StoneCo Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides financial services and software solutions to clients across in-store, mobile and online device platforms helping them to better manage their businesses by increasing the productivity of their sales initiatives.
The company’s focus is to serve micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, or MSMBs, with great solutions, at fair prices, and provide the best customer experience to help them better manage their businesses and sell more.
Segments...
StoneCo Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, provides financial services and software solutions to clients across in-store, mobile and online device platforms helping them to better manage their businesses by increasing the productivity of their sales initiatives.
The company’s focus is to serve micro, small, and medium-sized businesses, or MSMBs, with great solutions, at fair prices, and provide the best customer experience to help them better manage their businesses and sell more.
Segments
The company operates in two main business segments: financial services and software.
In financial services, the company offers payments, digital banking, and credit solutions, tailoring the company’s Ton offering mainly for micro merchants, and its Stone solution for SMBs.
In software, the company offers POS and ERP solutions for different retail and services verticals, customer relationship management (‘CRM’), engagement tools, e-commerce, and order management system (‘OMS’) solutions, among others, focused on both SMBs and large clients.
The company’s positioning in the micro merchant segment, which considers clients with monthly total payment volume (‘TPV’) below R$15,000, is to offer easy-to-use solutions and a digital business model with low costs for the clients and good economics for the company. In the SMB client segment, which comprises clients with monthly TPV between R$15,000 and R$2 million, it has two different approaches: for clients with simpler operations, it strives to offer an all-in-one Stone solution that combines the company’s merchant-focused payments and banking services; and for clients with more mature operations, it looks to offer more sophisticated solutions that integrate the company’s financial services with software for specific verticals.
Financial Services
This segment encompasses the company’s financial services offering for both MSMBs (micro-merchants and SMBs) and Key Accounts (consisting of platform services and sub-acquirers). The company’s solutions include payments, digital banking, and credit, as detailed below:
Payment Solutions: Payment collection is streamlined by accepting numerous forms of electronic payments and alternative payment methods (‘APMs’), such as payment slips (Boletos) and Pix transactions, and by conducting a wide range of transactions in brick-and-mortar and digital storefronts in a quick and user-friendly manner. It also provides digital product enhancements to help its merchants improve their consumers’ experience, such as its split-payment processing, multi-payment processing, and recurring payments for subscriptions. Additionally, it has its tap on phone solution (TapTon) that allows merchants to sell via their smartphones, opening new opportunities to improve their sales.
Prepayment Solutions: The company helps its clients manage their working capital needs and effectively plan for the future by offering them prepayment financing, which consists of making the settlement of a card transaction to its clients at a discount before the settlement is originally due, allowing clients to receive their funds two days after the transaction is approved or as early as the same day.
Digital Banking Solutions: The company offers a digital bank account to its clients, which is tailored specifically for merchants. The bank account can be integrated into the POS to help merchants manage their finances efficiently. In addition, with this digital banking account, merchants can receive and make payments, issue payment slips (Boletos), pay taxes, make Pix transfers, and save money, all in a cost-effective and user-friendly way, seeking to increase their cash flow within the Stone platform, significantly increasing the experience and convenience. Also, it developed multi-user access, permissions, and safe authorization processes for those merchants who have employees that help with their workflow. In addition, it provides its clients some insurance solutions, acting solely as a broker.
Credit Solutions: The company offers an array of credit solutions to merchants, including working capital, credit card, and revolving credit. The company’s working capital and revolving credit products feature an innovative repayment schedule, where clients pay down their loans in line with their performed TPV. In the working capital product revision undertaken since 2021, it introduced monthly installments to help merchants keep up with their repayment schedule. Also, in case sales aren’t keeping pace with the minimum, it offers other multiple payment sources, such as payment slips (Boletos), payment link, Pix transfer, future receivables, or the possibility of using the Stone account balance.
Software
The company moved from monitoring the segment based on Core and Digital to managing it on three main fronts. As of December 31, 2024, these three main fronts were: Strategic Verticals, consisting of POS/ERP solutions for retail, gas stations, food, and drugstores, as well as value-added solutions, such as fiscal solutions, electronic transfer of funds (‘TEF’), and CRM; Enterprise, consisting of POS/ERP solutions for large enterprise clients, as well as digital solutions, such as OMS, ads solutions, and marketplace hub; Other Verticals, consisting of POS/ERP solutions in verticals not prioritized for combination with financial services, as well as other software solutions.
These fronts are detailed below.
Strategic Verticals: The company provides POS and ERP software solutions to its clients in retail, gas stations, food, and drugstores, that enable them to manage their daily operations considering the specific needs of those verticals. It also offers its clients in these verticals integrated software, payments, and banking solutions, which simplify its clients' workflows and provide better offerings at attractive bundles. The company’s focus in terms of software and financial services integration is within these four verticals.
Enterprise: The company provides POS and ERP solutions for large and enterprise businesses, customized to the specific needs of each business. Within enterprise, it also allows clients to effectively implement omnichannel sales processes through its OMS, ads solutions, and marketplace hub.
Other Verticals: This front comprises POS/ERP solutions in verticals where the company does not see a significant opportunity in terms of financial services or that have not been set within its initial priority for capturing such opportunity. This front also comprises other value-added software solutions, such as CRM, which are managed on a standalone basis.
Distribution
The company sells and distributes its solutions through three different types of channels: Proximity channels, focused mainly on SMBs, in which it leverages its in-person distribution through proprietary hubs and franchised hubs, leading to a closer relationship with its merchants with service differentiation as the main driver; Digital channels, focused on scaling with efficient customer acquisition cost (‘CAC’) through the company’s digital, inbound sales, and self-onboarding services; and Strategic Partners, which are composed of its member-get-member channel, focused mainly on micro-merchants, and its Partner Program, focused on SMBs and Key Accounts, with expanded reach as the main driver. The company’s multiple channels allow it to provide service differentiation at scale, as it can dynamically choose the right channel to serve each client in an optimal and tailored manner, balancing growth with unit economics optimization.
Proximity Channels:
Stone Hubs: The company distributes its technology and solutions to brick-and-mortar merchants primarily through its Stone Hubs, which are designed to provide hyper-local sales and service to SMB merchants in a designated geographic region. The company’s hubs are local operational offices that house an integrated team of sales and logistics support personnel. These offices are located in small-and-medium-sized cities (or regions of larger cities), which have historically been underserved and disregarded by many of its competitors who sell their services mostly through ordinary bank branches or remote call centers. It has both proprietary hubs, as well as franchised hubs. In December 2024, it had more than 600 Proprietary and Franchised Stone Hubs.
Proprietary Stone Hub—The company establishes local operations and sends highly trained Stone Agents and Green Angels to develop its operations, train new team members, and ensure that its focus on high-quality service is instilled. It currently has a few hundred operational Proprietary Stone Hubs across Brazil, representing the vast majority of its hub base and is its primary method of establishing new Stone Hubs.
Franchised Stone Hub—The company’s franchise hubs are similar to its proprietary hubs, except that the hub is owned and operated by a local business owner who typically provides local sales and operational support and relationships in the community. These hubs are entirely Stone-branded and operated by highly trained personnel who perform the same duties as personnel working in its proprietary hubs, in accordance with its policies, procedures, and internal targets. The company can decide to establish a franchise hub instead of a proprietary hub according to a few key parameters, such as population density, estimated available TPV and profitability from merchants in the designated area, as well as if it identifies an attractive potential partner in the region.
The company’s hubs are staffed by sales and logistics personnel that include:
Stone Agents—The company’s troops-on-the-ground sales team. This is a qualified team, focused mostly on the Small segment within SMBs, who are highly trained to deliver personalized and effective sales and support directly to the doorstep of its clients.
Stone Specialists—Also part of the company’s troops-on-the-ground sales team, specialists are part of the career path of an Agent. Specialists are responsible and specifically trained to address the needs of larger SMBs, who have more complex and specific issues and thus the need for more complete financial and management solutions. From 2024 onwards, the company has reinforced this function in its hubs, as part of its efforts to increase its penetration in the medium client segment.
The company’s Stone Agents and Specialists are both supported by an integrated proprietary technology platform, which combines smart routing with merchant behavior mapping, enabling them to provide sales and support services efficiently and effectively.
District ‘Owners’ and Hub ‘Owners’—The company’s regional sales leadership. This team is composed of highly trained and experienced former Stone Agents that are tasked with opening and managing new hub territories. Regional managers are supported extensively with daily performance indicators and tools provided by its technology platform and management to facilitate active interaction and support with their teams.
The company’s Stone Agents receive extensive training in the company’s culture and operations during their onboarding process, and on an ongoing basis, to help reinforce its client-centric culture and high-performance standards. The company’s sales personnel have disciplined daily, weekly, and monthly touchpoints with their leaders, along with routine reporting, key performance indicators (KPI) reviews, and other core processes to help ensure they are equipped with the tools and support they need to maximize their effectiveness. The typical daily routine of a Stone Agent involves starting the day with team meetings to align goals and strategies, followed by client meetings focused on driving new sales. In addition, its sales personnel are supported by direct marketing campaigns to help build brand awareness as the company enters new markets.
Software Direct Channels— The company’s direct channels consist of business managers dedicated to its customer base (‘farmers’) and business managers responsible for prospecting new clients (‘hunters’). The company’s internal sales team is specialized in retail and is knowledgeable about the specialized needs of companies of different verticals and sizes and the various solutions it offers.
Software Indirect Channel— The company’s indirect channels consist of independent sales agents. These sales channels allow it to be present in places where it does not have its own sales offices. The company’s independent sales agents are mostly exclusive distribution channels through which it acquires new customers and negotiates solutions in the regions where it operates. The company’s independent sales agents also carry out consulting services (implementation, installation, customization, and training services) of its software solutions.
Digital Channels:
Inbound Sales and Distribution— The company also sells its solutions to brick-and-mortar and digital merchants through a similar, highly trained sales team that is centrally located and dedicated to fielding inbound calls as a result of digital advertising campaigns and referrals resulting from network effects of its clients within its hubs, as well as sales leads. This team can manage and onboard a new client in-house.
Online self-onboarding— The company’s self-onboarding channel is fast and convenient for merchants that already know which solutions are better suited for them. This method allows merchants to sign up and complete the purchase process on their own, without the need for direct interaction with a sales representative through its user-friendly website and app.
Strategic Partners
Partner Program— The company’s distribution through partners, mainly software providers (ISVs), marketplaces, and e-commerce platforms. Different from the channels mentioned above, the Partner Program is mainly focused on platform services merchants, within the Key Accounts business segment. Participants within the Partner Program develop vertical-specific software for merchants that help them run their front-of-house functions and back-office operations. The company integrates and embeds its connection, payment acceptance, and data reconciliation capabilities into their software in order to improve functionality and convenience. Partners may also participate in a portion of the economics generated by payments processed through their software. In December 2024, the company had more than 500 Strategic Partners.
Member-get-member— In 2021, the company developed the ‘Renda-extra’ channel, in which any client or person in Brazil that is registered in the channel can refer its Ton solutions to merchants in the country, in exchange for a commission for each POS offered. After the referral is made, the Ton team is responsible for the support and logistics to deliver the POS to the client.
Superior Client Service
The company serves and supports its clients with fast, convenient, and high-quality customer service with support teams and technology tools that are highly differentiated and have enabled it to maintain high customer service satisfaction. The company’s service and support functions, processes, and tools were designed to embody its strong client-centric culture, continuously strengthen its client relationships, increasing their long-term value. The company’s client service team is essentially composed of its logistics and its customer support teams.
The first one is divided as below:
Green Angels Team—This is the team of local and specialized personnel who provide on-demand logistics support in the field. The Green Angel team is embedded inside its local Stone Hubs, where they interact with Stone Agents and its centralized client relationship team and leverage its cloud-based logistics platform to rapidly respond to the needs of its clients. Once they become aware of an issue, Green Angels commonly travel by motorcycle and reach the company’s clients within minutes or hours to help them in a need instead of taking days or weeks, through mail service, or using a third-party logistics company. Green Angels can deliver terminals, help with installation, set up a merchant’s Wi-Fi connectivity, replace parts, or provide other services.
Logistics Team— The company’s logistics team manages the deployment of POS devices and related accessories and uses predictive modeling of merchant behavior to proactively identify potential client logistics service issues. This centralized team manages terminal programming and equipment services, deployment, set-up, technical support, repair and replacement, remote terminal software updates, warehousing, and inventory control, and reporting. They communicate with and deploy its local Green Angels to provide on-demand support.
Moving to customer support, the company’s mission is to solve the clients’ issues as fast as possible, sustaining their high satisfaction, which can be done through different ways.
Stone Self-Service Tools— The company’s range of apps, online portals, and self-service tools that help its clients check all of their data, manage their operations more conveniently, and solve certain issues by themselves, according to their preference.
Servicing through bots— The company provides its clients a chatbot capable of immediately resolving simpler issues, with access to clients' information and authorization to execute actions. Brazil is highly conversational— a significant number of clients prefer to contact the company via WhatsApp or chat, rather than by phone. This makes the company’s bot a scalable and convenient solution for both its operation and its clients. The company’s chatbot team is a specialized, centralized, and in-house team responsible for the development and operation of its chatbots. The team’s main goal is to deploy scalable, high-quality digital support for its clients with 24/7 availability. It leverages natural language understanding (NLU) and natural language processing (NLP) service providers with its CRM technology in order to build humanized conversation flows that can understand and solve its clients' requests and questions. The first chatbot it designed was made to support Ton’s customer experience operation and is a key piece of Ton’s operational model, as it enables customer support to scale up in high speed for this segment. In 2024, the company made a significant improvement by implementing a proprietary large language model (LLM) platform in its bots, boosting their deflection rates and at the same time improving client satisfaction (CSAT).
Servicing through hubs— This is usually one of the first ways clients reach the company. Through its hubs and franchises, clients can reach its agents to resolve their day-to-day concerns. The company’s agents, utilizing the Marco Polo app, have access to the entire spectrum of client information, including historical relationship data, client profitability, and product usage details. Additionally, agents can request services, such as POS maintenance or additional devices, and immediately solve merchants’ issues.
Servicing through enchanters— In addition to the company’s self-service tools, bots, and sales agents, its clients can rely on the expertise of its enchanters. The company’s enchanters are available through various channels, such as WhatsApp, in-app chat, and phone. Essentially, the company’s clients can reach out to it in their preferred manner, and its unified platform seamlessly manages all interactions. When assisting a client, the enchanter quickly views their information, eliminating the need for time-consuming investigations. This improves efficiency and provides a comprehensive view of the client, from interactions with its sales team to detailed product configurations. There is still plenty of room to gain productivity using AI tools, but the company has already started introducing AI to its client relationship team. For example, with AI, it helps its enchanters to faster understand clients' needs by providing them summaries of clients' history. This makes the company more productive and also improves the quality of the company’s service.
Within the company’s enchanters, it has one specialized team that is focused on client retention. This is a centralized team that is responsible for trying to keep clients who are considering canceling the services the company provides.
The company also has an adjacent data analytics group that constantly monitors its clients, uses AI technology to predict potential churn, and proactively identifies possible actions that its client retention team could take to reverse the propensity for churn.
In order to do so, the company uses a range of integrated systems, powered by the Stone Technology Platform, which empowers its client relationship, client retention, and Green Angel team, to optimize its customer service and support functions through the Green App and the One Platform.
Superior client service:
Best Client Service— Through the company’s logistics and customer support, it delivers the best experience in the market. The extensive and efficient network its logistics teams provide leads it to deliver POSs for SMBs in up to 1 business day and up to 3 days for micro clients. In its customer support, the company has a fast call pickup time, where its clients talk to a human enchanter in under 5 seconds. As a result, it has consistently been ranked as the number one in client satisfaction in Brazil, according to Reclame Aqui, as of December 2024.
Effective Client Support— The digital DNA and cloud-based architecture of the company’s platform enables it to generate, capture, and aggregate a vast array of data across its various business activities. For example, the company has developed and deployed machine-learning technologies throughout its operations to leverage this data to improve the speed, functionality, and quality of many of its services and operations. For instance, it uses AI to predict merchant behavior and enable proactive action by the company’s sales and customer support teams, turn long conversations its enchanters had with clients into short summaries that are stored in the client's history, and increase the accuracy of fraud management.
Greater Understanding of the Company’s Clients—The company proactively interacts with its clients and seeks to understand their business needs in order to develop stronger relationships and serve them more effectively. The company is able to do this in a manner that differentiates it from its peers due to the close proximity to its clients, transparency, fast, high-touch, and personalized customer support provided by its in-house customer support team.
Growth Strategies
The company has defined its growth strategies within three priorities: win in the MSMB Market; drive engagement; and scale through platforms. It can also grow its business through entering new markets and selectively pursuing acquisitions.
Solutions
The company provides a wide range of solutions and tools for merchants, including a variety of payments, banking, credit, and software products with features designed to attract and retain clients, focusing on helping its customers to manage and drive growth in their businesses. These solutions are divided between its Financial Services and Software segments, and each of them is described in the tables below:
Financial Services
Payments
App Store for POSs: The company has an application in its POS devices that can provide additional software features to a merchant’s point-of-sale through its open, cloud-based Mamba App store. This enables third-party app developers to deploy new complementary solutions to the point-of-sale for merchants and consumers, such as mobile phone top-up, bill pay, and APM acceptance.
e-Commerce Gateway: The company offers a full-featured e-commerce gateway that seamlessly connects e-commerce merchants to the acquirers of their choice, enabling them to accept a wide variety of electronic payment options. The company’s clients are provided with a set of robust analytics, reporting, and auditing capabilities through their portals.
Omni-Channel Merchant Acquiring: The company is a fully licensed, end-to-end omnichannel merchant acquiring solution. With a large basket of features and products, clients are equipped with the tools they need to accept a wide array of electronic payments and effectively and efficiently manage their transaction receivables. Clients can integrate into the company’s platform through multiple channels.
Payment Link: This solution enables customers to make personalized sales by generating an exclusive link for their customers or using a single link to charge multiple people at the same time, as well as permitting them to limit the number of accepted payments and accept major card brands and digital wallets, including Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Pix QR Code: The company’s Pix QR Code is an instant P2M payment solution that enables merchants to accept Pix payments already integrated with the POS, thus enabling merchants to reconcile these transactions together with card receivables.
Point of Sale Gateway: This is an in-store gateway for the point-of-sale that connects merchants to the acquirers of their choice, enabling a wide array of payment options, including traditional and APM methods. It also offers clients the ability to integrate their POS with other business management software, such as inventory and tax management solutions.
Prepayment Solutions: The company provides a cash management solution that allows clients to accelerate the payment of their future receivables, including installment-based receivables up to 12 months. Clients can request and predetermine the payment of their receivables via their client portal, directly on their mobile application, POS device, via email, or over the phone with the company’s dedicated receivables prepayment team. Transactions can be settled on the same day, in working days, or up to two days after the transaction is approved, according to the merchant’s choice.
PSP Platform: The company has a sophisticated PSP solution with a quick and simple API integration, enabling omni-channel players and marketplaces to accept a wide array of electronic payments through multiple channels. With a large basket of features and products, clients are equipped with the tools and features they need to grow and manage their business.
Registry of Receivables Platform (TAG): This is a financial market infrastructure (FMI) authorized by the Central Bank to operate as a trade repository for card receivables (credit and debit), captured through physical or online transactions. TAG enables creditors to safely buy merchants' card receivables or take them as collateral.
Split Payments: The company’s split payments solution allows software platforms, marketplaces, and partners from various industries to add value to their solutions with sales functionalities that enable a single buyer transaction to be shared among multiple recipients. This feature is available to the company’s customers who enable sales via credit and debit cards, Pix, and boletos.
Tap on Phone Solution: This solution allows merchants to sell via their smartphones, both Android and iOS, through an app.
Web Checkout: The company provides a frictionless e-checkout that simplifies the buying experience, leading to increased client conversion.
Banking
Digital Banking: The company offers a fully digital banking platform, integrated into its acquiring solution, that enables merchants to get paid and manage their finances more effectively. This platform can provide the automation of cash management through a direct integration with the client’s ERP. It is also integrated with its credit solution.
Debit Cards: The company’s product enables customers to make purchases using funds available in their accounts, as well as withdrawals from automated teller machines (ATMs) within the accredited network. It is also available in a virtual version so that its customers can use it for online purchases in e-commerce.
Pix Transfers: This enables clients to send and receive instant money transfers using their digital banking accounts. It allows users to send and receive payments 24/7 via QR codes, phone numbers, or unique identifiers.
Investment Solutions: The company has introduced time deposit certificates issued by Stone SCFI, through which merchants can invest in a fixed-income investment alternative. This provides customers with a reliable source of returns while contributing to its funding strategy.
Payment Slips (Boletos): The company’s solution enables clients to accept this payment method by issuing a printed document, as well as using its platform to pay payment slips.
Credit
Working Capital: The company offers an integrated working capital solution with an innovative repayment schedule, where clients pay down their loans in line with their performed TPV.
Credit Cards: The company’s product has a diverse array of features designed to provide customers with flexibility in their day-to-day transactions while aiding in the financial management of their businesses. All functionalities are conveniently accessible through its digital banking app. Customers receive both a physical card for brick-and-mortar purchases and a virtual version for online transactions, ensuring enhanced security for e-commerce endeavors. The company’s rigorous credit approval process, which blends external and internal data, ensures that credit limits are tailored precisely to each customer's needs.
Revolving Loans: This is a short-term and flexible credit facility that enables clients to withdraw, repay, and re-borrow funds up to a predetermined limit directly from their bank accounts.
Software
Agilize: Agilize develops technology that provides online accounting services.
APP: APP is a software management company focused on the hotel segment.
ClinicWeb: ClinicWeb is an ERP for medical clinics in Brazil, helping professionals from the health segment to manage their appointments, patient files, finances, and marketing.
Connectivity: This is a suite of customized solutions to help retailers connect their consumers, protect their data, and connect their network through a single point of contact.
Dental Office: Dental Office is an ERP for dental clinics, helping dentists better manage their businesses through features specifically designed for their needs.
E-commerce Platform: The company’s e-commerce services consist of the receipt of wholesale orders and the monitoring of sales targets, directed sales to the final consumer, and an interactive electronic catalog with information about inventory and prices, among others, that are integrated with the ERP system.
HubCount: HubCount is a technology company focused on offering solutions for accounting offices and large corporations.
Human Capital Management: Humanus integrates all human resources procedures, allowing the organization of activities, processes, and information in a safe and reliable way.
Menew: Menew is an ERP/POS software for food service with a strong regional presence in the northeast of Brazil and an expanding operation throughout the country.
Mercadapp: Mercadapp is a digital product that offers an app and e-commerce for supermarkets, which is integrated with POS and ERP.
MID-E: This is a middleware application used to connect the Linx systems with the Brazilian tax authorities for the purpose of issuing an electronic invoice (NFe) and electronic consumer receipt (NFCe), in an integrated manner.
MLabs: MLabs is an SMB social media management platform. Its purpose is to be the best cost-effective platform to make social media actions more effective and consequently increase the online presence of its clients. MLabs functionalities are focused on the specific needs of SMBs, using a variety of methods to help them reduce content production costs, optimize media investments, and increase efficiency in the operations of social media management.
Mobility (SmartPOS): Via smartphones or tablets, customers are served in a fast and customized manner, with no lines and far more interaction with the variety of products offered in the store. The company offers solutions for different retail segments using features, such as the virtual catalog, lookbook combinations, inventory query, pre-sale and sale record, waitlist, and closure of service.
Nodis: Nodis is an app that helps clients digitize their businesses by connecting them to the biggest marketplaces in the country, such as Magalu, Americanas, and Shoptime. Through one single portal, the merchant can control its catalog, manage the orders, and shipping online.
OMS: By using the company’s OMS technology, retailers can meet orders originating from any channel, regardless of where the product is located.
Plugg.to: Plugg.to integrates inventory, products, and orders between the marketplaces and e-commerce platforms, POSs, and ERPs in the market.
Point of Sale and ERP: These are software solutions for the company’s customers’ in-store terminals where sales transactions occur. In the vast majority of cases, these solutions are integrated with its own ERP software.
Questor: Questor is a management system for accounting offices and an integrated cloud ERP offering for SMBs.
Reclame Aqui: Reclame Aqui is a free public platform for consumers to complain about a product or service, with a private interface for companies to respond to those complaints.
Reconciliation, TEF, and QR: These are software solutions that streamline the complex process of reconciling payment transactions and managing cash flow. These powerful tools enable the company’s clients, from brick-and-mortar SMBs to large online enterprises, to accept, reconcile, and monitor transactional data from all payment solutions providers, such as merchant acquirers, e-wallets, and gateways, giving transparency of fees paid, discounts/chargebacks, and taxes at the individual transaction level, in a single dashboard.
Search and Recommendation (Linx Impulse): The company’s search solution uses machine learning and proprietary algorithms that best fit the customer.
SimplesVet: SimplesVet is an ERP solution for veterinary clinics, pet shops, and autonomous veterinarians.
Sponte: Sponte is a leading provider of cloud ERP solutions for schools in an underpenetrated sector in terms of both payments and software.
Tablet Cloud: Tablet Cloud is a white-label point of sale and simple ERP application focused on less sophisticated SMBs, which runs on smart POS and tablet solutions, giving business owners complete control over their cash register and inventory in a fully mobile device while having a robust ERP platform accessible online.
Trinks: Trinks is a SaaS ERP and booking app that allows beauty and aesthetics service providers to manage all their operations. The system automates key components of service providers’ functions, such as client appointments, work schedules, inventory control, and supplier contacts.
VHSYS: VHSYS is an omnichannel, cloud-based, API-driven, POS and ERP platform built to serve a wide array of service and retail businesses. The fully self-service platform consists of over 40 applications, such as order and sales management, invoicing, dynamic inventory management, cash and payments management, CRM, mobile messaging, along with multi-marketplace, logistics, and e-commerce integrations, among others.
Other
Delivery Much: Delivery Much is a food delivery marketplace company focused on small-and-midsize cities, with a similar and synergistic expansion approach to it. Delivery Much generates more sales to restaurants using their consumer client base.
PinPag was part of the ‘Other’ business segment. From February 2024 onwards, the company no longer has an equity stake in PinPag, a company focused on financial solutions in electronic means of payment, which was previously acquired by Linx Pay.
Seasonality
The company has experienced in the past, and expects to continue to experience, seasonal fluctuations in its revenues as a result of consumer spending patterns. Historically, the company’s revenues have been strongest during the last quarter of each year (year ended December 31, 2024) as a result of higher sales during the Brazilian holiday season. This is due to the increase in the number and amount of electronic payment transactions related to seasonal retail events.
Intellectual Property
The company relies on a combination of copyright laws (which include Law No. 9,610/1998 and Law No. 9,609/1998, related to software), trademarks, and trade secret laws (specifically Law No. 9,279/1996, the industrial property law of Brazil), as well as employee and third-party non-disclosure, confidentiality, and other types of contractual arrangements to establish, maintain, and enforce its intellectual property rights, including with respect to its proprietary rights related to its products and services. In addition, the company licenses technology from third parties.
As of February 2025, the company owned more than 1,000 trademarks across 30 countries, including ‘Stone’, ‘Linx’, ‘Ton’, ‘Pagar.me’, ‘Buy4’, ‘Napse’, and others, as well as more than 150 software registrations.
The company has also registered several domain names with NIC.br, Brazil’s internet domain name registry, and domain registrars in Latin America, the United States, and elsewhere, including ‘stone.com.br’, ‘pagar.me’, ‘linx.com.br’, ‘napse.global’, ‘stone.co’, ‘taginfraestrutura.com.br’, and ‘investors.stone.co’.
The company has material contracts with Visa and Mastercard in connection with its activities as an acquirer for these card schemes. The company’s Visa Payment Arrangements Participation and Trademark License Agreement, dated as of February 19, 2016 (as amended from time to time), between Visa do Brasil Empreendimentos Ltda. and Stone IP sets forth the general terms and conditions under which Stone IP acts as a merchant acquiring principal participant for Visa in Brazil and provides Stone IP with a non-exclusive and non-transferable license to use certain trademarks owned by Visa in connection with its activities as an acquirer in Brazil. Under this agreement, Stone IP is exclusively responsible for all the costs and risks associated with its participation as a merchant acquiring principal, and consideration payable to Visa under this agreement is determined by the standard payment terms set forth in the Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, available on Visa’s website. The company’s License Agreement, dated as of December 21, 2015, and as amended from time to time, between MasterCard International Incorporated and Stone IP sets forth the general terms and conditions under which Mastercard grants Stone IP a non-exclusive license to use certain trade names, trademarks, service marks, and logotypes (including Mastercard, Cirrus, and Maestro branded marks) in Brazil in connection with Stone IP’s issuing and acquiring activities. No consideration is due to Mastercard under this agreement.
Regulatory Matters
Three of the company’s subsidiaries perform activities that are subject to Law 12,865 or Law 4,595 and regulations from the Central Bank and the CMN, as applicable, which are Stone IP, Stone Sociedade de Crédito Direto S.A. (‘Stone SCD’), and Stone SCFI. On November 5, 2021, MNLT applied for registration with CVM to become a category B public company (allowed to issue any securities other than shares and depositary receipts or other securities that entitle the holder to purchase shares or share certificates).
Additionally, on October 20, 2020, one of the company’s subsidiaries, TAG, received approval from the Central Bank to operate as a trade repository (entidade registradora) in Brazil, and, therefore, is subject to Brazilian laws and regulations relating to financial assets and securities subject to centralized deposit on central securities depositories or registration in trade repositories, as per Brazilian Federal Law No. 12,810, dated as of May 15, 2013, and its related rules and regulations.
The company’s activities in Brazil are subject to Brazilian laws and regulations relating to anti-money laundering (or ‘AML’) and terrorism financing (‘CFT’) rules. These rules require the company to implement risk-based policies and internal procedures to identify and qualify clients, employees, suppliers, and business partners (KYC, KYE, KYS, and KYP, respectively), as well as to monitor and identify suspicious or atypical money-laundering transactions, which must be duly reported to the Financial Activities Control Council (‘COAF’), Brazil’s financial intelligence unit.
The company complies with the applicable AML laws and regulations and has implemented required policies and internal procedures to ensure compliance with such rules and regulations, including procedures to report suspicious or atypical activities related to money laundering and suspected terrorism financing to COAF.
Customer accounts on the company’s digital platform are subject to the LGPD and bank secrecy law (Complementary Law No. 105/01 and Article 17 of the CMN’s Resolution No. 4,282/13).
Due to some of the company’s products, it is subject to several laws and regulations designed to protect consumer rights—most importantly, the Consumer Protection Code, which sets forth the legal principles and requirements applicable to consumer relations in Brazil, establishing certain basic rights, and the consumers’ rights to access and modify personal information collected about them and stored in private databases.
History
StoneCo Ltd. was founded in 2012. The company was incorporated in the Cayman Islands as an exempted company in 2014, subject to the Cayman Companies Act.
