Ume
“Can an AI-native credit engine let every large retailer become its own consumer lender and reclaim the finance margin currently captured by banks and financeiras?”
Ume launched in 2019 as a consumer BNPL / crediário digital for underbanked Brazilians shopping at partner retailers, leveraging a proprietary deep neural network for underwriting. Through 2024 it grew to 6,000+ merchants and 220,000+ consumers. In 2025-2026 it pivoted from being the credit brand itself to being the AI-and-capital infrastructure behind retailers' OWN-BRAND credit programs — powering underwriting, collections, customer service (agentic AI) and capital markets access so merchants capture the finance margin instead of ceding it to third-party financeiras. The R$500M FIDC raise and enterprise-retail wins mark the shift from consumer fintech to embedded credit infrastructure.