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Flex acquires a16z-backed Maza for $40M as fintech M&A heats up


Flex, a startup that provides private finance software program for enterprise house owners, has acquired Maza, a finance app geared toward Spanish audio system within the U.S., for $40 million, the businesses informed TechCrunch completely.

At first look, the pairing could appear a bit curious. Flex’s software program and funds infrastructure is to assist enterprise house owners have a single app to conduct all their funds. Maza began out serving to Spanish-speaking shoppers – immigrants included  – do issues like open a checking account, get a debit card, and supply those who wanted it with a person tax identification quantity (ITIN).

So how did the mission of those two firms intersect? Over time, Maza realized that lots of the customers of its app and companies had been really small enterprise house owners, or solopreneurs. So the startup centered on creating enterprise software program for its Spanish talking prospects and their small companies, working a part of their operations on its tech stack. Examples included landscapers, cleansing companies and building subcontractors, amongst others. 

In 2024, Maza mentioned it was scaling income at a 290% year-over-year progress fee and had 250,000 prospects.

The dimensions that Maza skilled within the solopreneur phase caught the eye of Flex, which noticed it as a gateway for Flex’s personal providing, famous Luciano Arango, co-founder and CEO of Maza. 

Over time, Flex has been constructing instruments to serve the individual behind the enterprise. 

“As each firms gravitated towards the identical person—enterprise house owners with shopper wants—the strains between the 2 started to blur,” mentioned Flex founder and CEO Zaid Rahman. “Somewhat than construct a parallel product, it made extra sense to mix forces and scale from day zero to 12 months ten.”

As a mixed firm, the founders hope to “speed up” their “shared roadmap,” mentioned Rahman.

Maza will rebrand as Flex Shopper, and Maza’s founders –  Arango, Robbie Figueroa, and Siggy Bilstein – will tackle govt roles inside the mixed entity.

“As founders, we’ve felt the ache of fragmented monetary instruments. Maza and Flex had been constructing from reverse ends of the identical downside,” Arango mentioned. “Becoming a member of forces was the logical subsequent step.”

Maza’s pivot was a pure one, in response to Arango.

“What stunned us most was how sturdy the client base grew to become,” Arango added.

So Maza continued constructing in that course, utilizing the proceeds of a beforehand undisclosed $15 million Sequence A spherical of funding that it raised in 2024. Wellington led that spherical, which included participation from current and new backers reminiscent of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Tusk Enterprise Companions and Titanium Ventures, in addition to singer Anderson Paak and the previous CEO of Amex Financial institution, Anre Williams. 

Since its 2022 inception, Maza has raised a complete of $24 million in fairness. Additionally based in 2022, Flex has secured $45 million in fairness and $300 million in credit score amenities with the debt completely funding its bank card providing. Flex was valued at $250 million as of March. Titanium Ventures led its final elevate, a $25 million fairness spherical introduced in March.

Ninety-five % of Maza’s 22-person workforce has been built-in into Flex, which had 64 workers on the finish of 2024.

Merger and acquisition offers within the fintech sector have picked up within the final two quarters, in response to CB Insights’ State of Enterprise Q1 2025 report. Within the fourth quarter of 2024, the sector noticed 191 international M&A transactions. And within the first quarter of 2025, it noticed 184 M&A offers. Against this, there have been 143 fintech M&A offers reported within the third quarter of 2024.

Extra just lately, embedded finance platform Pipe acquired Glean.ai, which marketed itself as “accounts payable with a mind,” for an undisclosed quantity. Checkr additionally just lately signed a definitive settlement to amass Truework, an earnings and employment verification startup.

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