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StoneCo sells card readers and payment software that help small Brazilian businesses accept cards and manage their money.
StoneCo is a Brazilian payments company. It gives small and medium-sized shop owners the tools to accept credit and debit cards, mainly through sleek card-reading machines and software that runs on a phone or tablet. It also handles the behind-the-scenes work of moving the money from the customer's bank to the shop's account, which is the part most shopkeepers never want to think about.
The core of the business is simple. A bakery or clothing store signs up with Stone, gets a card machine, and can suddenly take card payments instead of just cash. Stone charges a small cut of each payment it processes, and the shopkeeper keeps the rest. The appeal is that Stone bundles the machine, the software, and the customer support together and sells it as one package, often with a friendly rep who visits the store in person. That hands-on approach helped it win customers who had been ignored by big banks. Stone's ambition is bigger than just card machines. It has been building a full financial toolkit for these small businesses: banking accounts, lending, and software that helps merchants track sales, manage inventory, and pay staff. That "software plus money" idea is the heart of its strategy. It also runs a credit operation that lends to its merchants, which is a fast-growing but riskier part of the business, because loans can go bad when the economy turns.
The company was founded in 2012 and is based in São Paulo. Its early backers included the billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, though the relationship has since been unwound. Stone's biggest investors are Brazilian, and the company is controlled by a group led by founder André Street. It competes head-on with Brazil's giant banks and with rivals like PagSeguro and Cielo, so scale and speed matter enormously. The stock has had a wild ride since its 2018 US listing, swinging on interest rates, competition, and worries about its credit book. Stone spends heavily on technology and on its merchant credit business, and it buys back its own shares when it thinks the price is low — a sign management believes the stock is cheap, though such bets can backfire.
Saved answer · last researched 20 Oct 2026