In early July, El Salvador-based payments startup n1co raised $12M in a pre-seed round. The fintech spinoff of super-app Hugo, n1co launched as its own company in early 2022.

Why should we care?
n1co’s rise should be read in the context of El Salvador’s pro-crypto government led by President Nayib Bukele. The state’s efforts to make bitcoin an official currency and encourage mass use of the Chivo digital wallet may have cost the country 1% of its GDP. n1co may thrive in a niche where the government has failed: by leveraging technologies with proven track records—debit cards, QR codes, WhatsApp payments, and the like—to digitize payments in the country. “In El Salvador right now, there’s much more basic things that need to be solved,” said Alejandro McCormack, n1co’s COO. “We have the ability to resolve those problems without necessarily having to reinvent the wheel.” While McCormack speaks diplomatically about Bukele’s crypto push, other experts, such as Guillermo Chapman, a partner at the regionally focused VC firm Amador, suggest that the bitcoin initiative was too large a jump for El Salvador’s consumers to adapt to. Local business owners have reported a trickle of bitcoin-based transactions compared to n1co-based payments, further justifying Chapman’s critique. n1co’s ascendance proves the need to not just digitize payments, but to do so in ways that are accessible and feasible.