LATAM Fintech | 2021 #13
Hi, there! Welcome back to another LATAM Fintech Newsletter. In this newsletter, I cover all the major news related to LATAM Fintech. Thank you for subscribing!
Though the growth of fintech in Latin America (Latam) started later than in other regions, it quickly picked up steam.
Today, Latam is experiencing an explosion of fintech activity that’s being fueled by rising demand for online banking tools, encouraging demographics, and a significantly underserved population.
A report released in November 2020 by the Bank for International Settlements provides an overview of the Latam fintech ecosystem, showcasing that across the region, two countries, namely Brazil and Mexico, are dominating the landscape.
👉 Read more here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF THE LATEST NEWS IN LATAM
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Startup investors have been putting a whole lot more capital into Latin America for the past couple of years. Now they have something to show for it: A large and fast-growing stable of unicorns.
At least 23 private Latin American companies have now crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold, per an analysis of Crunchbase data.
Collectively, they’ve raised over $15 billion in sectors ranging from fintech to food. We put together a list of them below:
👉 Read more here.
INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Revolut announced its simplifying cross-border payments between the US and Mexico with the launch of its US-Mexico remittance corridor. Link here.
⭐️ This year's edition of the Global Fintech Rankings report, prepared by Findexable in collaboration with Mambu, states that São Paulo is becoming a fintech powerhouse. Link here.
⭐️ Early-stage venture capital fund Newtopia VC launched Monday with $50 million to invest in tech startups based in Latin America. Link here.
⭐️ Nubank launched a new project targeting the gaming world. Link here.
⭐️ Roxe, a next-generation global payment network, announced that Rana Express will become a Roxe node to send remittances from the United States to beneficiaries in Brazil using the Rana Wallet. Link here.
PERU
Paysafe, a leading specialized payments platform, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire PagoEfectivo, a market-leading, Peruvian alternative payments (APM) platform.
For Paysafe, this latest investment is a strategic foothold in Latin America, one of the world’s fastest-growing online markets where merchants and consumers alike are demonstrating an increased appetite for alternative payment methods and online banking solutions.
👉 Read more here.
BRAZIL
Nubank announced the acquisition of American automated chat company. The deal is part of a bid by Brazil's largest fintech to be more aligned with the real needs of its over 40 million customers.
Founded in 2010 in the United States, Juntos Global operates as a kind of automated and personalized chat platform.
Its purpose is to create more assertive dialogues between companies and their clients in digital environments, particularly companies in the financial sector.
👉 Read more here.
Also, Nubank began offering an international remittance service in partnership with the Brazilian platform Remessa Online powered by Beetech.
In the wake of Latin America‘s largest neobank, the platform expects to jump from 350,000 to 1 million customers served in the next 12 months and increase its revenue by 150% in 2022.
👉 Read more here.
Payments firm Conductor has hired banks for an initial public offering (IPO) in the United States that could come as early as this year, as Latin America's financial sector is enlivened by the arrival of several newcomers, three sources familiar with the matter said.
👉 Read more here.
A significant migration from paper currency to digital means of payment will take place in the next few years, according to João Manoel Pinho de Mello, a director of the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB).
During a panel discussion Thursday on the potential of the digital real organized by BCB, Mello stated that the move to digital payments will involve the use of central bank digital currencies (CBDC), Valor Economico, a Brazilian financial newspaper,
👉 Read more here.
MEXICO
Mexico City-based B2B software and payments company Yaydoo closed a $20.4 million Series A funding round Monday.
The company said the new funding will let it grow its team in Mexico and, once it expands, allow the company to hire staff in Latin America.
👉 Read more here.
While many other fintechs in the region are creating credit cards with lower limits in order to reach a wider audience, Aplazo is going about it differently.
Today the BNPL startup, which is less than one-year-old, announced the closing of its seed round of $5.25 million led by Kaszek Ventures with participation from Picus Capital, and Woodson Capital.
👉 Read more here.
In the six years since launching Credijusto.com, a Mexican FinTech lending to small businesses, David Poritz credijusto and Allan Apoj Pascal delivered more than 250 per cent annual revenue growth and managed to turn Covid-19 into an opportunity.
But when the co-chief executives decided to go mainstream by buying a bank, even one of their biggest backers baulked.
👉 Read more here.
CHILE
Xepelin, which has created a financial services platform for SMEs in Latin America, has secured $30 million in equity and $200 million in credit facilities.
LatAm venture fund Kaszek Ventures led the equity portion of the financing, which also included participation from partners of DST Global and a slew of other firms and founders/angel investors. LatAm- and U.S.-based asset managers and hedge funds — including Chilean pension funds — provided the credit facilities. In total over its lifetime, Xepelin has raised over $36 million in equity and $250 million in asset-backed facilities.
👉 Read more here.
COLOMBIA
La Haus, which has developed an online real estate marketplace operating in Mexico and Colombia, has secured $100 million in additional funding, including $50 million in equity and $50 million in debt financing.
The new capital was obtained as an extension to the company’s Series B, the first tranche of which closed in January.
With the latest infusion, Medellin, Colombia-based La Haus has now secured $135 million total for the round and over $158 million in funding since its 2017 inception.
👉 Read more here.
Bogota startups concentrated 85% of the venture capital raised by the Colombian entrepreneurship ecosystem in the first half of the year.
United States, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina are the countries from which the largest number of investments arrived. Technology-based startups generated the greatest interest in investment vehicles.
👉 Read more here.
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This ends my weekly LATAM fintech newsletter. Thank you for reading to the end! If you liked it, I invite you to like, share and/or leave a comment below.
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Regards,
Marcel van Oost
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