Haulmer Buys Fpay’s Prepaid Business to Accelerate Neobank Ambitions

A Curicó-based fintech startup that never raised capital and projects $35 million in revenue this year has just purchased the prepaid business of Fpay, Falabella ‘s digital wallet. Haulmer has wanted to do things differently since the beginning, says one of its four founders, Enrique Álvarez.

They are all from Curicó, were schoolmates, and founded the fintech company Haulmer in 2017. They have 254 employees, 80% of them are from the regions, 40% are women, and the work is 100% remote. They have had a 40-hour workweek for six years, and last year they sold $20 million.

Haulmer expands its fintech ecosystem and moves closer to becoming a leading neobank for SMEs

San Feng, the son of a Taiwanese father who settled in Curicó, initially created a hosting business, but in January 2017 he called on three friends to take a new direction. He brought on Juan Manuel Parraguez, Miguel González, and Enrique Álvarez, all computer experts. That’s how they created their first project.

They called it Open Cargo, and it was a kind of Uber for transporters. “It was our first failure,” Álvarez recalls. Beyond some tests, the app never saw the light of day. However, while creating this initiative, they developed electronic invoice software. The name they chose was Open Factura, and they began to grow.

“But the impact wasn’t what they expected,” he confesses. “We made the mistake of thinking that people were very dissatisfied with the Internal Revenue Service’s invoicing service, and that wasn’t quite the case,” he explains. Shortly after—in March 2021—the law requiring electronic invoices came into effect, and sales skyrocketed. There, they already had their own POS (point of sale) machines.

Many of the providers of this service, Álvarez recalls, bought the paper rolls in Chile, but they wanted to reduce the cost and imported a container with 500,000 units from China. The day the order arrived will never be forgotten: they spent hours unloading boxes. They finished after 2 a.m. and had to close the street due to the size of the container. It was May 24th, 2021.

The Outbreak

So, they already had Open Factura, SimpleBoleta (the OpenFactura software installed on their own equipment) and continued with the goal they set out at the beginning: to make life easier for entrepreneurs. The boom, of course, they knew would end at some point, and soon a machine to issue invoices would be a commodity. That’s why the four partners got together and devised a long-term plan to provide entrepreneurs “with all the necessary tools to resurrect themselves when they’re dying,” Álvarez recalls. Today they have nearly 40,000 clients who issue documents with them.

Along with this, they have created other brands. They have Tuu(machines for accepting card payments), Chilefirmas (for obtaining digital signatures), Blue Hosting (web hosting for entrepreneurs), and Open Cloud (cloud servers).

Tuu has a 10% market share of machines, not including those used by large retailers. They also offer services for scheduling appointments, inventory maintenance, and financing. This year, they will provide US$17 million to their retailers. They are processing $140 million per month.

Álvarez said this is what motivates them to create new products. It is related to the firm’s name: “Haulm” is the stem or initial shoot of a plant, a symbol of germination, and “er” indicates a person who performs an action. Thus, a Haulmer is “someone who makes something sprout; the agent who drives growth from the beginning. It represents our genuine intention for businesses to grow with us and develop their potential,” he reflected.

The deal between Haulmer and Falabella

Along this path, CEO San Feng—the team’s visionary, they describe—proposed that the path should be for teh haulmer to become a neobank. To achieve this goal, there were two paths. The first was to do it on their own and hire a consulting firm to guide them. This route would be tedious and lengthy, but not impossible. The second option was to purchase an existing license.

The business’s liquidity (they have been profitable since 2020) and the fact that they make all the decisions, because they have not been diluted at any point, opened the door to the second option.

In May 2024, Feng learned that Falabella would close Fpay, the group’s digital wallet. This opened the door to taking the second option of purchasing a license for Haulmer. After months of negotiations, the deal between Haulmer and falabella was closed in November 2024 and the transfer of the company began, which was completed in March of this year.

Specifically, Haulmer acquired the Digital Payments company that operated the prepaid business operated by Fpay. That is to say, that brand remains in the hands of the retailer, and they only purchased the license to enter the prepaid business.

It was a tough negotiation—”like all negotiations,” said Álvarez, “but one of San’s virtues is being a good negotiator. He’s able to convince others to contribute to our goal. Besides, we had more alternatives and there was no pressure.”

He doesn’t reveal the transaction amount, but thanks to it, they obtained the first step toward becoming a neobank: permission to issue payment cards with non-bank funding.

Haulmer has an operating license from that firm; however, Álvarez explains, they are just finalizing a process with the CMF (Federal Commission for Monetary Affairs).to be able to operate. They’re also working with an advertising agency to name this new brand. Feng is in charge of this new business, and “it’s like I’ve started over again,” says his partner.

Their other lines of business continue to grow, and they’ve already registered the company in Mexico and Peru.

The partners, all in their late 40s, traveled to China in July to meet their suppliers “and experience the technology that exists there,” says the engineer. He says they’d never seen a coin or a bill, and it reaffirmed their vision for their business.

They still have stages to go. But they hope to obtain a banking license sooner rather than later that will allow Haulmer to become a neobank that supports SMEs.

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(Featured image by Nathan Reboucas via Unsplash)

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First published in FinteChile. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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