$100 million in fintech funding (debt)

Hola amig@s fintech,

As mentioned last weekend, today was the Women's World Cup final, with Spain emerging as the new football champion. Additionally, significant events include the presidential elections in Ecuador and Guatemala. We trust that voter participation will be substantial, and that these fundamental processes will unfold peacefully, further enhancing electoral and democratic institutions in our beloved region.

Please find below this week’s 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

Ten years ago, 90% of embedded finance companies didn’t exist. Today they leverage data streams to drive real-time personalized offers of financial products, decreasing friction and increasing transactionality. According to "The Next Chapter of Embedded Finance," there are still opportunities for innovation.

🎙️Podcast of the Week

🦉 Post of the Week

💸 Venture Financing

💵 Debt 

🇲🇽 Klar, the Mexican mobile app offering deposit and credit services, secured a $100 million credit line from Victory Park Capital fund to boost its lending services and to widen access to credit for its customers in Mexico.

💰 Venture funds 

🇧🇷 Meutudo, the Brazilian credit firm, finalized a $400 million deal with BTG Pactual, the Brazilian investment bank, to establish a fresh Credit Rights Investment Fund (FIDC). This fund will prioritize the acquisition of payroll loans for Brazilian social security pensioners and will be overseen by BTG Asset Management.

🌍 Cube Ventures, the Colombian startup accelerator, and Arkangeles, the Mexico-licensed crowdfunding platform, partnered to bolster startup support in Latam, offering diversified VC investment options for reduced risk and increased returns. They will focus on tech companies, including fintech, and it will enable investments through Cube Ventures' platform with a minimum entry of $300.

🚀 Product Launches & Partnerships

💻 Fintech 

🇵🇦 BITPOINT, the Panama-based crypto-to-fiat exchange, launched a crypto prepaid card in Panama enabling users to make purchases and payments in dollars using their cryptocurrencies through real-time conversion to fiat currency.

🌎 Bitso, the Mexican crypto exchange and DeFi fintech, announced the expansion of its offerings with International Payments, a suite of products enabling cross-border payments in crypto, stablecoins, and local currencies. This move aims to boost regional economies by enhancing operations between countries and promoting crypto-based financial services in Latam.

🇨🇱 Dock, the Brazilian banking services provider, and Tenpo, the Chilean digital bank, announced a partnership to enter the Chilean market. Dock's technology powers the credit cards of Tenpo, a subsidiary of the Credicorp financial group, which recently entered Chile's digital payment sector.

🇧🇷 Monkey, the Brazilian receivables financing and payments platform, launched SpikeCash, an open platform for merchants to receive advances on card receivables, expanding from its existing Spike Whitelabel solution. The SpikeCash platform, currently in pilot phase, aims to empower SMEs by connecting them with multiple financial players.

🇲🇽 Crecy, the Mexican lending platform, introduced a Mastercard-backed credit card with crypto, allowing users to transact in Mexican pesos without liquidating their crypto assets, with features like no annual fees, wide global acceptance, and lower annual interest rates vs traditional credit cards.

🏦 Financial Services & Banking

🇨🇴 Visa and Mono, the Colombian neobank for SMBs, announced a business card in Colombia, directly linked to customers’ Mono account balance, bypassing the need for credit evaluations. It offers SMEs an avenue for digital payments and enhances expense management capabilities.

🇦🇷 Banco Galicia, the Argentine financial institution and Agrotoken, the Argentine tokenization infrastructure for agricultural assets, announced a partnership to leverage agrotokens as collateral to offer more favorable credits to agricultural producers in Argentina.

🇧🇷 Santander announced a financial aggregator for business clients in Brazil via open finance, unveiling a BaaS solution targeting businesses with multiple banking relationships. Initially, functionalities include balance inquiries, receivables statements, bill issuance, and payments, all without accessing Internet Banking.

📜 Policy

🇧🇷 The Brazilian Congress seeks to raise taxes on foreign-held crypto exchanges and assets to the same tax rules as traditional assets. The proposal also seeks to tax gains from crypto asset price fluctuations against the national fiat currency and exchange rate fluctuations. A congressional vote is set for August 28.

🇨🇴 a2censo, the Colombian Stock Exchange's crowdfunding platform, was approved by the Colombian financial regulatory agency (SFC) to introduce shares and convertible notes, which will enable people to invest and become partners in Colombian companies, while also helping SMBs to raise capital.

🇯🇲 Baufest, an Argentinian digital product development company, participates in the creation of Jamaica's central bank digital currency (CBDC), known as JAM-DEX. It is operated through the Lynk digital wallet of the National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCB). The CBCD pilot launched with $230 million worth in August 2022 and today is accessible to the public.

🇲🇽 Cashmind, the Mexican digital wallet firm, and Finalitix, the Mexican web service to make transfers, received authorization from the Mexican financial regulatory agency (CNBV) to operate as electronic payment funds institutions, under the Fintech Law.

📰 Other News 

Adriana Henríquez, Country Manager at Kushki Colombia

🇨🇴 Kushki named Adriana Heríquez as Country Manager for Colombia. Her objective is to strengthen the company's operations in Colombia and maintain growth (25% in Q2 2023), while following Kushki's vision to connect Latam  through payments.

🇧🇷 Nubank registered an 11.2% drop in its shares, upon learning that its founder and CEO, David Vélez, sold $191 million of his stake, equivalent to 3% of his total shares in the company. The sale comes days after it reported 2Q 2023 earnings of $224.9 million in profit. Most of the sale will go to donations for VelezReyes+, a philanthropic organization focused on education financing and leadership initiatives in Latam.

🇬🇹 Central America Angel Fund Initiative (CAFI) and ESI School of Management of Guatemala, announced the Diploma Fundamentals of Venture Capital & Angel Investment of Central America (FUVECA), with the objective of promoting investment development in tech startups in Central America.

🇵🇪 Alaya Capital announced that it will allocate 20% of its new fund to startups, including fintech companies, in Peru, encouraged by the country's economic growth and regulatory flexibility.

📚 Deeper Reads

Why Latin American workers want to be paid in crypto

QED says fintech venture environment returning to reality

B2B payments, a horizon of challenges and possibilities for SMEs (ES)

Empowering Latin American fintech entrepreneurs through AI (ES)

Mexico, one of the countries with the most properties available to buy with cryptocurrencies (ES)

Dying to succeed: more entrepreneurs are coming forward about the toll on mental health

What happens to all the things we return?

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

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