Brazil startup is taking payments tech to US with sights on Mars

The big goal for the 39-year-old Silva, who was born in a small town in Sao Paulo state and taught himself programming, is for his company to become an ‘interplanetary payments solution’. — Photo by David Dvořáček on Unsplash

Luis Silva, the chief executive officer and founder of Brazilian payments startup CloudWalk, has lofty ambitions.

After launching the firm a decade ago, he’s now taking tap-to-pay and other technologies to merchants in the US with plans to expand globally – and then into outer space – in an unusual type of long-term planning.