Latin

“Introducing PayJoy: Bridging the Gap Between Social Impact and Financial Success in Fintech – A Feature by TechCrunch”

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Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at how two fintech companies serving the underserved are faring, and more! The big storyPayJoy is an example of a company with positive unit economics and a mission to help the underserved. It last raised a $50 million Series C funding round in 2021. And with fintech funding on the decline, this could perhaps partly explain YC’s lack of LatAm interest.

Automattic Gains Beeper, Observing Fintech’s Decline and YC’s Scarcity of Latin American Entrepreneurs

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When it comes to news items that we love at TechCrunch, IPOs rank pretty darn high. Another great newsy bit that comes along less frequently than we’d like is a startup buying another startup. These deals are often very interesting as they either bring a gob of talent, or technology to an already growing company, potentially accelerating it. So it was with joy that the Equity Podcast crew dug into Automattic buying Beeper for $125 million. But certainly we are an ocean or two away from the heady days we saw back in 2021.

to the blockchain Web3 Funding Company Borderless Capital Purchases CTF Capital, Combining AI and Quantitative Knowledge for Blockchain Industry

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Borderless Capital, an investment firm that specializes in web3, announced Tuesday that it is acquiring CTF Capital, a quantitative trading and asset management firm headquartered in Miami, with technology and operation teams in Latin America. With this acquisition, Borderless Capital will add AI-infused quant trading expertise to its own business. After combining with CTF Capital, Borderless will have over $500 million in assets under management (AUM). All the existing funds managed by CTF Capital will be merged into Borderless’s Multi-Strategy Fund V LP., launched last year with $100 million under management today. “Borderless already has significant exposure through several portfolio companies from this geography [Latin America].

Prometeo Secures $13M Investment from PayPal, Samsung, and Other Leaders in Open Banking for Latin America

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Prometeo, a startup out of Uruguay building channels to enable open banking across Latin America, is today announcing that it has picked up $13 million in funding to expand its business. A lot of open banking these days focused on national rollouts — not least because banking conventions and regulations are often very localized. (It’s not the only company that believes that open banking has a big role to play in financial services in the future: last year, the open banking startup Ivy raised funding specifically to expand to Latin America; and Christine wrote here extensively on Finerio, an ambitious open banking startup out of Mexico. More recently, last year it led a $14 million round into nocnoc, a Latin America cross-border commerce specialist. It also owns the point-of-sale payments company Zettle, which has been making very big inroads into Latin America for years now.

Gabriel’s Urban Intelligence Initiative: Improving Neighborhood Safety in Latin America

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Erick Coser and Otávio Costa Miranda moved back to Brazil in 2019 to solve a large, yet unsolved problem in Latin America. Meanwhile in São Paulo, that is one camera per thousand people. Coser and Costa Miranda drew on the experiences of Europe to create Gabriel in 2020. The company integrates cameras and computer vision with routine police operations to address public safety challenges across Latin America. That walks side-by-side with strong investments in the takeover of São Paulo in 2024 and preparations for launching new cities in 2025.”