$70 million in fintech funding

Hola amig@s fintech,

This month brings celebrations of independence for Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, and the United States. Whether you are a proud national of these countries, living abroad, or an international resident, we hope you enjoy the festivities! Speaking of celebrations, don't forget to register for our upcoming Fintech Happy Hour/Summer Social event in Mexico City. RSVP here and meet the great Latam fintech community.

Please find below this week’s front page of Latam fintech news. If you’re reading this on the web, we’d appreciate your support by sharing and subscribing.  

💛 Until next weekend. Até a próxima! - Lorena

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📊 Stat of the Week

📖  Read of the Week

According to Mastercard's report “The State of Financial Inclusion in Latin America”, the region has made advancements in digital accounts and P2P payments, but 21% of consumers, mainly women, low-income individuals, and rural residents, still lack access to banking services.

🖋️ Post of the Week

💸 Venture Financing

💸 Equity

🇺🇸 Trez, the Latin-founded and US-based payroll management platform, raised a pre-seed round of $1.5 million, after the company's participation in the Techstars Miami accelerator program, which included a $120,000 injection from JP Morgan. This round was completed with contributions from various investors, no further details were disclosed. 

🇧🇷 Culttivo, the Brazilian credit solutions fintech for coffee producers, raised $14.5 million to scale its lending capacity for small and medium-sized farmers. The funding was secured through an FIAgro fund, structured by Octante Capital, an agribusiness asset manager. The company has disbursed more than $14.5 million in loans, with an average amount of $83,000 per farmer. 

🇲🇽 Mattilda, the Mexican SaaS firm for billing and payment processing in private schools, raised $19 million in a round led by GSV Ventures and with participation from Fintech Collective and Dila Capital. The new funds will support the company's growth in the education technology sector. 

🇦🇷 InvGate, the Argentinean SaaS platform for IT and asset management, raised $35 million in a funding round led by Riverwood Capital, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst. The investment will support the company's global expansion plans.

💰 Venture funds 

🇵🇪 Krealo, the Corporate VC arm of Credicorp Group, and Seedstars launched the accelerator program "The Future of Financial Services," to invest in pre-seed financial services startups in Peru, Chile, and Colombia. This initiative will provide startups with up to $150,000 in investment and mentorship from international leaders and the BCP InnovaCXión Center. 

🌐 Huawei and the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (Amexcid) launched the Spark Accelerator program in Chile to provide financial support to startups from Pacific Alliance countries (Chile, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru) with funding ranging from $2,000 to $100,000. With a total of $1.6 million in cloud services from HUAWEI Cloud, winners will receive investment and free access to the company's cloud services.

🚀 Product Launches & Partnerships

💻 Fintech 

🇧🇷 EBANX, the Brazilian payments platform for emerging markets, and Nubank announced a partnership to offer NuPay, a new alternative payment method for international purchases. The partnership will make NuPay available for customers of EBANX's 1,600+ global merchants.

🇧🇷 Fitbank, the Brazilian banking-as-a-service platform, and Marqeta, the US-based card issuing platform, announced a partnership to expand its presence in Brazil. Fitbank aims to utilize Marqeta's payment processing technology to offer more innovative payment solutions to Brazilian customers. 

🇦🇷 Decrypto, the Argentinean exchange and investment wallet, launched a product called MD3, which allows SMEs to hedge against fluctuations in the value of the free dollar. MD3 functions similarly to Matba-Rofex's coverage of the official dollar but with the free dollar exchange rate.

🇨🇴 Kapital, the Mexican financial solution for SMBs, launched Kapital IA, an AI-driven financial automation software in the Colombian market. Kapital IA also offers real-time data analytics dashboards to enable decision-making, streamlining operations.

🇧🇷 PicPay, the Brazilian digital wallet app, announced the launch of the first insurance product in the market to protect Pix transactions made with other banks. 

🇧🇷 Omie, the Brazilian cloud-based business management platform, announced the expansion of its financial services by integrating with banks, including Banco do Brasil and Santander, initially for billing purposes through QR Code Pix. 

🌐Liquido, the US-based platform specializing in financial infrastructure development, launched a solution that enables Latam merchants to integrate their stores with WhatsApp. Users can now browse, select, and make payments through an enhanced customer experience.

🌐Nubank and Fireblocks, the US-based cybersecurity and infrastructure platform for digital assets and cryptocurrencies, announced a partnership to provide secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. This partnerships is part of Nubank´s strategy for its own cryptocurrency custody solution.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🌐Mastercard announced the expansion of its Engage program to support the scaling of digital assets and meet the demand in the financial technology ecosystem. With over 150 partners in 2022, the Engage program aims to drive innovation and enable market adoption of cryptographic cards and tokenization.

📜 Policy

🇧🇷 QI Tech, the Brazilian direct credit society firm, was authorized to operate as a distributor of bonds and securities (DTVM) by Brazil’s financial regulator.  This allows the company to administer and custody its own originated credit rights investment funds (FIDCs). 

🇲🇽A Mexican citizen filed an appeal (amparo) to compel the financial regulatory agency (CNBV) and Mexico’s Central Bank to issue the secondary regulations for open finance as mandated by the Fintech Law, which are pending since 2019. 

🇲🇽 Openbank, Santander's new digital bank in Mexico, obtained its license from the Mexican financial regulatory agency (CNBV), and will begin with operational testing for a planned launch in 2024. Openbank already operates in Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, and Argentina. 

🇲🇽 Hey, the digital arm of Banregio, received authorization from the CNBV to operate as a new bank in the country. The entity offers credit cards, debit accounts, investment products, auto loans, and various other services. 

📰 Other News

🇧🇷 Nubank announced a new phase to discontinue its level III BDR program. BDRs are certificates of deposit for foreign shares traded on the Brazilian stock market, since Nubank is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, BDRs are the way to trade Roxinho shares in Brazil.

🇦🇷 Wenance, the Argentina-based platform focused on consumer loans, announced that the company will honor all its invested capital commitments with a payment proposal in 12 installments starting in August with interest. The announcement was made after the failure to pay $500 million in interests from the three private trusts.

🇸🇻 El Salvador’s fintech sector grew 45.4% in the last year, going from 22 active fintech companies in 2021 to 32 in 2023.

🌐 Global66 and FC Bayern Munich, announced a partnership that will increase the credibility and reputation of fintechs and that will give impulse to the FC Bayern Munich to strengthen its presence and influence in the Americas.

📚 Deeper Reads

60+ Women in Tech Statistics You Need to Know in 2023 – Closing the Gaps

For uncharted fintech waters, look no further than the Caribbean

Venture capital funds carry out fewer sales operations in Latin America (ES)

More and more central banks are studying issuing their digital currencies (ES)

Crowdfunding sees potential in factoring (ES)

'Tokenization as a service' will be part of the new wave of fintechs (PO)

Citigroup’s Separation of Banamex and Asia Divestments Cost the Bank $92 Million

Made in Latam with 💛 by Elena, Daniela, and Lorena

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