What the business is
Asaas is a Brazilian fintech platform for small and medium businesses that automates billing, Pix and boleto collection, receivables anticipation, payments and bank accounts — a one-stop 'business operating system' for financial operations.
Starting capital：R$820M Series C (Oct 2024) led by BOND, with SoftBank, 23S Capital and Endeavor Catalyst
How it started
Asaas was founded in 2010 in Joinville, Santa Catarina, by brothers Piero and Diego Contezini, who ran a software factory called Informant and found collecting payments consumed weeks of manual work each month. Early on the company had hundreds of test users but no paying customers; after the 'Pedro case' — a plumber calling for help generating boletos on an old computer — the brothers rebuilt the product in 2014 for simple, non-technical merchants, cutting billing work from about 18 days a month to five minutes a day. The company was profitable from its first month.
What happened
In 2021 Asaas became the 31st payment institution authorized by Brazil's central bank and added a credit-society licence, letting it offer Pix directly; it acquired Base ERP, Code Money and NexInvoice. In October 2024 it raised an R$820 million Series C led by BOND with SoftBank, 23S Capital and Endeavor Catalyst — one of the largest technology rounds in Latin America — projecting R$400 million in revenue and 180,000 active customers for 2024. The central bank launched Pix Automático on 16 June 2025: standardized recurring charges that are free to payers, mandatory for payer-side institutions from October 2025, with a single consent stored in the payer's bank app. Asaas made it available to its business customers through its API, with authorization granted at the first payment.
How it ended up
Still operating and expanding: more than 220,000 active customers and over R$500 million in annual recurring revenue as of late 2025, targeting R$1 billion in revenue in 2026, with a possible IPO ahead.
Background
Asaas is a Brazilian fintech that automates financial operations for small and medium businesses: issuing boletos, Pix and card charges, anticipating receivables, managing payables, bank accounts and reconciliation in one platform. It was founded in 2010 in Joinville, Santa Catarina, by brothers Piero and Diego Contezini, and was profitable from its first month, growing at over 100% a year for five straight years before its Series C.
Asaas's bet is that Brazil's central-bank-built payment infrastructure gives an SMB fintech an advantage card networks can't match. Pix, which settled more than R$26 trillion in 2024 and overtook cards and cash as Brazil's leading payment method, became Asaas's core rail; on 16 June 2025 the Banco Central do Brasil launched Pix Automático, a standardized recurring-payment feature — free to payers, with up to three retries in seven days and a single consent stored in the payer's bank app — that makes subscription billing possible for roughly 60 million Brazilians without credit cards.
In October 2024 Asaas raised an R$820 million Series C led by BOND with SoftBank, 23S Capital and Endeavor Catalyst, one of the largest technology rounds in Latin America, and it now serves more than 220,000 active customers with annual recurring revenue above R$500 million. The company offers Pix Automático to its business customers through its API, using the central bank's 'Jornada 3' flow in which authorization is granted during the first payment, and targets more than R$1 billion in revenue by 2026.
What has to be true
- Pix Automático standardizes recurring-payment consent in the payer's bank app, eliminating the per-bank direct-debit agreements only large utilities could afford.
- Pix is free to payers and, per PagBrasil estimates, up to 14 times cheaper per transaction than card processing — and it reaches about 60 million Brazilians with no credit card.
- Asaas's existing base of SMBs — billing, collections, receivables — makes it the natural seller of a new recurring-charge rail.
- Being authorized by the central bank as a payment institution since 2021 lets Asaas offer Pix products directly rather than through a bank.
What can be applied
A state-built rail removes the friction incumbents can't: Pix Automático standardized recurring consent that bank direct debit never had, and Asaas turned the new rule into a feature for 220,000 SMBs.
Aftermath
As of September 2026 Asaas is scaling: more than 220,000 active customers and annual recurring revenue above R$500 million as of October 2025, a public target of over R$1 billion in revenue in 2026, and an IPO under consideration. Pix Automático is available to its legal-entity customers through its API using the Banco Central's 'Jornada 3' flow, in which recurring authorization is granted during the first payment. No exit has occurred.
Sources
- Asaas: Brazil-Based Financial Technology Company Secures R$820 Million (Series C)
- Ambientes de Inovação e Futuro dos Negócios: O Caminho do Asaas como Referência Nacional
- Pix Automático — Conheça o Pix Automático
- Pix Automático vs recurring cards vs débito em conta
- Pix Automático
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