Brazilian Proptech Makasí Raises$21 Million in Debt Financing to Expand Construction Credit Platform
In Brazil’s fragmented real estate and construction financing ecosystem, Makasí is emerging as a blueprint for how embedded finance platforms can unlock access to capital, governance, and growth. The Brazilian-based proptech-construction tech startup announced a $21 million debt financing round on May 15, 2025, reinforcing a model that integrates financial products directly into construction workflows. The round brings Makasí’s total capital raised to $61.2 million across four rounds, including two back-to-back debt raises in under six months.
Embedding Financial Products at the Edge of the Construction Value Chain
Founded in 2022 by Caio Bonatto, Fabiane Pellegrino, and Lucas Maceno, Makasí positions itself not simply as a lender, but as a vertically integrated infrastructure layer for small and mid-sized real estate developers. The platform offers embedded credit products with predefined policies and diverse capital sources, connected to a scalable governance and project management system. This dual structure aims to reduce risk, increase transparency, and standardize access to working capital—a persistent bottleneck in emerging market development cycles.
Brazil’s construction sector has long suffered from financing opacity and operational inefficiencies, with smaller builders locked out of traditional credit channels. By embedding financial products inside a tech-driven management platform, Makasí creates underwriting transparency while offering lenders visibility into project execution and compliance. The firm acts as both credit originator and operational back-office, effectively becoming a “banking-as-a-service” layer for construction.
Debt Capital as a Strategic Signal
While venture capital has traditionally dominated proptech fundraising headlines, Makasí’s choice to raise structured debt, including a $19 million round in December 2024 and now $21 million in May 2025, signals an inflection point. Debt capital, especially when raised from institutional sources, suggests growing lender confidence in the predictability of returns and the scalability of the platform.
This financing structure also reflects broader trends in proptech capital markets, where companies that serve asset-heavy sectors—like construction, energy, and manufacturing—are increasingly blending SaaS business models with balance sheet financing. For Makasí, the move may enable it to leverage its technology to originate more credit while retaining risk-adjusted control over deployment.
Strategic Positioning and the Capital Stack
The company’s previous R$120 million private equity round, led by RBR Asset Management in November 2024, aligned Makasí with some of Brazil’s most active real estate capital allocators. Earlier backers such as Terracotta Ventures and Honey Island Capital positioned the startup as a future-facing platform in a traditionally under-digitized sector. With capital now spanning both equity and structured debt, Makasí has constructed a diversified funding stack more typical of infrastructure fintechs than early-stage startups.
By targeting small and mid-market builders—an underserved segment in both formal banking and venture-backed construction platforms—Makasí is building a two-sided network that may ultimately resemble the embedded finance dynamics of platforms like Toast in restaurants or Flexport in logistics. Its governance tools are designed to reduce lender risk, while its embedded credit tools solve liquidity friction for builders.
Implications for Emerging Market Proptech
The case of Makasí illustrates how proptech in emerging markets is evolving beyond search portals and transaction layers into infrastructure platforms that manage capital and execution risk. As construction becomes increasingly constrained by regulatory compliance, financial transparency, and climate efficiency, platforms that serve as both operational and financial rails are likely to become central nodes in the built environment.
