VEF AB (publ) (VEFAB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to our Q2 first half results presentation. I'll be working off slides on the webcast, which are also available on our website. And I'll go directly into Slide #2 on this and give you a summary of what's been happening and the key events of the quarter. And then within the presentation, which will be 10 to 15 minutes, I'll double-click on each of these key points. Give a bit more color and then open up for Q&A in the end as per usual. But I think the key summary for us in Q2 or into the first half of this year is, it's been busy, but busy good. Albeit from a NAV point of view, Q1 uplift, Q2, give or take, sideways. We set a very strong foundation for the remainder of the year and looking ahead, especially when we look at some of the key names of the portfolio. So the value creation that we see through the performance of the portfolio companies, we're in a good base to start to realize that. So confidence is there within the team and within the portfolio. Specifically, the key events of the quarter was Konfio, our second biggest holding, nearly 20% of the NAV. They had a $125 million Series E fund raise. For all our companies, one thing is obviously performance. And names like Konfio and Creditas because they're having very strong performance. But the second thing is access to capital and obviously good valuation. I mean Konfio is following in a path of Creditas in accessing size, capital from quality institutions, and we took part in that round, putting $20 million to work. And Creditas, our lighthouse investments, is our biggest at this point with 42% NAV, and has had an exciting M&A leg to what is a clear growth underlying secured lending story. The secured lending book's still growing 2x year-on-year as per the numbers this week. But they've also added a size acquisition in the insurance space, adding that to the ecosystem, and other bolt-on acquisitions in marketplaces and secured lending. And so exciting story where we try to get it longer lifetime value per customer with new products coming through. But it's not about the big 2 -- not only about the big 2, albeit that's what a lot of investors focus on and it's natural given a 60% NAV. The next 3 names are in very good form. And as we would say, Juspay, mobile payments in India; Jumo, mobile money marketplace in Africa; and TransferGo in the digital remittance space in Eastern Europe. Our focus in all those 3, just to give you a bit of color on trends and kind of key highlights there. And we were active in Q2 and also after the end of Q2, a new investment in Abhi as the financial wellness, salary advanced space, we're already in that in Mexico and Brazil. We had a seed investment there with a quality founder called Omair Ansari. We led that around, very early stage. And we just closed our first embedded fintech investment, which I'll get into with a $10 million check into BlackBuck in the trucking marketplace space to get the payment core business in there. And ESG, always before. And I think the key highlights in this quarter were fully closing our move -- finalizing our move to Sweden from Bermuda. It had been in the works. It had been signed off at the AGM but, obviously, all the technical parts were closed in July, so we are now Swedish at a holdco level. And also a new Board member officially came on board, Hanna Loikkanen, from East Capital and then the other Board is Finnfund. A great [indiscernible] and a great person and experience to have on our Board, and we're very happy to have her. And as a final point on Guiabolso, a long-standing holding of ours when we've marked down and over time didn't quite achieve what we had hoped, and we exited that position after the end of the quarter. We sold to PicPay in Brazil, a digital payments company. And albeit we wrote down the position in Q2 to 0, we actually ended up receiving approximately $3 million as our part of the exit proceeds. So kind of a nice positive kicker end to a story which didn't work out as planned, and we can get into that. Moving on to the next slide, it's a bit more detailed on numbers, what you need to know from the results. NAV at the end of the quarter, $404 million. It's up a couple of percent versus year-end, flattish quarter-on-quarter. On a SEK per share basis -- NAV per share on a SEK basis, SEK 4.12, [indiscernible] year-to-date for the first half, down slightly quarter-on-quarter. A little bit of that is currency move and a little bit of that is extra share count given our LTIP movements. But I think what you'll see with our NAV, which is the next slide, Slide #4, it's not -- this isn't [indiscernible] 1%, 2% every quarter into perpetuity. You get [indiscernible] in periods of 2 or 3 quarters where things go to the side. Once everything is performing as planned in terms of investing in good companies and then delivering growth and then value, which speaks true to our valuations and obviously the funding round that they do. From an investor relations perspective, share price, it continues to track NAV, albeit in the last 6 to 12 months, we're now in that plus/minus NAV category where I think the market is starting to, a, respect our size, north of $400 million market cap, no longer a micro cap or a small cap and growing. Also, we're in a very in-focused space, fintech, emerging markets, the private space and our track record, obviously, of value creation is no longer short term, 1 or 2 years. It's now 5 or 6 years of 25% to 30% IRRs, for the track record is shown and proven at least to date. And then our biggest holding, Creditas, is on a path towards IPO, has recently raised capital at a $1.75 billion post-money valuation and people starting to look through some of these aspects of our portfolio. And now are touching into the premium NAV category, which tends to happen at this point in the cycle for a company like ours. And I understand why the market does that. Portfolio summary, just a quick hit is where Creditas build the core concentration in that name. I'm very comfortable with that top 2 names, north of 60% and top 5 are 78%. So it's a concentration, but we seek concentration. We've always said that. Cash position at the end of Q2 was $18.9 million. Now we're sitting on 15 holdings now in the total portfolio. And that includes Guiabolso, so it will be 14 after that exits but doesn't include BlackBuck, so back to 15. So moving parts, 15 is the holding number at this point in the cycle. And moving up to some of the micro level stories as per the summary. Creditas. As always, we're focused on Creditas, just given its importance as the firm, our NAV, our share price, not to belittle the names. But Creditas put out their Q2 numbers on Monday, continues to roar ahead in terms of origination growth, very strong growth; 5x, 6x year-on-year for Q2 versus Q2 last year, albeit that was an abnormal COVID year. But year-on-year for the full year, we're talking 2x, slightly north of that of growth in originations. So this doubling of the portfolio feeds into a doubling of the revenue, give or take, upfront and recurring. The quarter 2 headline, our top line revenue numbers of BRL 170 million, which is well north of $30 million. You start to annualize that and you're looking at 2x growth in that and you can see how the valuation of Creditas feeds off that growth once the market multiples hold, and Creditas keeps on delivering. And I think what's -- where we got more excited with Creditas of late, and it's still harder to forecast because they're putting the pieces together. But Creditas as a strategy is at its core around security and secured collateral home, car and payroll. The lending against that core monetization products with true organic and inorganic meaning to start to add new parts of the puzzle, the recent acquisition and insurance space of Minuto Seguros, as an insurance angle to list, and you add to that Voltz, moving to motorbikes away from cars, and Bcredi and extra secured lending for homes. So we're starting an inorganic growth story plugged into Creditas, not yet reflected in the numbers. And we're seeing that in a lot of big fintechs where the bigger boys are getting bigger and starting to consolidate some of the core product offerings with some of the smaller names in the market. That's very exciting. Konfio is one that we're -- I guess the confidence continues to grow on this one. This is a -- it's becoming the leading digital financial services platform for small businesses in Mexico, brutally underserved in Mexico. We've had a good run at Konfio in terms of just the lending product. But in the last 6 to 12 months, they started to organically and inorganically add ERP, a SaaS revenue product, but also payments sort of getting a volume revenue product. And there's more to come on that. And hence, the acquisition -- or the financial raise as part of that was key in the Series E funding round. We're also looking to move to full banking status, either through a license or acquisition, and that's all work in progress, but very similar to the Creditas rounds and uplifts. Konfio is one that we took down during COVID, naturally, a small business credit book in Mexico during COVID. But as they recovered and started to grow, we obviously started to market to model that up and then that was reflected or kind of signified in the Series E funding round, which we -- we did super prorata effectively because we really liked, a, the business and, b, the valuation. And the interesting thing with Konfio is that the shareholder base of Konfio is actually very similar to that at Creditas due to Kaszek, the SoftBank, Quona Capital, and a very similar shareholder base across both. Moving into the new investments that we've done during the quarter. Abhi Finance, I think this is for you, the investors think minu or [ Sherpa ] copy/paste, replicate. But in Pakistan, we're in the salary advance, financial wellness place, and we really do like that space, that product as a lot of the business in itself and new economics, but also its lead generation potential for what you can do with that business. We're in very early stage in this one, at seed, specifically because of the founder, Omair Ansari, whom we know a long time. We said we will back him when he's building his fintech in Pakistan. And after much work and partly with us through portfolio names and people that we know in the VC community, he's launched this business successfully so far and in that market early days, but we've got big hopes for that one. Our second investment into Pakistan and our third in the financial wellness space. So we're getting [indiscernible] very strong and very long. And BlackBuck has happened only last week. We thought it would be as close at some point in August, but this is a move for VEF into embedded fintech. Now we stayed true to our roots and our focus on fintech and that's the core of what we do, and that's our edge or expertise across emerging markets. But you've seen we started to spread our wings a bit in terms of taking smaller stakes in some businesses as opposed to only going for size and board seats, and now we are moving into the more broader embedded fintech space. And I guess I said it before, but what you get in a lot of segments like health, education, mobility is you get an embedded fintech offering or aspect towards payments, credits, insurance. We've been on the hunt for it, and looking for this because some of the best -- the future of finance is coming from everywhere. I mean it's the open product and opens that opportunity to put our capital to work. And so embedded fintech is a big part of the company's business growth, revenue stream, we take a deep dive and look. This led to the investment in BlackBuck where we've co-invested with some of our partners in the Indian market, like Accel, Goldman Sachs and IFC, Sequoia. People who've invested elsewhere with us are very comfortable. Wellington, who's an investor of ours also in this name, put us on to this name. We got deep on it. And effectively, it's a payments company in [ disguise ], not payments around fuel, payments around tolls and in the marketplace for all aspects of what trucking goods and services, tires, et cetera. So big part of the revenue, a big part of our growth. And obviously, the trucking marketplace platform on top of that is the upside to where we see a fast growth fintech company coming through. Touching on some of our other portfolios. We don't want to do it because I do spend a lot of time on Creditas and Konfio for very obvious reasons. But there's been some good touch points on some of the other top 5 names in the portfolio. I think with TransferGo, not so much with itself and there's a lot of positive to say on TransferGo, but it's mainly the Wise, was formerly TransferWise, the leading digital remittance play list recently, close to GBP 10 billion market cap at this point. I think interesting enough, there's a forward multiple on this -- forward multiple of revenues at 15 to 16x given the move in this. And I'm not saying the market is right or should be valued at that, but you've pulled back to how we're valuing TransferGo, which is growing at or more fast, albeit in a specific region, which has emerged in Europe, we're valuing that in the 4 to 6x forward revenue space. So a lot more conservative in our valuations versus market for something like this. And we get a lot of questions on this sort of frothy valuations in the market. How are we buying our portfolio versus some of those names. And we try and be logical, conservative and work with our orders on that front. Also Juspay, mobile payments in India. And I think some of the numbers on Juspay are mouthwatering in terms of -- their annualized payment flow is $50 billion now. They do a real quantum of mobile payments in India. they're sitting inside 250 million smartphones in the SDKs for Amazon, Uber, Flipkart and the growth is comfortably 2x plus year-on-year in terms of volume revenue. So this is one of the more exciting fast growth in one of the more interesting markets stories in our portfolio. And then Jumo, Jumo is one we've been getting more confident on over the last 2 or 3 quarters after being conservative in terms of performance and valuation, it's really starting to hit its stride. It's now doing $3 billion plus in terms of annual lending flow through the business. The majority of that, 90% plus, is with partners. So it's a real marketplace for loans with quality partners both in the telco side in Africa and on the banking side. And we're cash flow positive as well at Jumo. So the light mix in the portfolio where REVO is positive and bottom line, Juno is, give or take, breakeven; names like Nibo, Juspay are very controlled going upfront and everything else is on a nice path to breakeven or positive bottom line. So it all kind of feeds in nicely to some being faster growth and deeper burn and some closer to that magic earnings and bottom -- positive bottom line moment. And the last slide before I wrap up is on the ESG front. Two things to mention here. One was rehitting the Swedish move from Bermuda. It was closed in the month of July with -- we have a new ticker for trading, VEFAB as opposed to VEFL. The time was right to move our jurisdiction and our structure, as Sweden ticked a lot of boxes given our listing or some of our investor base, part of our team, et cetera, our history there. And we're very happy to have made that move, and it's a positive and ESG is moved for the longer term. And then finally, on the Board front, very happy to welcome Hanna. She's now very live. We're on the order committee this week and a Board call this week. Someone I know and respect for a long time, but also has held Board seats and hold Board seats and funds at East Capital and ran funds in East Capital across emerging markets in Georgia with a bigger Georgia story, a Finnfund. So a great Board member, brings lots of experience and value in terms of investing, valuation, ethics, ESG, portfolio management, emerging markets, I could go on. But then I guess is a sign of it just adding -- we've been adding a lot to the team gradually over time. And in the last 6 to 12 months with Allison coming on and now Hanna, it's a great mixed skill set and booster to the Board, which obviously helps us as a team. And I'll wrap up then and, last slide before I open up for questions. What would I say to investors at this point of the year? I think the NAV is in a strong place after nmany quarters, years of growth. But I think the basis is there for more. So our confidence I think at this point of the year versus start of the year is higher in terms of where we now going, and that's a function of how we see our companies and portfolio doing going forward. And Creditas team continues to be -- if you want to know 1 thing about VEF, you need to know Creditas. It's becoming more open, more disclosure. The company themselves are more investor roadshows and conferences, in news towards IPO, and that allows investors to look through the 42% of our NAV and portfolio and growing. And that's a company which is planning towards IPO next year, that's the plan. We'll see where that goes in terms of timing. And it is a company that could need more capital before then as a lot of the bigger fintechs are growing faster and consolidating in that market as they go. I've talked about Konfio, which effectively is our next Creditas in the making. Not like-for-like in terms of business, but like-for-like in terms of value creation, and we're very excited about that one now. And [indiscernible] Juspay, Jumo and TransferGo, that gets you up to 78% of our NAV, which we feel very strong and confident about [indiscernible] size and of importance. And ESG continues to be key for us. We're learning. We know our direction of travel. We continue to improve on this front. And I think our move to Sweden and on the Board front are indicative of where we're going with this. And next, generally, the fintech theme has momentum, but we're not getting caught up in some of the frothiness and headlines in the market. We don't have to. We're 6 years doing this, we're comfortable with our own skin. We're a long portfolio of very good fintech assets and got a pipeline, but even doing nothing versus having to invest, we can create a lot of value from here, which makes us -- puts in a very strong position for the future. I'll stop there, operator, and I'll happily pass over to our audience if there are any questions at this time.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Herman Wartoft from Pareto Securities.

Thanks a lot for that presentation. I have a couple of questions. So as you said, we can always talk more about Creditas. I think we'll start with that one. It seems like they have been really speeding up their investments and M&A activity recently here with 3 new initiatives or investments announced in the recent months. I was wondering if you could just elaborate a little bit more on how these 3 tie together. If I understand correctly, they are both -- or they're all connected to the auto segment, maybe specifically. You can talk a little bit about that and also with the Volante acquisition as well. And if you could just give a brief introduction to that one, it would be helpful.

Yes, sure. And look, generally speaking, what we're seeing is the Brazil and the U.S., the bigger fintech companies are starting to get bigger. They're the ones with the most access to capital with the best teams and skill set. And most of them have delivered in one key segment and one key country and are now thinking of more. And I thought I could point to many [indiscernible] or Nubank in Brazil, and Creditas very much is of that ilk. We need to be logical around this because we've been an organic growth story so far. But Creditas has always had a mind for this to add more to its ecosystem. It did initially gone from home back lending then to auto then to payroll. So you've got 3 aspects or 3 security collaterals to work with. Then it was all about lending against these collaterals. But the idea was always what more can we do? We give a loan, then we can give a repeat loan or a second one. Look at also the ecosystem is probably the deepest or broadest in terms of work in progress so far. Creditas is lending against cars as a collateral, now they're lending for cars. With the insurance acquisition, they're looking to insure the cars that they lend against. With the Voltz acquisition, they're looking at moving into the motorbike space, lending for them and against them and for electronic vehicles. So it's really adding more product suite around the core collateral and being with the customer over the life of that collateral. So some of these things are done inorganic -- some of these things are done organically, and Creditas has the speed to delivery around paying out an idea is phenomenal. But also, there is opportunity of duties on an inorganic basis and making acquisitions. So some of the acquisitions on touching them like Bcredi and the home equity space, but that was effectively an acquihire. They like the team a lot. It was a much smaller version of what Creditas is doing on the home equity space that involves the business, the book but effectively to hire the team and the leader of that business is now the head of home equity at Creditas. Creditoo was a company they bought in the payroll lending space, and that led them to fast track their move into payroll backed lending and brought the team on board initially for that as well. So there were kind of acquisitions of broad product suite and fast track or acquihire aspects of them. And I think insurance, Minuto Seguros is much bigger than that. And I just say, Herman, it's really on the auto space initially. It's auto. They want to be -- for every car they lend against, they have a relationship with the customer. Every car they lend for, they automatically want to be doing the insurance for that, whether it's broken initially or moving a full stack insurance now with Minuto Seguros. On Voltz, there was a way of getting into the motorbike space and getting into lending against that vehicle, which is a very captive market with Honda and Yamaha in the Brazilian market. And now they're also moving into the marketplace to do as well. The marketplace for buying and selling these products. Once again, car seems to be the playground that's had the most progress so far. So whether you're borrowing against your car, whether you're borrowing to buy a car, whether you're looking to buy a car, whether you're insuring your car, Creditas just doesn't want to be once and done in terms of a product, they want to be with you in your life cycle through that product. And what that will do is, 2 things they're religious on. One is reducing CAC, so you're talking to customers across the different spectrums. You get all these customers in at lower CAC over time. And the second thing is increasing lifetime value. So it's not a once and done product in terms of a loan. You want a loan, you want a repeat loan? Do you want an insurance product with that person? Are they looking to sell their car? It's a lifestyle -- life cycle increase of value proposition. But also [indiscernible] of the headlines, there is a lot of work being done at home. There's a lot of work being done on payroll. And then we're just talking in Brazil, whereas Mexico is kind of like price territory as well.

Yes, I understand, perfect. And just to what extent do you think that these acquisitions were planning, Creditas kind of original plan when they raised capital before at the end of 2020? And -- I mean do you think that they will need any capital soon again if they can continue this M&A activity?

Yes. Look, I think that they were broadly in the plan when Creditas raised money in Q4, but the plan at that time was very clear. With the capital raise, that will get them through the IPO in Q4 -- sorry, in the second half of next year. But the opportunities to make probably more acquisitions quicker than originally planned has come about, more capital has been put to work. And at the same time, the company is growing at a healthy clip, albeit broadly in line with expectations, which is always good to see. But it just does make the management, makes the Board around the management ask the questions around, waiting for the IPO moment, building the war chest ahead of that so you got flexibility of when you do it and also gives you more capital to work with in what are still good markets. So I think the possibility is there that Creditas could raise more capital before IPO, but nothing set, nothing is planned, nothing is the table. It's just one of the things where we're seeing a lot of the later-stage fintech companies moving towards an IPO, but they tend to -- really can be opportunistic in the market and grab that incremental capital, which gives them flexibility around what they do and when.

Yes. Yes, it sounds good. And then just moving on to BlackBuck. I was wondering if you can present this asset in a little bit more detail. It seems like payments was a large part of what you get with this asset. What kind of other financial services do you see could be added? And what kind of growth expectations you have for this asset going forward?

Yes. No, it's fair. Herman, look, to say VEF is investing in a trucking platform, there's a little bit of what the hell is going on here. And this is something we've been deliberating on a Board level and a team level, and we've looked at a bunch of different areas. And education has been a big one we've looked at; mobility, we've been talking with our partners at VNV. Just seeing how important financial services is to a lot of companies that are not necessarily financial services in their initiation. And then we're obviously seeing that in China with The Alibaba Group, which wasn't financial services at outset but ended up being the #1 consumer in SME financial services [indiscernible]. We see a lot of mobility in Southeast Asia with Gojek and Grab where financial services is a big and growing part of what they are, but they started out as a mobility platform. So it's really just opened our eyes and ears and our lens from looking for these names. But we want to look at something that's got 1% fintech or might have been in the future, and it has to be important to what they are today and the growth story. And just to round off at general point, Creditas is a great example of a fintech company, first and foremost, and now it's becoming embedded fintech as it's a marketplace for cars, it's effectively building motorbikes. There's a lot more to that story. So it's kind of backing out in fintech space. So it's all kind of evolving interestingly for us as investors. And BlackBuck was -- it was actually introduced to us by the team at Wellington, who are investors of ours, they're partners of ours invested in Juspay, and names like Sequoia and Accel were also in this name. At its core, it's a trucking platform, demand and supply for trucking needs. It's got a 1.2 million plus truckers, and they're individual trucks and small truck owners across India. So the marketplace aspects, the online needs to digitize this process and connect that demand for trucks and logistics into supply was very much needed in India and BlackBuck is ahead of the curve on building out that trucking platform, all mobile-based and digital. But at the same time, the folks on one side of the platform, which is the truckers, is something that's got a lot of traction, being the in-truck app of choice for truckers, so we have everything in one place. So you can -- the owners of trucks can track their trucks logistics-wise. They can pay for fuel and get discounts across the board, tolls everywhere in India, moving from cash to digital in that and having an in-app and just naturally passing through tolls or something and you can get group discounts in that. So it's a big part of what the revenue stream is today. And we've had a lot of traction on tolls and that gets a lot of good for customer acquisition on the trucking side. And fuel is a good thing. We're still early days, and that can be a big thing once we add that to tolls. And I think that the marketplace around just buying and selling of parts for trucks and rebound of trucks and it very much can be embedded in. But I think the tolls and the fuels are very key. And this is all aside from them building -- the plan is to be a very successful size marketplace in trucking. And we see names, FLEETCOR in the U.S., which are very successful in this multibillion-dollar companies, same in China. And India, BlackBuck is at the front or the front foot of building consumer in India, albeit we've hung our hat and our valuation around the fintech aspect as they keep on delivering on that side of the marketplace and the trucks and fintech, this will be a very good investment if they also deliver on being the #1 marketplace, it will be a super investment.

Yes. Perfect. And then just a final question from my side. Is it possible to give some kind of rough updates or estimates on how you view the total funding need in the portfolio at the moment? I think you mentioned Juspay, Jumo and TransferGo as being well placed to secure more funding here during the rest of the year. So yes, if you can just give a number or a rough estimate, that would be very helpful.

Yes. And that's fair. Look, we kind of ended Q2 with $19 million in the bank, and we've got a commitment for $10 million to BlackBuck, which hasn't been out the door yet, albeit we've got $3 million coming in from Guiabolso. So we're getting low on capital, similar to previous points in our life. At this stage, we look -- besides pipeline, which is always busy, we look inside the portfolio, Creditas could do something. It could be this year, it could be next year, it could be IPO. But we've got to be mentally ready for something like that potentially happening, named likely to raise, Juspay, Jumo, Magnetis in the portfolio. And these are ones we can take part in or not, but if you put all the numbers together of what they're raising, if we took a right if we wanted to, you're in the $30 million to $40 million in the next 6 to 12 months. That's all ahead of us in portfolio besides the outside portfolio. So similar to last quarter, as we told investors, we're open in capital as we have been in the past. And we're exploring all our options of how we go about that, debt equity timing. We feel very comfortable renewing our shareholder base with debt markets, where our share prices revenue is. And that we could do something in the next -- in the not-too-distant future. So it's all kind of there for us given capital needs, the pipeline of things that we have to do. And we're sitting back planning, talking to the markets, investors, and it would be logical ex any exits. So there's always exits potentially out there. Some of our companies are always on their offer from different names because of what they are. And we could sell secondary shares as well. So we have a nice secondary choice of income with companies that we have, which are doing raises. We could go do the raise and take money off the table. So we've got a few different avenues of releasing capital or getting fresh capital to keep on doing things we want, should we want to.

[Operator Instructions] We have a question from the line of Joachim Gunell from DNB Markets.

So I think Herman's questions covered the most simple topics. But perhaps can you talk a bit more about -- I mean what we have seen recently with these more seed type like investments? Because I mean of course, it secures your seat at the table, and then it makes sense to partner with strong local [ business ] to get access to those types of investments. But -- I mean in terms of NAV accretion and also, I mean we'll be able to exercise your, call it, ownership model via Board representation, et cetera, what's the, so to say, strategy from a 2-year time frame with regards to those investments? Is it to double down on the winners or -- and basically risk mitigation? Or can you talk a bit more about that, Dave?

Yes. No, that's very Joachim. Thanks for your question. Look, I think we've -- as a team and as a Board, we sat back and we've debated this. We had a one-dimensional albeit very successful approach of taking 10% to 20% bags and Board seats and be an active investors in everything we do. But we did find we were missing deals as a result of that because somebody else is leading us around, and we didn't take part for whatever reasons. We're getting a small stake that it didn't fit our mandate -- our own set mandate. And then also, there was companies at earlier stages or even later stages where we can get a small piece, and it made a lot of sense to us either to get in early. It didn't quite tick all our boxes, but it was very close to it and we're very close to the founder and believe. So the idea of taking a smaller stake made a lot of sense. So I think what you've seen with Rupeek in India and minu in Mexico and now BlackBuck is us kind of stretched those limits a bit of what we used -- what we did historically versus what we're doing right now. And I think whether it's something we're a core position in 10% to 10% plus or whether it's a 1% position, if it's working, I think the general rule is we will try and get as much capital into it as possible. Rupeek was a deal that we really wanted to lead, and we couldn't. So we were happy to take a smaller stake with a view of doing more in the future. I think minu in Mexico is in that category, whereby we like the salary advanced financial wellness space. We love Nima as a founder. We're actually doing our capital raise at the time in Q4. We were very busy on that price. And we agreed with Nima to go ahead with a different fund to lead that round and we took a small piece with a view of doing their next round should everything deliver. And so that kind of fits that category. And I think BlackBuck is -- it's late days now as we're talking at $1 billion plus/minus company, and we own 1% of it with our $10 million check. And also as an embedded fintech, we've got 2 kind of categories of is this what VEF does? I think it was nice to come into a name like that at a later-stage name, which gives you a lot more comfort in terms of what is the product market fit attraction, the route of travel, the team proven out as opposed to -- we did Abhi, which is day 1 kind of material and also going in there with a lot of investors that we know. So we're moving our first embedded fintech investment with a lot of core investors locally and internationally that we know and like. We stress tested the case with them as well as with the management. So it was probably nicer and easier for us to do a smaller check there. And then they offered to cross reference that with the capital that we have and our ability to write that bigger check in this round to maybe BlackBuck and that we couldn't. So we're very happy to be involved, very happy to get into an embedded fintech play. And as with everything else, we're happy to build that position from here should the opportunity arise and should it deliver.

Understood. And can you talk a bit about the process here when it comes to exiting Guiabolso? And -- I mean, yes, basically, over what time frame has that option been value add? And also, I think when we spoke earlier this year, you said that -- I mean there are -- I mean a number of your portfolio holdings that are in talks with potential partners for an exit. And what changes to that comment based on where we stand now?

Yes. No, look, I think we always like our companies to be on the exit footing. We don't need -- actually want them to exit. But it's great. Your better companies are always talking to bigger partners about exiting, getting a proper price. They're looking at IPOs in the future. So it's not that you wake up someday and you decide if you want to sell this business. It's just an ongoing process. And you are in control as opposed to the market being in control as much as you can once you deliver. But I think the Guiabolso exit specifically, it's not a classic exit. And we think that's very clear versus what we've done in the past [indiscernible] bragging rights exit in terms of 60% IRRs. And given where we had the position at Q1, we think it was marked at $4.8 million, and we've got about $3 million in the door. And I guess the direction of travel is not that one. I guess the 1 good thing it does is it kind of a test to us and our true and fairness of NAV and how we buy things on a rolling basis, both on the way up and on the way down. Guiabolso had a few people looking at it over the last 12 months, so it had been talking to suitors. And this is one that, I guess, we got very conservative with our NAV mark in Q2 and at the end of Q2, just from a Board, from an auditor point of view, it was kind of like let's just really get conservative here, and we marked it down to 0. And albeit we had a couple of offers in the fires at that time, and then one of them came through with PicPay. So it's a nice ending to the overall story. It's a good feel for how we're true and fair with NAV. But clearly, it wasn't a good investment for us and for our shareholders, and we're very aware of that and the lessons learned. But I think outside of Guiabolso, we talked about Creditas and our path towards IPO, Konfio, would like to think of doing something similar, albeit with a lag. Jumo as well is quite a unique business, and that's more in the IPO category than the M&A on average, I would think. And then other businesses, TransferGo could be right for consolidation, especially with Wise now listing. I could see Remitly potentially listing in the U.S. There has been a story that they are on the upfront to kind of the bigger names like Western Union and PayPal. So there definitely is a consolidation coming in digital remittances, that's the reason [indiscernible] payments. I think with Juspay in India on the mobile payments front, there's a lot of bigger groups looking at it, its product suite and what it delivers. And you can see that being solid at some point in the future versus IPO. That's just me talking and thinking as we sit here. So I'm in the smaller end of the portfolio. There has been offers for some of our smaller companies, not the right price, not the right time. As you're seeing what Creditas is doing, some of these can get consolidated into bigger groups and get shares of other companies. We kind of evaluate everything as we go along. But the main thing for me when we're sitting with our founders at Board level is we're always thinking about this. We're reactive or proactive and to make opportunities happen and then we decide.

Very clear. And just final for me. I mean with the capital raised in Konfio, would it be fair to assume that they could follow a similar path as Creditas had done and really accelerate its M&A program or what can you say there? What needs to be, I mean, complement in order to create more of an ecosystem that is complete for Konfio?

Yes. No, I think it's a fair question. A point that I think it will follow a similar path as Creditas, can't guarantee how or when, but they're definitely on the front foot. There is a small acquisition on the ERP front in Q4 of last year. And that got their feet wet with fast tracking the product line via M&A as opposed to building in-house. And they're looking at similar whether it comes to payments, different aspects of payments and also in terms of getting their hands on a banking license as opposed to waiting their way through the application process. So all those work streams are on the go, nothing is guaranteed and no time line. But I can see Konfio being similar to what Creditas is doing. They have to be careful here because it is a skill set. It does take your eyes off the focus of building something organically. But now Konfio is in a strong capital position, I think, similar to Creditas, given they've made a small acquisition that's worked out very well and they've got appetite for more.

There are no further questions registered at this time. So I hand back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Excellent. Thanks, operator. Look, thank you, everybody, for your time. Obviously, it's mid-summer. And so it's very appreciative of you taking the time to listen in and to engage with us as always. And any questions after this, as always, reach out to myself directly or Henrik Stenlund, our CFO and Head of IR. We're always happy to answer any questions or hear any comments that you have. But enjoy the rest of your summer, and we'll be talking soon. Thank you.