FinTech news in LATAM category

Less than one year after Upload Ventures spun out of SoftBank investment arm, the Latin American-focused investment arm is seeking to raise a $250 million fund, filings show.

Nicolás Giménez, the co-founder of Argentina-based startup Fidu, has convinced over 1,000 schools across the Latin America region to place their operations in the hands of a scrappy edtech startup. Fidu wants to build a new operating system for LatAm schools, so that institutions can digitally manage everything from finances to schoolwide announcements. Here’s how the startup’s debut products work: School administrators can use Fidu’s app to send tuition and pay slips to parents, and then tuition is paid by the recipients via phone. Latin American schools are working with paper, WhatsApp groups and e-mail, Giménez said.

Over the past year, Habi says it has worked on building out its services and proprietary database, so that it can offer customers a full stack of services including iBuyer, brokerage, financial services and a marketplace. With this latest raise, Habi says it has become the second unicorn in Colombia and only LatAm unicorn with a female founder and CEO.

However, now that consumers have grown comfortable with BNPL as a concept and are increasingly using it as an alternative to credit cards, we’re seeing opportunities for new BNPL products for recurring bills, such as rent or streaming service subscriptions.

Simetrik recently began offering a payment methods orchestrator, which it says allows payment services companies to be able to connect directly to different payment methods. In other words, ​​says co-founder and COO Santiago Gomez, the company’s software automates reconciliation for financial teams that have a high number of transactions and reports.

Why global investors are flocking to back Latin American startups Marcos Toledo, managing partner at venture firm Canary, said that in their previous roles, Mara’s co-founders created, operated and disrupted very complex businesses, in sectors like ride-hailing and food delivery.

Riogrande plans to have about 30 brands under its umbrella.

Mundi, a financial services platform for cross-border trade, announced today it has raised $16 million in a Series A funding round led by Union Square Ventures.