LatAm Fintech Snapshot: June 2019

11 July, 2019

Katie Llanos-Small

 

June was a record-breaking month for fintech investments in 2019, with LatAm fintechs raising a total of US$ 237 million in eight equity deals. This was more than twice the amount raised in May, previously the busiest month for LatAm fintech deals. 

Creditas, a Brazilian lending platform, raised an impressive US$ 200million from the Japanese behemonth, Softbank. This investment brought Creditas close to becoming a unicorn, with a US$ 700million valuation. Softbank isn’t losing any time after announcing in March its US$ 5 billion fund focused in the region, putting to work already more than half a billion dollars.

Also another relevant deal was the US$ 12.5 M investment in Colombia’s ADDI, with none less than Andreessen Horowitz leading the round. Previous investors Monashees, Village Global, and Sinai VC also participated. This is the first fintech investment by Andreessen Horowitz in Latin America. ADDI is a point-of-sale lending platform similar to the American startup Affirm, which Andreessen Horowitz also invested in.

Also in June, Brazilian startup Nubank raised a US$ 96million debt round to expand its credit product to its customer base.

This month we saw a concentration of 92.86% of all the disclosed equity investments happening in Brazil, mostly because of the Creditas round, followed by Colombia with 5.25% and Chile with 1.26%.

Well, let’s jump into the relevant fintech deals and news of June, and stay tuned to the next Fintech Snapshot next month! 

Main Investments

• Brazil – The P2P consumer lending Mutual closed a crowd-equity round of US$ 1million in the EqSeed platform, the largest one in Brazil so far.
• Brazil –  The Brazilian lending platform Creditas raised an astonishing US$ 200million investment from the mega fund Softbank, raising the valuation of the company to US$ 700 M. 
• Brazil – Nubank, the leading neobank in Latin America, raised US$ 96.4million in senior and subordinated debt through a local bond offering in Brazil. 
• Brazil – The insurtech Minuto Seguros raised an undisclosed round from Redpoint e.Ventures and Intact Ventures, since 2014 the investors joined 3 rounds for a total of US$ 60million.
• Brazil – The Banking-as-a-Service platform BTX Digital raised US$ 20million from RedLions Capital 
• Colombia –  The Colombia identity startup Truora received an undisclosed investment from Magma Partners.
• Colombia –  The point-of-sale lending platform, ADDI, received a US$ 12.5million investment from Andreessen Horowitz, Monashees, Village Global, and Sinai VC.
• Chile – The Chilean crowdfunding platform, Redcapital, raised a US$ 3million investment round from HCS Capital.
• Chile – The micro-lending platform focused on ride-railing drivers Kredito raised an undisclosed angel round from the co-founder of Cornershop.

M&A

• Germany – Alllpago, a German payment gateway that focus on Latin America, was acquired by PPRO for an undisclosed amount.
• Mexico – The digital wallet Flinto merged with Grow Mobility.

Regulations

• Chile – The CMF has proposed rule changes that would relax restrictions on the use of offshore data processing services. A public consultation on the changes closes on July 19.
• Peru – Peru is changing the definition of debit and credit cards – recognizing them as payments methods that could be delivered through mobile apps or QR codes – and proposing tighter user protection mechanisms. Peru also recently allowed car insurance to be sold via digital channels.

Partnerships

• Mexico – Rappi announced together with VISA a new debit card to expand the use of its digital wallet to the brick-and-mortar world.

Relevant Moves

• Argentina – After announcing the expansion to Mexico, the Brazilian neobank Nubank announced that is entering the Argentinian market as well.
• Latin America – In the beginning of the month, Facebook announced plans for Libra, a digital currency, together with 27 other founding members, with two Latin American representants (PayU and Mercado Pago) 

Thiago Paiva is a partner at Liquia Digital Assets, an investment bank for the digital assets economy. He is passionate about the intersection of finance and technology.

He has 8+ years working with startups and innovation, investing in more than 60 startups through global accelerators Wayra (Telefonica’s global accelerator) and Startupbootcamp Fintech. He worked closely with more than 20 fintechs from 8 different countries for the past five years.