Plerk

Plerk is a Mexican fintech and HR technology company that provides a virtual card companies use to fund flexible benefits and perks for local and remote employees. Employers define a budget, select perk programs at a general or granular level, deposit funds, and let employees decide which merchant to spend at; the company retains control of the program and receives a single consolidated bill. Benefit categories offered include telemedicine, wellness, education, entertainment and fitness, with fitness delivered through a partnership with Gympass.

The company was founded in 2019 and is based in Guadalajara, Mexico. It participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch and is categorized as fintech, SaaS and B2B. Plerk launched its perks product in January 2021 and later described a card design that, in compliance with Mexico's federal labor law reform on remote-work expenses such as internet and electricity, allowed a purchase to be split into two payments: one part charged to the Plerk card and the remainder to the employee's personal card. Y Combinator lists a team size of 28; at the time of the 2022 Series A the company reported 150 collaborators, and a co-founder bio describes a 50-plus person engineering team inside a 152-person company.

Founding story

The founding team — Antonio Martínez, previously of Banregio Labs, and Miguel Medina and Ángel Arias, both among Rappi's first hires in Mexico in 2016 — originally built Isibit, an all-in-one business travel platform for employees. Isibit was accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2020 batch, but the COVID-19 pandemic undermined the business travel model. Sales had begun recovering by late 2020, yet the founders concluded that work was becoming remote-first and pivoted, keeping their original goal of improving employee quality of life and launching Plerk as a virtual card for worldwide perks and benefits.

Business model

B2B: employers contract Plerk to administer flexible benefit budgets for their workforces, with the company controlling program design and receiving a single consolidated bill while employees choose where to spend via a virtual card.

Traction

By the July 2021 pre-seed announcement the platform was present in eight countries including the United States, with most revenue from Colombia and Chile and a team of 20. By the August 2022 Series A, Plerk reported more than 40,000 users acquired over the previous year through more than 350 companies in Mexico, Colombia and Chile, with 150 collaborators. Y Combinator lists team size at 28.

Latest developments

In August 2022 Plerk closed a $12M Series A with participation from Upload Ventures, Magma Partners, 500 Startups and MGV Capital. In February 2023 Mexican press reported that Minu and Plerk were merging to strengthen the employee benefits market, and Y Combinator lists Plerk as acquired by Minu.mx. Co-founders have since moved on, with Miguel Medina joining Latitud and Antonio Martínez Quintero founding the product studio Iteris.