Picpay IPO: shares of one of the largest digital banks in Brazil become available

Preliminary trading in shares of Picpay Holdings Netherlands B.V., the Netherlands-registered holding company that operates a Brazilian digital financial platform for consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises, began on the Freedom customer trading system. The IPO was the first U.S. listing of a company from Brazil in four years, Bloomberg notes. Later on Jan. 29, Picpay securities will appear on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker PICS. To participate, click on the PICS ticker.

Fintech Picpay Holdings Netherlands B.V. has successfully raised $434 million in an IPO. The company placed 22.9 million shares at $19 per paper, which corresponds to the upper limit of the previously announced price range ($16-19). Based on the IPO results, the value of the entire company can be estimated at $2.5 billion, Bloomberg writes . This is slightly less than the market valuations of other Brazilian fintechs trading in the US, such as StoneCo and PagSeguro Digital, GuruFocus adds.

The deal was organized by Citigroup, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets, Mizuho and Wolfe Nomura Alliance.

The placement has attracted interest from large investors, GuruFocus notes. Thus, the Bicycle growth fund, managed by former top managers of SoftBank Group, announced its readiness to purchase shares of one of the largest digital banks in Brazil for up to $75 million at the offering price.

Picpay had previously considered entering the U.S. market in 2021, but abandoned those plans due to unfavorable market conditions, Reuters writes.

Picpay, backed by the investment company J&F Investimentos of Brazilian billionaire brothers Wesley and Joesley Batista, was launched in 2012 in Brazil as a digital wallet. Today, the company operates on a full-fledged banking model, Bloomberg writes. The fintech payment network is used by 42 million active users and more than 800 thousand small and medium-sized enterprises.

According to Picpay's website, the company is "an ecosystem providing products and services to businesses and consumers, from everyday payments and financial transactions to investments." Picpay's offerings include banking and financial services such as Pix (Brazil's national instant payment system), P2P, bill payment, card and credit utilization, and insurance, among others. In addition, the platform operates Picpay Shop (an embedded marketplace within the Picpay app), and earns money from advertising placements and acquiring for merchants by providing payment infrastructure for online and offline commerce - via QR codes, e-commerce, POS terminals and contactless payments.

For the nine months ended September 30, 2025, Picpay posted a net profit of R$270.4 million ($50.4 million) on revenue of R$7.26 billion ($1.35 billion), while a year earlier the company's profit for the same reporting period was estimated at R$150.8 million ($28 million) on revenue of R$3.78 billion ($702 million), according to Picpay's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in early January.

The listing ends a multi-year lull in the IPO market for Latin America's largest economy, Bloomberg points out. The last notable U.S. IPO by a Brazilian company was Nu Holdings (the company that owns Nubank, Latin America's largest digital bank) in 2021. The timing of Picpay's flotation coincides with increased demand for emerging market assets, explains GuruFocus. A number of other Brazilian companies, including fintech Agibank, as well as infrastructure groups Aegea Saneamento e Participacoes and BRK Ambiental, are also exploring the possibility of going public.

This confirms that the recovery of the U.S. IPO market in 2026 will not be limited to U.S. companies, said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital. According to him, these deals will show whether investors are ready to bet on Brazilian startups again, and the market's reaction will determine whether the year will be "just good or really successful," Reuters quotes the analyst as saying.

_______________________

Freedom clients will be able to get access to shares of Picpay Holdings Netherlands B.V. before the opening of the main exchange session. Trading will begin in the early pre-market format 2-3 hours before the opening of the U.S. exchanges (from 15:30-16:30 Astana time). To participate, click on the ticker PICS.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor