Dealflow.la #11 - Lula wins 🇧🇷, CDMX Gov 🇲🇽 works with AirBnb 🇺🇸 to lure digital nomads, and backend e-commerce is on fire as Quinio 🇲🇽 gets $40M & Wareclouds 🇨🇱 gets $1.2M.

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Nov 03, 2022

Funding

Lara AI 🇲🇽 raised a $1.1 Million round with funding from Newtopia VC 🇦🇷, 500 LatAm 🇲🇽, FJ Labs 🇺🇸, MrPink VC 🇦🇷, and Brazil Venture Capital 🇧🇷 to help companies detect disgruntled or at-risk employees earlier. With Lara AI, can obtain real-time information to improve their experiences and build a unique organizational culture.

Wareclouds 🇨🇱 raised a $1.2 Million Seed round from ChileGlobal Ventures 🇨🇱 and Mike Hennessey 🇺🇸 to link people’s homes with e-commerce companies through their platform. The platform connects the three target users simultaneously: the companies that want to store their products and that through the tool can monitor their inventory and keep track of orders. They also have physical logistical locations–called wareclouds–that store products and fulfill orders for SME e-commerce companies. (Think Amazon’s FBA warehouse model.)

Looqbox 🇧🇷 raised a $2.85 Million Later Stage VC round led by DGF Investimentos 🇧🇷 with funding from HiPartners Capital 🇧🇷, and Locaweb Internet Services 🇧🇷 to continue developing their market knowledge platform designed to make organizational information unbelievably simple to be searched and used. Looqbox's platform combines the concept of business intelligence and knowledge management to offer corporate information and indicators, enabling viewers to stay well-versed in the market. Their clients include Santander, Claro, and Bayer.

Wynwood House 🇲🇽 raised a $7 Million Seed round from Fen Ventures 🇨🇱 to build a hospitality brand for a new generation of travelers in Latin America with home experience and hotel quality. Wynwood currently has properties in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Panama that offer a wide range of upscale amenities including laundry service, professional cleaning, and kitchens.

Mattilda 🇲🇽 raised a $10 Million Seed round from Xochi Ventures 🇲🇽, SMP Group 🇬🇧, QED Investors 🇺🇸, Picus Capital 🇩🇪, GSV Ventures 🇺🇸, FinTech Collective 🇺🇸, Emerge Education 🇬🇧, and DILA Capital 🇲🇽 to helps schools manage and automate payments. Mattilda takes care of a school’s finances, generating significant savings in resources and time, and improving parents’ interactions with the school.

Quinio 🇲🇽 raised a $40 Million Series A round from Comenta 🇲🇽, AlleyCorp 🇺🇸, DILA Capital 🇲🇽, Northgate Capital 🇺🇸, and Western Technology Investment 🇺🇸 to acquire and build e-commerce brands in Latin America. The company focuses on brands in the areas of home and kitchen, beauty and personal care, baby, health and household items. It already owns and operates several brands that have a presence in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the U.S markets. Quinio is a profitable company with over 100 employees and growing rapidly and they expect to end 2022 with over $50 million in annual recurring revenue.

M&A Activity

Yaydoo 🇲🇽 acquired the B2B payments platform Oyster Financial 🇲🇽. Yaydoo 🇲🇽 builds and distributes financial automation technologies that help businesses streamline B2B payments using software focused on procurement, spend management, accounts payable and accounts receivable processes, as well as connect an entire ecosystem of financial solutions. Oyster 🇲🇽 is a financial platform for freelancers, startups, and SMB’s in Mexico.

Sociopolitical News

🇦🇷 Argentina

Analysis: Argentina's embattled left hopes for Lula bump, but that looks a long shot. Argentina's center-left President Alberto Fernandez, struggling in opinion polls ahead of elections next year, wasted no time in rushing to Brazil to congratulate political ally Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva after a dramatic win at the ballot box on Sunday. (Reuters)
Airlines are blasting a new tax proposed by the Argentine government that will once again increase airfares. The so-called “airline security tax” of ARS 250 ($1.60) was approved by the lower house of the country’s legislature on 25 October. It is slated to help finance Argentina’s Airport Security Police (PSA). It’s the eighth such additional fee the country adds to every airline ticket sold. “This recurring policy of taxing the industry is becoming unsustainable,” said Peter Cerda, regional vice president for the Americas at airline industry organization IATA on 28 October. He calls the new tax “a crippling blow” to the industry and travelers. “Depending on the base fare, up to 54% of the total value of an air ticket paid by passengers in Argentina in pesos is composed of taxes,” IATA says. (FlightGlobal)
Argentina's federal police say they have arrested the leader of the infamous Italian Ndrangheta mafia after a years-long manhunt. Carime Alfonso Maiorano was detained last week in Guernica, a town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the security agency said in a statement. Maiorano had an international arrest warrant with an Interpol "red alert" since 2015. The 68-year-old is accused of carrying out large-scale drug and arms trafficking operations between Latin America and Europe, with contacts in Italy and Albania. (EuroNews)
Federal Prosecutor Franco Picardi asked to investigate former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) for illegal espionage activities directed against progressive politicians, among whom is the current Vice President Cristina Fernandez. (TeleSur)

🇧🇷 Brazil

Jair Bolsonaro has broken the silence he had maintained since being defeated in Sunday's presidential election. He thanked voters who had cast their ballots for him but did not acknowledge defeat. But he did not contest the result either, as some had feared he would. (BBC)
Video: Chaotic scenes as Bolsonaro's supporters take to the streets. (BBC)
Brazil protesters block roads, airport as Bolsonaro stays silent. Over 200 highways are partially, fully blocked by protesters. (Bloomberg)

🇨🇱 Chile

Students surge back to Chile’s streets as schools remain a hotbed of protest. Frustration at the lack of progress on conditions in education and the rejection of a new draft constitution has driven a new wave of demonstrations. (The Guardian)

🇨🇴 Colombia

Colombian & Venezuelan presidents meet as ties keep improving. Nicolas Maduro and Gustavo Petro holding talks in Caracas as neighboring countries repair the relationship severed in 2019. (Al Jazeera)
Suspension of oil exploration in Colombia would be fiscally dangerous. Income derived from hydrocarbon exploration and production in Colombia is key to the country's financial stability and its trade balance, its fiscal rule committee said on Monday, and suspension of exploration would put fiscal sustainability at risk. The government of new leftist President Gustavo Petro, who promised on the campaign trail to halt all new oil exploration, is weighing whether it will allow the signing of fresh contracts to shore up the country's finances. (Nasdaq/Reuters)
Colombia’s radical new approach to cocaine. The Petro administration plans to pour money into rural communities to stop the drug trade at its source. (Foreign Policy)

🇪🇨 Ecuador

At least five Ecuadorean police officers were killed on Tuesday in explosive attacks in response to prisoner transfers from overcrowded and violent penitentiaries, prompting President Guillermo Lasso to declare a state of emergency in two provinces. (VOA)

🇲🇽 Mexico

The Government of Mexico City signed an agreement with the temporary rental company Airbnb to promote creative tourism and the activity of digital nomads, however, organizations and individuals strongly disagree with the decision. In a statement this week, 51 organizations and 832 people refuted the decision of promoting the commercialization of the Historic Center of the Mexican capital, as “it is of no benefit to its inhabitants, in addition to it attacking the understanding of housing as a human right.” (TeleSur)
Mexico's President AMLO says Twitter should undo the "damage" done to former U.S. President Donald Trump by the cancellation of his account, as he expressed hope that new owner Elon Musk would curb censorship on the social media platform. (Reuters)

🇵🇦 Panama

Huge tower block blast rocks city with 20 injured and 300 evacuated. Residents were pictured fleeing from the tower block in panic, as a strong explosion was recorded in an apartment building located in Obarrio Street, Panama City, Panama. (Mirror)

🇵🇾 Paraguay

Probe launched after a LATAM Airlines plane’s nose was ripped off and pilots window’s shattered during a violent storm forcing an emergency landing. Videos shared on Twitter showed the aircraft dramatically shaking while lightning flashed outside and people could be heard screaming. (Sky News)

🇻🇪 Venezuela

Falling production knocked Venezuela's October oil exports to the fourth-lowest monthly average this year, according to vessel monitoring data and documents from state-run oil firm PDVSA. Oil production and exports by PDVSA and its joint ventures have fluctuated this year due to outages, a lack of sustained investment, and a shrinking pool of partners willing to continue operating in the U.S-sanctioned South American nation. (Nasdaq)
Iran and Venezuela strengthen their military & economic alliance in a challenge to United States. (Fox)

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