“Alfi’s expansion is working very well in Latin America, and right now we are focusing on the Canadian market and then to aboard the American market”
Cinthya Tellez, Chief Growth Officer at Alfi
If you are a regular TTC user in Toronto, you’ll notice that most people are glued to their phone screens. If you pay more attention, you’ll see that they are mostly playing games. Commuting can be timely for some, and what a better way to kill time than playing games.
Alfi saw an opportunity in this new trend, by mixing the entertaining nature of games with financial literacy.
They describe themselves as a financial literacy program that builds trust between the financial institution and its client. It increases the financial health and improves the purchase behavior of the financial institutions’ present and future clients. Their platform analyzes the user’s current situation, takes him on a financial education journey, using gamification and behavioral economics, and leads them to buy new financial products and services.
With this in mind, Cinthya Tellez (Chief Growth Officer at Alfi) decided it was time to take the business outside Latin American borders. Already operating in Chile, Perú and México they are planning an aggressive expansion into the North American market having Canada (Toronto to be more specific) as their point of entry.
“We know that LatAm Startups will help us with that (softlanding their business in Toronto), and we are very grateful for working with them.”
As for the reasons for choosing Toronto as the first step in their North American expansion plan, Cinthya has the picture pretty clear.
“Toronto has a strong fintech sector. Fintech will continue to grow and is predicted, globally, to grow to a $324B market value by 2026. It’s an exciting time to be part of this fast-scaling sector. Investment, job opportunities, startups, and new services across financial technology will continue to positively impact Canadian businesses and customers. Also, financial literacy is seen as an issue that should be addressed here in Canada.”
Alfi has reached several milestones while being based in Toronto. They have achieved an understanding of the market and main pain points in the topic of financial literacy. They’ve been revising their business model and product to fit the new market. Finally , they have secured alliances with local market players to launch their platform.
It is important to state that through the City of Toronto’s support, LatAm Startups has been able to provide programming that assists not only Alfi, but all of the startups in our portfolio.
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