FinTech news in latin america category

The company, founded by Rene Saul and Fernando Sandoval in 2020, got started after the pair sold their previous business and wanted to build a platform that could provide a way for small and medium-sized businesses across Latin America to have all of their financial needs, including cash flow, credit and investments, all in one place.

The company, co-founded by Manuel Alemán, Rodolfo Lazo and Paul Cattólica in 2022, is developing a vertical SaaS product for institutions, like banks and credit unions, that want to launch and operate their own credit products.

Unlike other fintechs that are concentrating on large, urban areas, Aviva is concentrating on smaller communities where the company can address the lack of trust in banks, predatory interest rates and help users who may not have the technical ability, like a smartphone, to purchase financial products directly. With that new capital, Aviva is going to invest in building out its credit and underwriting system, preparing to launch the company’s own credit card and expanding its kiosks. He met his co-founders David Hernandez and Amran Frey at Konfio, and, along with Israel Garcia, started Aviva, a Mexico-based fintech startup focused on bringing working capital to unserved communities. Aviva’s approach uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to match customers’ spoken word to the fields of a real-time credit application.

When we profiled Kredito last year, Sebastian Robles, co-founder and CEO, told journalist that business credit didn’t automatically come with an account, leaving business owners to use personal credit cards. The company launched to the public in 2021 and partners with financial institutions to help small businesses with their spend management, access digital unsecured loans, open a bank account and obtain a business credit card. Instead, Kredito takes on that risk by using a proprietary algorithm and alternative data to evaluate credit risk more inclusively than traditional banks, and in real time, Robles said. Robles intends to use the new capital to expand into new countries and consolidate its growth in Chile.

He led the building of the company on the rails of Latamex, Latin America’s largest fiat-to-crypto gateway that provides what he told journalist is a safe option for users to buy and sell crypto from exchanges like Binance. The company is now also working off of $15 million in seed funding from a group of investors, including Y Combinator, Race Capital, BlockTower, Danhua Capital, Signum Capital and Goat Capital. Ping users create a free account in U.S. dollars to receive bank transfers in either their local currency or crypto, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. The company was started in 2021 to solve payment challenges in Latin America, where about 70% of the population does not have a traditional bank account.

While there are other NFT marketplaces both in Latin America and around the world, Minteo plans to differentiate itself through its infrastructure and focus on working with local artists and brands, among other things, Santiago Rodríguez, CEO of Minteo, said to journalist. With that said, Rodríguez said he is already seeing a lot of interest for NFTs in Latin America. Investors in the round include Fabric Ventures, Dune Ventures, CMT Digital, Impatient VC, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, SevenX Ventures, FJ Labs, Big Brain Holdings, G20 Ventures, Alliance DAO, Zero Knowledge and several angel investors. The capital will be used to build up the platform, get artists on board from Colombia and Mexico then over time expand into other Latin American countries, Rodríguez said.

When DolarApp founders Zach Garman, Álvaro Correa and Fernando Terrés were living in the United States and Europe, they would spend time in Latin America, where they saw problems that friends were having when it came to finances and access to banking in dollars.

Northzone raised half a billion round in Europe, while LatAm VCs raising their biggest funds yet

Prior to helping co-found Geopagos, Núñez Castro spent over 14 years as VP and general manager of Amex´s GNS, LatAm division, where he managed the card business operation in Latin America, including penetration into new markets.

Mudafy, a tech-enabled real estate broker operating in Latin America, has raised $10 million in a Series A round of funding led by San Francisco-based Founders Fund.

BAI Capital, GIC and GGV Capital co-led the equity portion of the deal, which also included participation from other existing and new investors.

OP Crypto is raising $100 million for its new investment, dubbed ‘Fund of Funds’, to deploy capital into emerging fund managers focused on early-stage crypto investments.

Ecuadorian payments infrastructure company Kushki has raised $100 million in an extension to its Series B round, more than doubling its valuation to $1.5 billion. Put simply, Kushki aims to help make it easier, cheaper and more secure for businesses across LatAm to send and receive/process digital payments.

Zhang said she has noticed a growing interest of funds coming into the crypto space or new funds launching to invest in crypto after they saw the potentials of blockchain technology and crypto ecosystem.

Nowports, an automated digital freight forwarder in Latin America, has raised $150 million in a Series C funding round which values the company at $1.1 billion.

When Pedro Conrade started Brazilian digital bank Neon in 2016, he was a 23-year-old business school student who was frustrated with the service and costs associated with traditional banking in his country.

In 2014, Riverwood Capital and Antonio Soares — who now serves as Dock’s CEO — bought out 100% of Conductor and essentially created the company that is Dock today. The company’s client base includes fintechs, retailers, banks and technology companies that are focused on not only improving the customer experience for the currently banked population, but also on helping bring previously unbanked and underbanked consumers into the digital payments and banking systems.

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.

The company raised $230 million in an equity and debt Series A round last year, led by Kaszek, and since then expanded into Mexico, growing its client roster over five times to 15,000, growing Mexico revenue by 60 times and launching its new Xepelin Payments product 90 days ago that enables users to organize and automate payments to suppliers, with and without financing.

Transportation startup DeltaX is accelerating its plans to digitize the trucking industry in its native Bolivia and beyond thanks to a recent $1 million seed round. With participation from high-level roles in Latin America’s transportation sector, including two startup founders: Nowports CEO Alfonso de los Rios and Nuvocargo CEO Deepak Chhugani.

Notably, dozens of angel investors also put money in Truora’s latest financing round. Truora, a Colombian user authentication startup, has raised $15 million in Series A funding co-led by two Silicon Valley-based venture firms.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and NFX co-led Latitud’s $11.5 million seed funding round, which also included participation from Endeavor, Canary, FJ Labs, Ganas Ventures and unicorn founders.

Riogrande plans to have about 30 brands under its umbrella.

Leasy, a startup that offers automobile financing to ride-hailing drivers in Latin America via a subscription model, has secured $2 million in equity and $15 million in debt.

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.

Bold, a technology company working to enable financial access to electronic payments in Colombia, has raised $55 million in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global Management.

Alejandro Echavarria and Leon Papu, both managing partners, co-founded the venture capital firm in 2020 with Pablo Navarro, operating partner, to focus on early-stage, business-to-business startups in emerging markets. They started Marathon initially as a company builder in 2020, which is how they ended up investing in Tul, ​​a B2B e-commerce marketplace that optimizes the construction-material supply chain for hardware stores across Latin America. Brazil and Mexico are most known as Latin America hot startup ecosystems, but other countries, like Colombia, are gaining visibility and interest from investors. In addition to Tul, the fund has invested in eight companies and is already seeing an approximate two-time return over the total fund size to date.

Melonn, a Colombian startup that provides fulfillment and software services to small and medium-sized e-commerce companies in Latin America, has raised $20 million in a Series A round led by QED Investors.

Founders Fund Partner Matias Van Thienen said his firm had been looking for an investing and savings platform in Latin America that could offer global equities with a high-quality product and a suitable regulatory approach.

The company also has a tech hub in Spain (Furio’s home country), where about 20% of the company’s tech team is based. It also runs Creditas Store, an e-commerce platform with a payroll-deductible buy now, paylater model and Voltz, a manufacturer of electric motorcycles in Brazil (and after its strategic investment in Voltz Motors, next-generation EV motorcycles and scooters).

Keep an eye on enterprising companies pushing into these areas – specifically collectibles – as a way to broaden the reach of crypto and blockchain in 2022.

David Eduardo Arrambide Montemayor and Maurizio Caló Caligaris, both Stanford-educated engineers, started Calii, a mobile grocery app that connects with producers and brands to automate the supply chain end-to-end and deliver more than 5,000 products, like produce, meat, seafood and prepared items, via a network of micro-fulfillment centers.

On a call with journalist, QED co-founder and managing partner Nigel Morris said that adding Africa is the final jigsaw puzzle that makes QED Investors a fully global fintech-specialist firm. Before QED Investors, Ajayi worked in different roles across Africa and global fintech/tech.

Mexican revenue-based investment startup Fairplay secured $35 million in Series A funding to invest in the online marketing campaigns of direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands and marketplace sellers in Latin America.