LATAM Fintech | 2021 #23
INTERVIEW
Hernan Kazah of Kaszek talks about how its Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company, MEKA, provides better opportunities than other blank-check companies for Latin American start-ups that want to go public.
👉Watch the interview here.
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MVO - THE CARD COLLECTION
Máximo, FinTech that develops financial services for young people, with the support of Mastercard, launches in the Peruvian market "Máximo League of Legends Esports", the first prepaid card in Latin America for gamers in partnership with Riot.
This prepaid card seeks to be the first contact with the financial market of the millions of young lovers of video games.
With the support of Mastercard's secure payment ecosystem, this card allows them to use their money responsibly, educating themselves financially with the Maximo application.
👉Read more here.
ARTICLE
Mastercard announced it has acquired Arcus FI, an alum of the company’s Start Path program, to help support the delivery of bill pay solutions and other real-time payment applications across Latin America.
With offices in New York and Mexico City, Arcus helps to enable bill pay and cash-in, cash-out services for some of the biggest billers, retailers, FinTechs, and traditional financial institutions in the U.S. and Mexico, with expansion into Latin America.
Its flagship solution, the Arcus Pay Network, has access to the largest retailers and direct connection with many of the largest billers in Mexico.
👉 Read more here.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF THE LATEST NEWS IN LATAM
NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
Fintech startup Jefa has raised a $2 million seed round to build a fintech startup offering digital accounts with a product specifically designed for women living in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The company has managed to attract 115,000 women on its waitlist and participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield last year.
In addition to this funding round, the startup has also signed a deal with Visa. It’s a multi-year strategic partnership agreement. Jefa will be able to take advantage of Visa’s resources and products to create its payment products and more.
👉 Read more here.
INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Bitso, a top crypto platform in Latin America that reports over 3.3 million users, has launched “Bitso Shift,” a service that allows Mexican people and companies to send and receive payments between Mexico and the United States. Link here.
⭐️ Bankingly, the Uruguayan digital banking services provider, announced its entry to Mexico in conjunction with CSN Cooperative Financiera. Link here.
⭐️ Wibond, the Argentinian digital payments platform, announced a partnership with Tiendanube to offer buy now, pay later to the e-commerce platform’s merchants. Link here.
⭐️ TruePay, a one-year-old São Paulo-based “buy now, pay later” startup, announced that it has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Lee Fixel’s Addition. Link here.
⭐️ Business-driven and passionate about the world of Open Finance, Guilherme Wenceloski is a true challenge seeker, who is always looking for ways to improve but who also challenges Belvo “to be better every day”. Link here.
⭐️ MercadoPago customers in Brazil will soon be able to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies using their digital wallets, as the largest Latin American company by market capitalization looks to expand its lineup of financial products. Link here.
⭐️ Z1, a Brazilian neobank focused on offering digital accounts and a linked prepaid card to teenagers and young adults, secured $10 million in Series A funding just six months after taking in $2.5 million. Link here.
BRAZIL
Nubank, one of the world's largest digital banking platforms, reinventing over 48 million customers' financial lives in Latin America, today launched an E-commerce offering in its app, through a partnership with retail brands.
The new vertical is the first non-financial service to be offered to customers in Brazil and aims to satisfy the needs of customers beyond financial services.
👉Read more here.
CloudWalk, a Brazilian fintech, announced the close of a $150 million Series C round of funding. The company, which is based in São Paulo, offers payment processing to about 150,000 merchants across 4,300 cities in Brazil.
The company, which offers both hardware and software, distinguishes itself from other companies in the space by offering cashback in Brazilian Digital Reals (BDR), a cryptocurrency. The company said that BDR is accepted by all of its clients.
👉Read more here.
Omie, a Brazilian cloud-based SaaS ERP platform focused on mid-sized companies, has announced its acquisition of Linker, a digital bank.
The company invested approximately USD 22 million in the digital bank acquisition. By the deal, Omie incorporates Linker’s full operation.
Founded in 2019, Linker offers financial services and banking solutions (such as digital accounts, credit cards, and payment management) to 30,000 small and medium-sized businesses. Linker also partners with more than 100 accounting firms.
👉Read more here.
MEXICO
Mexico is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, yet its local businesses still struggle to access credit without exorbitant fees and tedious paperwork.
Mastercard, the world's leading payments company, and Jeeves, the preferred financial partner for Mexican businesses, have partnered together to solve this issue by launching the first physical card that allows companies to pay in any local currency from all countries Mastercard currently operates.
"The startup ecosystem in Mexico and all of Latin America is thriving. As founders ourselves, we understand their needs, which is why it is important that we offer this card to them now.
In addition to no fees and up to 4% cashback, our cards provide the flexibility and security LATAM startups are hungry for," says Dileep Thazhmon, CEO and founder of Jeeves.
👉Read more here.
COLOMBIA
Four months ago, Finaktiva said it would seek to become a Neobank (or challenger bank) focused on providing various financial services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
This came after they raised US$8 million in equity and debt funding and raising US$120.2 million in total, according to Crunchbase.
How have they achieved this? The first step they took was to increase their portfolio, which included credit, insurance, factoring, debt funds, and non-financial support tools.
Therefore, part of their growth strategy was the acquisition of Libera.
Libera is a fintech company, made up of national and multinational companies, that promotes factoring and confirming operations in Colombia. The amount of this transaction has not been disclosed.
Finaktiva and Libera, both Colombian companies, seek to facilitate one of the main problems SMEs face in the world: access to financial services, reported Colombia Fintech.
👉 Read more here.
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