Aviva, a startup using natural language processing to transform conversations into structured data to offer microloans, has secured a USD 50 million credit line from Community Investment Management (CIM), an institutional impact investment manager that provides strategic debt capital to demonstrate and scale responsible innovation in lending for underserved communities. 

The debt financing marks Aviva’s first credit line from an international institutional lender and the third financing facility it has secured this year. The addition of CIM’s financing further diversifies Aviva’s funding base and consolidates its pathway toward scalability, in advance of its Series A investment round. The new funding will allow Aviva to provide financial services to an additional half a million people who are overlooked by formal financial service providers. 

Aviva’s unique “phygital” approach combines diverse applications of artificial intelligence with asset-light kiosks to offer Mexico’s underbanked segments loans of USD 100 to USD 1,000. At Aviva’s kiosks, a video call eliminates the need for paper-based loan applications. Instead, potential clients participate in a seven-minute, bot-assisted video call during which Aviva’s proprietary underwriting model leverages natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning to assess clients’ creditworthiness. 

Unlike digital-only fintechs and traditional banks, which are both concentrated in urban areas, Aviva’s phygital experience has driven uptake in smaller cities with fewer than 500,000 inhabitants. In the three years since Aviva launched, it has expanded to over 100 cities in ten states across Mexico. 

“Aviva provides an entry point for many of those overlooked by fintechs and banks, such as the 58% of Mexicans who are employed in the informal sector. Those in the informal sector typically lack formal documentation and transaction records, and fail to secure credit from 

traditional financial institutions,” said Elena Amato, Managing Director at CIM. “Aviva’s innovative conversational assessment model effectively removes barriers that have excluded millions from accessing capital,” she added.

“We are privileged to partner with CIM, which shares our commitment to delivering world-class solutions to underserved communities. The investment will not only support microentrepreneurs, but also inject liquidity into cities repeatedly ignored by other players,” said Filiberto Castro, Founder and Co-CEO of Aviva. 

To date, Aviva has raised over US$16 million in equity. In August 2025, it also announced a US$1.5 million convertible debt investment from IDB Lab, the innovation and venture capital arm of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group).