StoneCo Ltd.

As far as we know, no single player had ever tried to do it before in Brazil, and we were the first ones to do so while being profitable. We believe this has brought us significant advantages over time, as we learned a lot from our clients, allowing us to move faster than other players, while keeping very high client satisfaction within our services and products. Table of Contents FORM 20-F 26FY25 72 Tech-enabled distribution: Extensive Reach to our Clients Due to our focus on proximity, digital and strategic channels, we have a broad range of ways we can reach our clients. As a result of our extensive range of channels, (i) we cover more than 99% of Brazil’s GDP and all of the 5,570 Brazilian cities and (ii) through our digital channel, we have millions of accesses per month. Self-Reinforcing Network Effects As we grow and expand our distribution and set of solutions, we benefit from self-reinforcing network effects. Our expanding distribution network enables us to reach more merchants, to whom we can offer more solutions. As we expand our client base, launch new solutions and remain constantly committed to being close to our clients, we are able to build stronger relationships, leading to higher client satisfaction scores, which also leads to new learnings and market insights. This creates a very strong network effect, as clients help us develop new features and solutions and they can also refer our solutions to friends and family.