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Ripio
Ripio, founded by Sebastián Serrano in 2013, serves 4.5M+ crypto users across eight Latin American countries from its Buenos Aires headquarters.
Ripio
Ripio launched in 2013 under the name BitPagos, founded by Sebastián Serrano, a serial entrepreneur who previously built and sold digital commerce businesses in Argentina. The company began as a Bitcoin payment processor for e-commerce merchants before evolving into a full-spectrum digital-asset platform. Serrano relocated the company from its Buenos Aires base into a broader Latin American footprint after recognizing that the region's currency instability, limited banking access, and high remittance costs created structural demand for crypto on-ramps that did not exist in developed markets. The firm now operates a retail exchange, an OTC desk for institutional clients, and Ripio Select, a premium wealth-management product targeting high-net-worth Latin American investors seeking digital-asset exposure. Its product suite spans spot trading, stablecoin on-ramps, crypto-backed lending, and a self-custody wallet. The platform's institutional arm provides execution and custody infrastructure for external funds and corporate treasuries navigating Latin America's fragmented currency corridors. Ripio has issued its own branded crypto card in partnership with Visa (per the firm, 2022), linking digital balances to traditional payment rails. Geographic operations concentrate on Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico — the three largest crypto-adoption markets in the region — with additional licensed entities in Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile. Ripio has raised approximately $70 million in venture funding across rounds led by DCG, Amplo, and Medici Ventures (per Crunchbase, 2024). The firm expanded to the US in 2024 by registering as a Money Services Business in Florida, establishing a Miami office to serve the corridor between Latin American users and US dollar-denominated crypto markets (per the firm, July 2024). Total headcount has exceeded 400, with engineering and compliance hubs distributed across Buenos Aires, São Paulo, and Montevideo. Serrano has publicly stated an intention to pursue a public listing on Nasdaq by 2025 via a SPAC or direct listing, though no filing has materialized to date (per Bloomberg Línea, 2023). Ripio's structural distinction is its hybrid posture as a licensed exchange in jurisdictions that are still building regulatory frameworks around digital assets. Unlike global competitors that treat Latin America as a secondary market, Ripio runs the full stack locally — acquiring exchange licenses, negotiating directly with local banks for fiat rails, and maintaining regional compliance teams. That architecture gives it custody of the on-ramp infrastructure in markets where global platforms like Coinbase or Binance rely on third-party processors. Serrano's founding bet was that local regulatory relationships would become the moat once crypto financialization reached mass adoption in inflation-prone economies; the 2024 expansion into the US suggests he is now building the off-ramp for that capital to flow north.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2013
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
Latin America
Country
Argentina
City
Buenos Aires
Corporate office
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Additional offices
São Paulo, Brazil · Mexico City, Mexico · Miami, FL, United States · Montevideo, Uruguay · Bogotá, Colombia · Santiago, Chile
Principals
Sebastián Serrano
Co-Founder & CEO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
Who runs investment decisions at Ripio?
Ripio is an operating company and cryptocurrency platform, not an asset manager deploying third-party capital. Strategic decisions are driven by Co-Founder and CEO Sebastián Serrano, who has led the firm since its 2013 founding. The company does not disclose a separate investment committee structure; product expansion, geographic licensing, and venture fundraising are managed by Serrano and the executive team from Buenos Aires.
How does Ripio generate revenue?
Ripio generates revenue through trading fees on its retail exchange, spreads on its institutional OTC desk, lending interest from crypto-backed loans, interchange fees from its branded Visa card, and management fees on its Ripio Select wealth product. The firm does not publicly break out revenue by segment. OTC volumes and retail trading activity in high-inflation jurisdictions like Argentina represent the core business engines.
Is Ripio regulated in the jurisdictions where it operates?
Ripio holds exchange licenses or regulatory permissions in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, and Chile, and registered as a Money Services Business in Florida in 2024. Each entity operates under the local digital-asset regulatory framework, which varies significantly by country. The firm's compliance infrastructure includes dedicated regional teams that maintain banking relationships and submit to local anti-money-laundering requirements.
Does Ripio custody customer assets, or are they self-custodied?
Ripio offers both custodial exchange wallets for funds held on its platform and a self-custody wallet for users who wish to hold their own private keys. Institutional clients and the OTC desk typically rely on Ripio's custodial infrastructure. The firm has not disclosed custodial partners or cold-storage arrangements publicly, and custody practices are subject to the regulatory requirements of each operating jurisdiction.
What is Ripio's relationship with Mercado Libre?
Ripio partnered with Mercado Libre in 2021 to integrate cryptocurrency trading into Mercado Pago, the fintech arm of the e-commerce giant. The integration allows Mercado Pago users in Brazil to buy, hold, and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly through the Mercado Pago wallet, using Ripio's backend infrastructure. The agreement positions Ripio as the white-label crypto engine embedded within the largest digital payments ecosystem in Latin America (per the firm, 2021).
Has Ripio launched a token or digital currency?
Ripio has not issued its own protocol token but has launched a blockchain-based product called Ripio Credit Network (RCN), a decentralized credit protocol designed to connect lenders and borrowers globally using Ethereum smart contracts. The RCN token was offered via an initial coin offering in 2017. The protocol operates independently of Ripio's core exchange business and has a distinct governance structure (public record).
Does Ripio maintain separate philanthropic or venture structures?
Ripio has not disclosed a separate philanthropic foundation. The firm operates a corporate venture arm, Ripio Ventures, which deploys capital into early-stage Web3 startups across Latin America. Ripio Ventures functions as a strategic investment vehicle to expand the ecosystem around Ripio's core exchange and payment infrastructure, rather than a passive LP fund (per the firm, 2022).
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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