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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4_E2LYNBCQ
Founded by Daniel Ruhman, Bruno Cury & Pedro Castilho
They are the first proxy for Brazil’s regulated ecosystem. After years of building fintechs in Brazil, they saw how painful it is to obtain a license or depend on PSPs and BaaS providers. Their previous B2C operation scaled to over a million accounts, and they suffered since a lot of their core product relied on partner infra, and it hurt them to not be able to solve the issues affecting their customers. They have been deeply involved with Open Finance since its earliest days — they were one of the first players in the ecosystem and became the fourth ITP/PISP license ever issued in Brazil, and after closing their B2C operation decided to pivot to B2B and build the financial infrastructure partner they always wished existed for themselves.
Brazil is one of the most exciting fintech markets in the world — a forward-thinking Central Bank, Pix (the world's most successful instant payments system), and a mature Open Finance framework. Global fintechs want in.
But the path to market is brutal:
Option 1: Get your own license
Option 2: Use a BaaS/OFaaS provider
For companies serious about Brazil, neither option works. You either wait years or give up control of your destiny.
The team built something new: a proxy that sits between your infrastructure and Brazil's regulated ecosystem.
Here's how it works:
The key insight: Instead of building "Cumbuca APIs" (which would impose their abstractions), they built a minimal regulatory layer. You develop against the official Open Finance and Pix specifications. When you're ready for your own license, you just swap their certificates for yours.
What you get:
They didn't build Cumbuca from a whiteboard — they built it from scars.
Daniel Ruhman (CEO) — Started coding as a kid after watching "The Social Network." Dropped out of Computer Engineering to study at UC Berkeley. Built and pivoted through multiple startups: a gig economy platform, a Pix-native neobank for underserved Brazilians (Comadre), and a group expense app that grew to over 1 million accounts (Cumbuca B2C). Applied to YC 8 times before getting in.
Bruno Cury & Pedro Castilho (Co-founders) — Together with Daniel, they became among the youngest statutory directors in Brazil's financial sector when they secured their first license in 2022. They've lived every pain point of building on Brazilian financial infrastructure.
They have assembled a dream team of Open Finance veterans:
This is actually their third pivot — and it's working.
They were one of the first 5 companies to apply for a pure PISP license in Brazil. They co-founded INIT, the Payment Initiators Association. They operated over 1 million consumer accounts and learned firsthand how painful it is to depend on infrastructure you don't control.
When their B2C monetization model failed (users only wanted Pix, not cards), they faced a choice: burn through their runway or leverage their real assets — their license and their team.
They chose to build the infrastructure partner they always wished existed.
The result: Cumbuca has been profitable and cash-flow positive since August 2025 — just 3 months after pivoting to B2B.
Cumbuca is not a self-serve platform. They work with:
Their customers include credit companies using Open Finance data for underwriting, payment orchestrators, e-commerce giants, PFM apps, and investment aggregators.
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