What’s Nu? Here’s the story behind the new name of Inter Miami’s stadium
Miami is used to Latin Americans arriving and trying to realize their financial dreams.
Nu, the Brazilian digital finance company that inked a deal with Inter Miami’s new stadium, goes the other way. It has already become a successful startup in its 13-plus years, and is now looking to expand and use its influence.
The new name of the soon-to-open stadium? Nu Stadium at Miami Freedom Park. In addition, Nu’s name will grace a stadium hospitality lounge and plaza.
Here’s what to know about the company behind the name of the stadium where Lionel Messi will play:
What’s Nu?
Nu was founded in 2013 in São Paulo as a new competitor to Brazil’s highly concentrated and profitable banks.
In December 2021, Nu held an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. The company raised $2.6 billion then in one of the five largest IPOs in the United States that year.
Nu Holdings Ltd, is the parent company and Nubank is the brand.
READ MORE: Inter Miami signs stadium naming rights deal with Brazilian financial firm Nu
Who started Nu?
David Vélez, a 44-year-old Colombian whose family left Medellin for Costa Rica; Cristina Junqueira, a Brazilian and former executive at Itaú Unibanco; and Edward Wible, American computer scientist, founded the company in 2013 in São Paulo.
What’s the connection to Messi?
Nu’s founders’ soccer loyalties run with their own countries, so there’s not much of a tie to Argentine soccer star Lionel Messi, who is the signature player on Inter Miami. But one of the company’s first two investors, venture capital firm Kaszek, is based in Buenos Aires and run by two Argentines. In 2013, Kaszek, along with Silicon Valley giant Sequoia Capital each put $1 million into the company. Also, Messi is Messi — and during the 2022 World Cup Finals, even Brazilians were cheering him.
How was Nu formed?
Co-founder and first CEO David Vélez, after studying at Stanford University, was hired by Sequoia Capital, Silicon Valley giant and early backer of Apple and Google, and moved to Brazil in 2012 to open an office for them. His job was to make investments for them in tech startups there.
Yet Sequoia couldn’t find the types of ideas or entrepreneurs it sought. Meanwhile, Vélez started thinking of a way to disrupt Brazil’s big banks.
What’s the backstory of Nubank?
Vélez frequently told the story about how when he first moved to Brazil, he had to wait four months to open a bank account there. And each time he visited a bank branch, with the bulletproof doors and armed security guards, he felt more like he was at a U.S. airport.
He quit Sequoia, then and still one of the world’s premier venture capital firms, and started Nubank.
He brought in Junqueira, who was an executive at Itaú Unibanco until 2013, managing its credit card portfolio and part of a group in charge of developing a digital strategy. She was coming off the biggest bonus she ever received.
She found her employer to be complacent. “There was no compelling reason for them to do the things I suggested because no one was chasing them,” she told magazine LatinFinance in 2018. “Their brains were not wired to think about competitors.”
Edward Wible, the American computer scientist, also joined. Sequoia, along with Kaszek, provided Nu with it first capital. Each firm invested $1 million in 2013.
What kind of challenges has Nu faced?
Nubank came out with a digital credit card, its first product, in 2014. That year, Brazil’s economy grew by just 0.5%. In each of the next two years, the country’s GDP fell by 3%.
Nu has found success despite less than great economic conditions. But the company also recognized a huge opportunity, a large unbanked and underbanked market in Brazil and Latin America. Nu has since expanded to Colombia and Mexico.