LatAm Fintech Snapshot: May 2019
7 June, 2019
Katie Llanos-Small
In May, LatAm’s fintech industry attracted its highest monthly investment volume for the year. Through just five deals, investors put $105.5 million to work in LatAm fintechs.
One investment, in particular, stood out. The payment fintech Clip raised an impressive US$100million investment round from Softbank and General Atlantic. This is not only the largest fintech investment so far this year in the region, but also the first investment by Softbank in Mexico, bringing more attention to this fast-growing market.
With this investment, Mexico led the region in May, raising 95.6% of the total capital into LatAm fintech. Another worth mentioning deal was the Brazilian HR/fintech startup Xerpa, which raised a Series A round of US$4million from a selected group of investors: Kaszek, QED, and Redpoint e.Ventures.
After I complained last month about a scarcity of fintech exits, this month we had the acquisition of Mexican Creze by Polygon Fintech for an undisclosed amount and the Brazilian PagBem by the financial institution Omni for US$24.4million
Also, Nubank said would be expanding to Mexico soon. The announcement was expected – but it probably anyway scared the local banks. It will be using the brand name of Nu in Mexico.
Although this month was a good one for investments and exits, I think the best of 2019 is still ahead. Already in June it’s reported that Softbank is investing US$200million in Brazil’s Creditas and General Atlantic is in advanced talks with Neon, large rounds for these Brazilian fintechs.
Last, but not least, I missed the Bcredi round by e.Bricks (undisclosed) and the Tecnisys round by Riverwood Capital (US$50million) last month.
Well, let’s jump into the relevant fintech deals and news of May, and stay tuned to the next Fintech Snapshot next month! And you can check out what happened in April in this post
Main Fintech Investments
- Brazil – Data analytics fintech Data Risk, received a US$610,000 investment from Criatec 2
- Brazil – HR/Fintech startup Xerpa closed a Series A round of US$4million from a great group of investors: Kaszek, QED, and Redpoint e.Ventures
- Mexico – Mexican KYC provider TuIdentidad received a US$600,000 investment from Dark Horse and Finnovista
- Mexico – Insurtech MangoLife closed an angel investment from Manuel Rivero Zambrano, CEO of Banregio, of US$300,000
- Mexico – Mexican payment processor Clip received a massive round of US$100million from Softbank and General Atlantic
M&A
- Mexico – Mexican online lending provider Creze was acquired by Polygon Fintech for an undisclosed amount to improve its offering to SMEs
- Brazil – The Brazilian toll payment provider PagBem was acquired by the financial institution Omni for around US$ 24.4M
Regulations
- Brazil – The Brazilian securities and markets commission (CVM) announced that will be launching a Sandbox for fintechs by the end of the year
Partnerships
- Brazil – The online lending platform Kerograna agreed a partnership with the financial institution CBSS to provide loans focused on women
Relevant Moves
- Brazil – Latin America’s largest bank, Itaú, entered the QR code payment space by launching its own solution called Iti
- Brazil – Conductor, a fintech, launched Merci, a solution that enables private label cards to have access to products and services from a network of partners
- Brazil – Nubank, most funded fintech in the region, announced that would be entering the Mexican market with its brand Nu
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.