Agentic Payments Platform Akua Raises USD 13M to Modernize Digital Payments and Accelerate Expansion across LATAM
October 8, 2025
Latin America
Bogotá, October 2025. – Akua, the new payment Operating System for Emerging Markets, announces the successful closing of its seed round for USD 8.5 million. This new capital injection brings the total amount raised by the company to USD 13 million, just one year after completing its pre-seed round. The Paytech strengthens its Acquiring-as-a-Service (AaaS) model, with licenses approved in record time by Visa and Mastercard, and an integrated infrastructure capable of processing more than 50 million daily transactions.
In just 12 months, Akua launched its platform, completed two investment rounds, and began operations with key clients in Colombia and Uruguay. With these new funds, Akua will continue to attract the best talent in the region, opening new markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Peru in the near future, with eyes on global emerging markets in 2026 and beyond.
“Payment infrastructure worldwide has historically been fragmented and outdated. At Akua, we offer a global cloud-native platform built from the ground up that enables a new generation of companies to scale digital payments without friction across the globe. This round is a clear endorsement of our vision and the team making it happen,” said Carlos Marín, CEO and co-founder of Akua.
Founded by three tech executives with over 45 years of combined experience in the payments sector -Colombian Carlos Marín, Uruguayan Juan José Behrend, and Brazilian Rodrigo Rodrigues-, Akua provides a highly scalable, AI-powered, cloud-native solution with fast integration, enabling businesses to process and accept card and non-card payments quickly and securely.
Designed as a modular, cloud-native Payments Hub with direct connections to Visa, Mastercard, RTP (like UPI, PIX or Bre-b) and Alternative Payment Methods, the company enables acquirers, aggregators, and payment platforms to centralize operations, automate critical workflows, and scale digital payments across Latin America from a single infrastructure.
AI is embedded throughout the platform: from fraud detection and prevention to chargeback automation, customer service, reconciliations, onboarding, and real-time analytics, facilitating secure, efficient, and flexible operations leveraging the power of automation through its proprietary Agentic Payments Platform. It already operates with more than 20 active AI agents that enable clients to scale their operations while reducing operating costs by up to 60%.
With express certifications backed by the leading international brands, the company sets a milestone in the region by offering an unprecedented implementation timeframe, allowing acquirers, aggregators, and PayFacs to launch full-scale operations in just a matter of hours. “In about eight to ten hours, we were able to connect; the documentation was so simple that we practically didn’t need to read it to understand it. We moved from an operations-led setup to a technology-led operation,” highlights Camilo Fonseca, CEO of OnePay, about his experience with the platform.
“Our goal is that any company wishing to become an acquirer can, in less than six hours, deploy a complete end-to-end acquiring solution: ready to onboard merchants, process payments, and operate with all that entails. We position ourselves as the new payment highway in Latin America,” emphasizes Juan José Behrend, CTO & Co-Founder of Akua.
A step forward in digitalizing payments across LATAM
This one-of-a-kind solution significantly reduces operational costs for aggregators, acquirers, and financial institutions, improves payment approval rates, and offers consumers a faster and safer checkout experience.
The platform unifies multiple features —transaction processing, pay-by-link, tokenization, Tap to Phone, certified banking-grade security, and a real-time Payments Hub— into a single system, becoming a key tool in the region’s digital commerce transformation.
The round was co-led by Flourish Ventures and Cathay Latam, two global funds with a strong track record in the fintech ecosystem. They were joined by the strategic participation of prominent regional investors such as Atlantico, Honey Island 4UM (Brazil), Krealo — the corporate venture arm of Credicorp (Peru), and Simma Capital (Colombia).
“Akua is proving that next-generation acquiring can be built at startup speed. In just months, they launched a cloud-native, AI-powered platform that delivers the speed, flexibility, and reliability this market has been waiting for. Their bold execution and vision put them in a prime position to transform digital payments across emerging markets”, Federico Gómez Romero, Head of Cathay Latam.
“Akua’s founding team brings a rare combination of deep payments expertise, technical acumen, and speed of execution,” said Diana Narváez, Principal, Flourish Ventures. “In under a year, they’ve built a fully certified, production-ready acquiring platform from the ground up, demonstrating the kind of clarity, agility, and discipline required to rewire payments infrastructure across Latin America. We’re thrilled to back a team with the ambition and capability to drive the next wave of fintech infrastructure in the region.”
The round also received support from existing investors, including Propel, a Silicon Valley-based fund that led the pre-seed round alongside H2O, as well as a group of angel investors with a well-established track record in the global fintech industry.
About Akua
Akua is the new Operating System for payments in Emerging Markets, powered by AI. A modular, cloud-native Payments Hub with proprietary technology, integrated with multiple payment rails. It enables acquirers, banks, PayFacs, platforms, and merchants to integrate seamlessly, accelerate launches, and scale their businesses without friction. It brings together in a single solution the vision of AaaS and the capacity to process millions of transactions from day one, redefining payment infrastructure in emerging markets.
Learn more about AKUA at www.akua.la