INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Sophia Wood is a principal at Magma Partners, a Latin America-focused seed-stage VC firm with offices in Latin America, Asia and the U.S
Sophia is also the co-founder of LatAm List, an English-language Latin American tech news source. More posts by this contributorDecember has
been a strong month for Brazilian startups, bringing a big IPO and a new unicorn for local companies
Tech-driven investment firm XP Investimentos went public on the U.S
Stock Exchange in mid-December, raising $1.81 billion in the fourth-largest IPO of 2019
classes to Brazilians to help them invest in the international stock market
Today, it is a full-service brokerage firm, providing fund management and distribution to more than 1.5 million customers in
This concentration has led to significant inefficiencies that XP tries to disrupt by offering a variety of financial products through an
institutions like XP, whose debt products are attractive to frustrated Brazilian customers
The inefficiency of the Brazilian financial system has opened opportunities for companies like XP, or neobank Nubank, to rapidly attract
almost every month this year, and December was no exception
Gaming startup Wildlife raised a $60 million Series A round led by U.S.-investor Benchmark Capital at a $1.3 billion valuation to become the
This round was big even for Silicon Valley standards, and it is uncommon for startups even in markets like the U.S
Tennis Clash, which have both reached global acclaim
Founded by brothers Victor and Arthur Lazarte, Wildlife operates on a freemium model that only charges users for in-app purchases
They plan to use the funding to double their employee base and grow to $2 billion in 2020, continuing the 80% yearly growth they have seen
platform to help SMEs gain liquidity and grow their operations
These small businesses are often overlooked by banks in Mexico and Latin America, which do not know how to price risk for businesses that
SoftBank has made into Mexico since launching the fund
The tech-driven platform allows Konfio to disburse loans within 24 hours without requiring collateral.Small business lending is a tremendous
opportunity in Latin America, where banks are among the most profitable and the least competitive in the world
bring their newest round to $26.4 million in total
Albo previously raised $7.4 million from Mountain Nazca, Omidyar Network and Greyhound Capital in January 2019
The investment from Valar Ventures, founded by Peter Thiel (also an investor in N26 and TransferWise), is a vote of confidence for this
products, including savings and credit services, in the coming year
While there is room for several competitive neobanks to thrive in Mexico, this industry will be one to watch in 2020.News and Notes: Mercado
Credito, Mimic, Rebel and RappiGoldman Sachs loaned $125 million to MercadoLibre to continue developing their credit product, MercadoCredito
MercadoLibre will use the capital to triple its $100 million debt facility for small business loans in Mexico
Monashees and Fintech Collective to provide unsecured loans to middle-class Brazilians at affordable rates
TCV, Tencent, Sequoia, Dragoneer and Ribbit Capital
investors take an interest in LatAm: Many U.S
investors made their first Latin American investments in 2019, including Valar Ventures (albo), Bezos Expeditions (NotCo), SixThirty Cyber
(Kriptos) and Homebrew (Habi)
This year has also seen large funds like a16z, Sequoia, Accel and others making earlier-stage investments in Latin America, rather than
This change demonstrates that U.S
funds are becoming more familiar and involved with the Latin American ecosystem, helping early-stage companies grow rather than focusing on
international scale-ups as they have in the past.The Cornershop acquisition: Chilean-Mexican delivery startup, Cornershop, was acquired by
Walmart in late 2018 for $225 million, but the deal was blocked by the Mexican government
Four months after the block, Cornershop announced that Uber would take a 51% share of the company for $450 million, representing a 4x growth
in valuation since the previous acquisition deal
ridesharing, delivery and more within a single app
heading in the same direction toward a few apps that integrate dozens of features
As international investors like SoftBank, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia, Accel, Tencent and others are taking more bets on the region, more
startups than ever have scaled and reached unicorn status
