$DLO Valuation Overview dLocal (also referred to as the "Company" and "DLO") is one of the most misunderstood businesses in fintech — and one of the most compelling long setups in the market today. The Company is the dominant cross-border payment infrastructure provider across 40 emerging markets. Global merchants — think streaming platforms, ride-hailing apps, e-commerce giants, and remittance networks — need a single trusted rail to collect and disburse money across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. dLocal is that rail. It earns a take rate on every dollar of Total Payment Volume ("TPV") it processes, and as it scales with large merchants, volume grows faster than costs, driving operating leverage and compounding free cash flow. The pitch is simple: you are buying a capital-light, high-conversion cash machine at an unjustifiably low multiple for the growth rate on offer. Specifically, as at market close on May 1, 2026, dLocal's common shares are valued at $13.75-per-share. The attached model I made, built on what I view as realistic assumptions and anchored to management guidance, implies a share price of ~$49 by 2030 on a 20x FCF multiple and ~$52 by 2030 on a 20x P/E multiple, representing a 38-40% compounded annual rate of return over this period. Here is every assumption and why I made it. Assumption 1: TPV Growth 2026: 55% YoY  |  2027: 30%  |  2028: 25%  |  2029: 20%  |  2030: 15% Management guided formally for 50–60% TPV growth in 2026 on their Q4 2025 earnings call — I am taking the midpoint at 55%. The deceleration from 2027 onward is deliberate and conservative. As TPV approaches $100 billion , dLocal begins to encounter the law of large numbers, whereby sustaining 50% growth is structurally harder. In response, I step down forecasted TPV growth progressively: 30% in 2027, 25% in 2028, 20% in 2029, and 15% in 2030. By 2030 the model implies a TPV base of ~$142B. For context, 2024 TPV was $25.6B — this trajectory reflects a company winning durable market share in digital payments across the highest-growth economies on earth, not a moonshot. Assumption 2: Take Rate Compression 2026–2028: –20bps/yr  |  2029: –8bps  |  2030: unchanged at ~2.00% A declining take rate is the most misunderstood line in the DLO model and the source of most of the market's skepticism towards the stock. Take rate compression is real, structural, and intentional — management explicitly treats take rate as an output metric, not something they optimize. The logic is: when DLocal wins a large global merchant like a major ride-hailing platform or streaming service, it competes aggressively on price to lock in volume. Once you have the volume, the absolute gross profit dollars grow even as the percentage shrinks. This is identical to how every scaled payments business — Adyen, Stripe, PayPal at maturity — has operated. I assume 20bps of annual compression through 2028, reflecting the ongoing merchant mix shift at dLocal toward large-volume accounts. The pace of compression slows to 8bps in 2029 and stabilizes flat in 2030 at ~2.00%, where I believe the floor sits given the complexity premium dLocal charges for emerging market infrastructure. CEO Pedro Arnt has recently stated that he believes dLocal's take rate will flatten and could even rise in the near future. Arnt cited several levers whereby dLocal could attain take rate flattening/re-acceleration, including: (i) building trust with merchants who they are currently offering initial volume discounts to; (ii)  a consolidation of dLocal's competitors; (iii) continued revenue growth at dLocal (scale as a differentiator); (iv) fragmentation in payments infrastructure across the emerging world increasing the value of dLocal's product offerings; and (v) the introduction of new, higher-margin financial infrastructure products (credit, KYC, etc.) by dLocal. Assumption 3: Operating Profit Margin 2026: 18.2%  |  2027: 22.5%  |  2028: 24.5%  |  2029: 26.0%  |  2030: 27.5% On the Q4 2025 call, management guided operating profit growth of 27.5–32.5% YoY. Taking the midpoint implies approximately $286 million in 2026 operating profit for dLocal, an 18.2% operating profit margin. If these assumptions hold, dLocal's operating profit margin in 2026 (18.2%) will be lower than 2025 (20.1%). This can be attributed to lagging effects from dLocal's 2025 investment cycle, in which 2025 headcount increases were backloaded, pushing YoY OpEx growth higher in H1 2026. While the market may respond negatively to increased OpEx and lower operating profit margins on dLocal's Q1 2026 earnings call, as the Company exits its 2025 investment cycle (DLO has committed to no headcount increases in 2026) the effects of operating leverage will become more visible in H2 2026. I plan to increase my holdings in dLocal if we see a sell-off post Q1 2026  attributed to a "margin compression" narrative. From 2027, dLocal's expansion path reflects two compounding forces. First, the 2025 investment cycle is fully absorbed, meaning the cost base is largely fixed while gross profit continues to grow. Second, dLocal's AI productivity programme delivered gains equivalent to 93 full-time employees in 2025 alone — roughly 7% of headcount — enabling 50% revenue growth with minimal incremental hiring. These gains compound. By 2030, a 27.5% operating margin reflects a structurally more efficient business, not an aggressive assumption: it is broadly in line with where Adyen and other scaled payment rails have landed at equivalent maturity points. Assumption 4: Shares Outstanding 305M shares (2024) → ~258M shares (2030), net of buybacks This is a structural tailwind most models underweight. dLocal's board approved a new $300 million buyback program in March 2026, funded by free cash flow and expiring in March 2027. Assuming an average buyback price of $16-per-share, dLocal will repurchase 18,750,000 shares in 2026 and early 2027, bringing dLocal's shares outstanding to ~272 million. From here, I assume that management allocates 25% of dLocal's free cash flow to share repurchases. Assuming an average buyback price of $25 in 2027, $30 in 2028, $35 in 2029 and $40 in 2030, this will bring dLocal's shares outstanding to ~258 million by 2030. These buybacks matters enormously for per-share value: EPS and FCF per share grow faster than absolute earnings because you are dividing a growing numerator by a shrinking denominator. This is one of the underappreciated aspects of the dLocal story — management is systematically concentrating ownership in a business with improving unit economics. Assumption 5: FCF-to-Net Income Conversion 95% throughout 2026–2030 In 2025, dLocal's adjusted FCF-to-net-income conversion came in at 97%. This reflects the capital-light nature of the model: minimal capex requirements, no inventory, no physical infrastructure. I hold the conversion ratio at a conservative 95% across the entire forecast to account for the reality of operating across 40 emerging markets — some quarters will see working capital drag from FX timing differences, local liquidity buffer requirements, and jurisdictional cash trapping. The practical implication is that nearly every dollar of reported net income flows through to cash available for dividends, buybacks, and reinvestment — which is exactly the capital return flywheel that management is executing against. Bonus: Dividends dLocal has a formal, board-approved dividend policy of distributing 30% of the prior year's free cash flow as an annual dividend. At the current share price of ~$13, that implies a dividend yield of roughly 1.5% — modest in isolation, but this is not a dividend story in the traditional sense. The importance of the policy is what it signals: management is so confident in the repeatability and durability of cash generation that they are legally committing to return a fixed proportion of it every year, even while simultaneously running a $300 million buyback program. Bottom Line At $13.75-per-dLocal share, you are buying a business trading near its 2023 lows, with earnings growing at 60% YoY, a 97% FCF conversion ratio, a management team actively shrinking the share count, and a formal 2026 growth guide that — if they hit the midpoint — would put the stock at a material discount to fair value even on conservative out-year assumptions. The market is pricing in execution failure. My model is pricing in execution. Disclaimer Dlocal is a core position in my portfolio, currently representing a 16.5% weight. I found the name from analysts on this platform who I have a great deal of respect for, such as @realroseceline, whose views and input have underpinned certain assumptions in the above model.