THIS WEEK’S FUNDING NEWS OVERVIEW
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👀 NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Nubank began releasing its Nucoin token, developed on Polygon, to customers in Brazil. The coin will function as a rewards mechanism for Nubank’s 70 million customers.
100 billion Nucoins will be issued in total, with 80 % of these allocated for Nubank customers and future partner companies.
📰 ARTICLE
Credit, cross-border transactions, direct debit – What’s next for Brazil’s Pix in 2023?
Last year, Pix grew by leaps and bounds in Brazil, further disrupting Latin America’s largest economy and paving the way for a new wave of digitization.
By 2023, it had almost 135 million users in a country with a population of 210 million. At the same time, transactions now surpass the trillion reais mark per month, or close to $200 billion.
👉 Read full Brazil’s Pix story by Fintech Nexus News here.
📰 ARTICLE
Nubank changed how Brazil banks. Now it’s helping users plan and grow their savings.
“As Latin Americans, we go through so much frustration as consumers,” says Nubank’s CEO, David Vélez, “and I wanted to challenge that.”
In September, the company rolled out Caixinhas, or money boxes, which have changed how people save money. Mainstream savings accounts were undifferentiated and often actually lost customers’ money over time because of inflation.
NOW, ON TO THE SUMMARY OF LAST WEEK'S NEWS
☕️ REGIONAL HIGHLIGHTS
⭐️ Brazil's central bank approved Meta Platforms' payments launch for small and medium-sized business in Brazil 🇧🇷via its messaging application WhatsApp, building on the app's existing local peer-to-peer payment system.
⭐️ Destácame raised an investment round worth USD $10M.
⭐️ Barte raised $3 million in a seed funding round.
⭐️ Datamart raised US$6 million in a funding round.
FinTech Meetup in Vegas is just around the corner and I will start and close it with a bang. Join me and let's do this together!
BRAZIL
After receiving authorization from the Central Bank, Belvo launches open finance payments solution to help companies leverage Pix in Brazil. With this open finance payment solution, users can initiate Pix payments inside third-party environments with less friction than traditional Pix methods.
Barte raised $3 million in a seed funding round. Its payments platform promises to centralize SME transactions, simplifying complex payment processes and unlocking growth.
Blipay received USD $6.7M (R $35M) in funding from SRM Ventures. The investment will allow the startup to expand its product offering and reach more than 300,000 customers.
MEXICO
Bank of Mexico (Banxico) made known that it is working on a telephone number-based money transfer platform. Banxico’s platform known as DiMo, will encourage the unbanked to open bank accounts by directing them to platforms to open digital bank accounts to receive money sent to them by other users.
CHILE
Destácame with over 4.5 million customers in Chile and Mexico raised an investment round worth USD $10M led by Santander X and included the participation of existing investors Kayyak Ventures and FEN Ventures.
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Nubank added Meta and PayPal veteran David Marcus to its board of directors.
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