“Can a Latin American non-bank acquirer own the regional payments stack end-to-end across five countries with one integration?”
Founded 2017 in Ecuador as an online payment gateway for LATAM, Kushki has progressively built its own regional acquiring infrastructure rather than reselling banks' rails — making it a non-bank acquirer across Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Ecuador. After back-to-back Series B rounds ($186M total) that vaulted it to unicorn status in 2022, the company expanded from PSP-style gateway services into payouts, in-person devices, and merchant-financing partnerships (Anticipa, HayCash). The strategic identity today is 'paytech omnichannel acquirer for LATAM' rather than a single-country gateway.
Kushki processes payments through Kushki (self-operated acquirer), Kushki Payments API (self-operated), Kajita (hosted payment form, self-operated), Smartlink payment links (self-operated), Botón de pagos (self-operated), Pagos presenciales / in-person devices (self-operated) and E-commerce plugins (self-operated).
Kushki uses Kushki Payouts (self-operated) for FX and cross-border payouts.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 3 layers in Kushki's stack: Payments / PSP (Kushki (self-operated acquirer), Kushki Payments API (self-operated), Kajita (hosted payment form, self-operated), Smartlink payment links (self-operated) and 3 others); Lending (Kushki + Anticipa merchant financing (Mexico) and Kushki + HayCash SME financing (Mexico)); FX & payouts (Kushki Payouts (self-operated)).
Kushki was founded by Aron Schwarzkopf and Sebastián Castro and is founded in 2017, headquartered in Quito, Ecuador.
Kushki has raised ~$200M in total (latest round: Series B extension, 2022; valuation: $1.5B (2022)).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Kushki and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.