Company Overview
About Koywe
Koywe is a Montevideo, Uruguay-based crypto payment infrastructure company — backed by Y Combinator (W23) with $1.6 million in total funding including a $1.1 million seed in January 2023 led by Manutara Ventures with Daedalus Ventures, Bridge Latam, and Rhombuz — providing fintech companies, payment processors, and digital wallets across Latin America with fully compliant crypto on-ramp and off-ramp APIs and SDKs that enable stablecoin settlement in local currency within minutes. Operating in Chile, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru with 12 employees, Koywe acquired FACTO in June 2024 and joined the Borderless network in May 2025, achieving 5x month-over-month growth to become one of the leading LatAm compliant crypto payment rails for remittances, USD wallet funding, and foreign exchange products.
Business Model & Competitive Advantage
Koywe's compliant crypto payment infrastructure addresses the regulatory complexity that companies building Latin American crypto products face: converting fiat currency (Chilean pesos, Mexican pesos, Colombian pesos, Peruvian soles) to stablecoins (USDC, USDT) and back requires local regulatory compliance in each jurisdiction — exchange licenses, KYC/AML programs, anti-money laundering reporting to local financial intelligence units, and integration with local payment rails (SPEI in Mexico, PSE in Colombia, Transbank in Chile). Each country has different regulatory frameworks for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) — building and maintaining these compliance programs requires legal teams and regulatory expertise in each market. Koywe's compliance-as-a-service model (handling the regulatory licensing, KYC/AML infrastructure, and local payment rail integrations in all four markets) enables fintech product companies to launch crypto payment features in Latin America through a single API integration rather than building multi-country compliance programs independently.
Competitive Landscape 2025–2026
In 2025, Koywe competes in the Latin American crypto payment rails, stablecoin infrastructure, and cross-border payment market with Bitso (LatAm crypto exchange, $250M raised at $2.2B valuation), dLocal (emerging market payment processing, NASDAQ: DLO, $617M raised), and MercadoPago (NASDAQ: MELI, Argentina-based digital payments) for Latin American fintech company compliant crypto on/off-ramp infrastructure adoption. The FACTO acquisition (June 2024) expanded Koywe's payment infrastructure capabilities, and joining the Borderless network (May 2025) extends the compliant payment reach through Borderless's cross-border network. Y Combinator W23 backing connects Koywe with the Latin American fintech investor community. The 5x month-over-month growth validates strong product-market fit in the underserved LatAm compliant crypto infrastructure market. The 2025 strategy focuses on expanding to additional LatAm markets (Brazil, Argentina), building the B2B remittance corridor products (USD-to-local-currency settlement for workers sending money home), and growing the enterprise fintech partnerships for embedded stablecoin payment features.
Recent Activity
View all →Key Differentiators
Emerging Innovator
Koywe is an emerging player bringing innovative solutions to the Finance market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Estimated Visibility Trend (Beta)
Simulated 8-week rolling score
Based on estimated brand signals. Historical tracking coming soon.
Similar Brands
Block
Block, Inc. is a San Francisco, California-based financial technology company — publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SQ) as an S&P 500 Information Technology component (added to the S
Coinbase
Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) is the largest U.S.-regulated cryptocurrency exchange and digital asset platform, providing tens of millions of retail users and thousands of institutional clients with service
Plaid
Plaid is a financial data infrastructure company that provides the API layer connecting financial applications to bank accounts and financial data. Founded in 2013 by Zach Perret and William Hockey, P
Visa
Visa Inc. is a San Francisco-based global payments technology company — listed on NYSE (NYSE: V) — operating the world's largest electronic payment network connecting 4.48 billion active cards, 150+ m
Mastercard
Mastercard Incorporated is a Purchase, New York-based global payment technology network — publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: MA) as an S&P 500 Financials component with a market cap
Alpaca
Alpaca is a developer-first brokerage infrastructure company founded in 2015 and headquartered in San Mateo, California. It operates as a fully self-clearing broker-dealer with DTCC, Nasdaq, OCC, and
Compare Koywe with Competitors
Side-by-side AI visibility scores, platform breakdown, and market position.
Claim This Profile
Are you from Koywe? Claim your profile to see full AI mention excerpts, get weekly visibility change alerts, and optimize how AI systems describe your brand.
Claim Koywe Profile →Track AI Visibility in Real Time
Monitor how ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Claude mention Koywe vs competitors. Get alerts when AI recommendations shift.
Start Free Tracking →