Dealflow.la #14 - Brazil 🇧🇷 seizes iPhones as Apple 🇺🇸 ignores regulators, Peru's Prime Minister 🇵🇪 resigns, and Nubank 🇧🇷 introduces savings accounts & debit cards in Mexico 🇲🇽.
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Funding
Aoca Game Lab 🇧🇷 raised a $2 Million Seed round from Google 🇺🇸 to build a series of story-based adventure and survival video games from their indie game studio.
Erural 🇧🇷 raised a $1.91 Million Later Stage VC round led by SP Ventures 🇧🇷 with funding from Prana Capital 🇧🇷, DOMO Invest 🇧🇷, and the Cunha Guedes Family Office 🇧🇷 to allow ranchers and farmers to buy and sell livestock as per their seasonal needs, enabling clients to get a complete marketplace for cattle raisers.
Trii 🇨🇴 raised a $3 Million Early Stage VC round led by Grupo Bancolombia 🇨🇴, Y Combinator 🇺🇸, and Global Founders Capital 🇩🇪 to build their fintech application software designed to democratize everyone's access to the stock market. The company's platform allows individual investors to buy and sell shares via an application on their phones and reduces the cost of retail transactions, enabling clients to automate the investing processes that used to be expensive, manual, and time-consuming.
Zerezes 🇧🇷 raised a $3.7 Million Venture round with funding from Shift Capital 🇧🇷 and Order Venture Capital 🇧🇷 to provide glasses, frames, and lenses, in a direct-to-consumer model through e-commerce and physical stores. The company's products are based on sustainable fashion which is available in both physical and online channels for a customized buying experience, enabling users to offer an eyewear collection completely made of recycled wood.
Trully 🇲🇽 raised a $4.2 Million Seed round with funding from Costanoa Ventures 🇺🇸 and a number of angel investors to develop their artificial intelligence-based platform intended for identity and application fraud services. The company's platform offers features like an immediate response, enrichment of information through different data points and easy implementation, enabling clients to avail of a collective intelligence identity enrichment platform.
Yave 🇲🇽 raised a $7.5 Million Seed round co-led by Better Tomorrow Ventures 🇺🇸 and MetaProp 🇺🇸 with funding from Wollef Ventures 🇲🇽, Vinte 🇲🇽, The Fintech fund 🇺🇸, Moore Capital 🇺🇸, Magma Partners 🇨🇱, Goodwater Capital 🇺🇸, DILA Capital 🇲🇽, Cross River 🇺🇸, Activant Capital 🇺🇸 to enable homebuyers to access an online mortgage application process, which is faster than a traditional bank because it originates and services all mortgages executed through its platform. They use an API that integrates into its customers’ websites (home builders and real estate firms) so they can track a homebuyer’s application process through its mortgage CRM, making the whole process a lot faster.
Flapper 🇧🇷 raised an $8 million Series A round led by Confrapar 🇧🇷 and DXA Invest 🇧🇷 with funding from Investidores.vc 🇧🇷, StartMeUp 🇧🇷, and Arien Invest Resource Management 🇧🇷 to build their aviation marketplace intended to offer aerial mobility services. The company's marketplace combines scheduled flights with on-demand charters, available in real-time, and provides alerts, reservations, and make payments through the application, enabling passengers to fly on private aircraft at the price of premium economy and enjoy a hassle-free journey. The funds will be used to consolidate both the expansion of the company in the Mexican market and its international operation, according to a statement.
ISA Lab 🇧🇷 raised a $17 Million Series A Round with funding from Bradesco Saude 🇧🇷, FIR Capital 🇧🇷, Kortex Ventures 🇧🇷, Yaya Capital 🇧🇷, Vox Capital 🇧🇷, and Grupo Sabin 🇧🇷 to provide digital laboratory services intended to improve the overall health of people. The company offers healthcare services where it needs to be connecting nurses and doctors with patients, wherever they are, with digital and physical services, it is also providing diagnostics exams and applying vaccines at home, enabling consumers to access healthcare services at home.
Finkargo 🇨🇴 raised $75 Million in debt financing from Community Investment Management 🇺🇸 to provide a trade financing platform for SMEs. The company is enabling small and medium-sized companies to grow their operations using logistical and technological support. It offers fair pricing and works with logistic guarantees, aligned with their business realities.
Sociopolitical News
🇦🇷 Argentina
Mauricio Macri’s possible comeback threatens to divide Argentina's opposition. A split could open up an avenue for ruling Peronists to keep hold of power in next year’s election. Less than a year before Argentina’s presidential election and with the economy in chaos, two fierce political rivals — former presidents Mauricio Macri and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — are both hinting they may run again, throwing the race wide open. (FT)
Lemon Cash, a crypto exchange with operations in Argentina and Brazil, cut 38% of its workforce. The job losses at Lemon trump those at other Latin crypto companies as they respond to the state of the industry. In May, Buenbit laid off 45% of its staff, some 80 employees, due to what the crypto exchange called the “global overhaul” in the tech industry. Bitso, another exchange, also laid off 80 employees in May. (Coindesk)
‘We’re calm’: Argentina bruised but not broken before crunch Mexico test. Having lost to Saudi Arabia, Argentina and Lionel Messi know victory on Saturday is imperative for World Cup progress. (The Guardian)
Third year of drought threatens Argentina’s grain exports. Farmers despair of dry conditions and lack of government support. (FT)
🇧🇴 Bolivia
Tropical, sunny, and relatively wealthy, Bolivia's farming region of Santa Cruz has long butted heads with the arid highland political capital La Paz. Now, buttressed by rising soy and beef exports, it is in a power struggle for greater political and financial clout. (Reuters)
🇧🇷 Brazil
Neymar to miss the rest of Brazil’s World Cup group games with an ankle injury. Scan reveals forward has sustained ankle ligament damage. (The Guardian)
Brazilian regulator seizes iPhones from retail stores as Apple fails to comply with charger requirement. The Brazilian Ministry of Justice ordered in September the suspension of iPhone sales in the country after concluding that Apple harms consumers by not offering the power adapter included with the device. Even after million-dollar fines, Apple still fails to comply with the requirement – which has now led to the Federal District-based consumer protection regulator seizing iPhones from retail stores. As first reported by Tecnoblog, Procon-DF has seized “hundreds of iPhones in different retail stores in Brasilia,” the capital of Brazil. In an action named “Operation Discharge,” the regulator aims to force Apple to comply with local law that requires smartphones to be shipped with a charger included in the box. (9to5mac)
Brazil judge fines Bolsonaro allies millions after ‘bad faith’ election challenge. Head of Brazil's electoral court rejects claim from outgoing president’s coalition that said voting machines malfunctioned. (The Guardian)
Trump aides Bannon, Miller advising the Bolsonaros on next steps. Some allies and advisers want the Brazilian president to contest his election loss to Lula. Others want a global fight over free speech. (Washinton Post)
Brazilian Army unhappy over Bolsonaro fans' watermelon jibes. The army says the posts are a "malicious and criminal attempt to stain the personal honor of soldiers with more than 40 years of service.” (Sky News)
🇨🇱 Chile
Miners in Chile, the world's largest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer, said on Wednesday an indefinite strike by truckers threatened supplies to operations in the north of the country. Caravans of truckers protesting over issues such as high fuel prices and the need for better security have been striking since Monday when they set up roadblocks in the mining regions of Tarapaca and Antofagasta. (Reuters/Kitco)
Chile’s Economy Chief is confident about new constitution deal in Congress. Chile’s government has high expectations that lawmakers will reach a consensus on changes to the constitution, further easing concerns that have weighed on foreign investment, one of the country’s top economic officials said. (Bloomberg)
Chile set to spearhead global rate cuts as boom turns to bust. Chile is set to lead the world into a steep interest rate-cutting cycle next year as inflation slows and its economy goes from boom to bust, according to swap markets. Traders are forecasting more than 5 percentage points in cuts in the next 12 months after a surprise inflation print last month and as the economy teeters on the edge of recession, following the fastest growth on record in 2021. Only one other nation comes even close to that -- Hungary -- while many others will continue raising rates. (Bloomberg)
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic
Dominican deportations to Haiti fuel growing fears and frustration as Rights advocates urge the Dominican Republic to stop removals as thousands are sent to crisis-hit Haiti this month. Authorities in the Dominican Republic have rounded up thousands of Haitian migrants — and anyone who looks like they could be from Haiti — and deported them to a country in the grips of deadly gang violence and instability, advocates say. (Al Jazeera)
The Dominican Republic is facing international criticism over its treatment and deportation of Haitian migrants. Dominican authorities expelled more than 60,000 Haitians between August and October, a government spokesperson said in a tweet earlier this month. (Axios)
The United States blocks Dominican Republic’s sugar imports, citing forced labor. An import ban targets sugar from Central Romana Corporation, a behemoth whose sugar is sold under the Domino brand. (New York Times)
🇸🇻 El Salvador
Why El Salvador’s Bukele is doubling down on Bitcoin despite the crypto crash. The cryptocurrency crisis, worsened by the dramatic collapse of fast-growing crypto exchange FTX in mid-November, has raised questions about the future of these digital currencies. Bitcoin, the largest and most well known among them, has fallen to a two-year low in recent days. But one of the cryptocurrency’s most prominent backers, El Salvador’s Bukele, is doubling down. (Time)
El Salvador's Bukele scales up anti-gang push with new deployments. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele promised on Wednesday to tighten security around major cities, the latest escalation of an eight-month-old war against gang violence which human rights groups say is marred by unjustified detentions. Since March, Bukele has ordered the arrest of more than 50,000 suspected gang members, whom he calls terrorists, while denying basic process rights to those caught up in the dragnet. The crackdown is one of his signature policies and is aimed at reducing the Central American country's homicide rate to less than two per day. (VOA)
🇭🇳 Honduras
Honduras plans to follow Gabon in attempting to issue a new form of carbon credit that they say has the potential to help countries get the funds they need to protect their natural assets. Honduras plans to convert REDD+ units, created within a UN framework to incentivize forest protection, into sovereign carbon credits to raise money from countries and corporations keen to cut their CO2 footprints. (Bloomberg)
🇲🇽 Mexico
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says he will host meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Mexico City early next year. López Obrador said the North American summit, scheduled for Jan. 9-10, will also include bilateral meetings with both countries. The Mexican president said in October that Biden had already agreed to make the trip. Neither the White House nor Canadian government officials have officially confirmed their attendance. (ABC)
Mexican authorities urge the United States to tweak travel alerts warning citizens to stay away due to crime, kidnappings as US State Department is currently advising Americans not to travel to 6 Mexican states. Officials in Mexico have asked the United States to ease its travel advisories to Mexico warning citizens of crime and kidnappings and make them more specific about where crimes are being committed in relation to tourist areas. In a press release last week, Mexico’s tourism ministry said it has urged the United States to tweak its travel warnings to several Mexican states in order to "detail the areas that could represent problems and not generalize, as some isolated cases of insecurity are numerous kilometers from tourism destinations."(FOX)
Brazilian Nubank introduces savings accounts and debit cards to the Mexican market. Brazil’s Nubank, the largest financial technology firm in Latin America, is now offering savings accounts and debit cards in Mexico through the digital bank’s arm, Nu México. In a Wednesday press conference, Ivan Canales, who will replace Emilio González as the director of Nu México, said the firm would open a waiting list for the opening of the savings accounts, with first access being granted to clients and members of the company’s digital forum, known as Comunidad Nu. The firm said it will also launch a Mexican debit card for customers to withdraw cash from ATMs. (MND)
Telecommunications company to invest in US-Mexico ‘digital highway’ in Gulf of Mexico. Telecommunications company Gold Data will invest $150 million to develop a “digital highway” in the Gulf of Mexico to link its digital infrastructure in Miami with its data centers in Mexico City, Cancún, and Querétaro. This will take the form of a 1,899-kilometer submarine cable, which will be composed of ten pairs of fiber and will have a capacity of 250 terabytes per second. (MND)
🇺🇸 Miami (New!)
Miami-Dade County, stuck in a 19-year contract with FTX, seeks to rename its arena. The county, which owns the arena, asked a federal judge to immediately end a 19-year, $135 million naming rights deal with FTX, in a motion filed Tuesday with the Delaware court where the FTX bankruptcy proceedings are taking place. Miami-Dade argued that continuing the agreement with the failed company would cause "significant hardship" for the county and hurt efforts to find a new arena sponsor. (NPR)
Marking its 20th anniversary in Miami Beach, Art Basel reveals a line-up of 282 leading galleries, the fair’s largest edition to date. (Miami News Today)
🇵🇪 Peru
Left-wing Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has accepted the resignation of his prime minister and will reshuffle his cabinet once again, amid a lengthy battle between the executive and legislative branches. Former Prime Minister Anibal Torres, a staunch ally of Castillo, had challenged the opposition-controlled Congress to a confidence vote last week. But Peru’s Congress declined to hold such a vote on Thursday, saying conditions for it had not been met. (Al Jazeera)
Another perspective: Peru's Castillo names Betssy Chavez as new prime minister. (Reuters)
Lima airport: The truck hit by plane on Peru runway last week was on a planned drill. A fire truck involved in a fatal runway crash at Peru's busiest airport had been doing a pre-planned emergency drill, officials have said. Two firefighters died on Friday after the Latam Airlines jet collided with the truck at Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima. (BBC)
🇺🇾 Uruguay
South America’s resort for the rich seeks “year-round vibe.” Uruguay’s Punta del Este has long been a tourist magnet. Uruguay’s Punta del Este, sometimes called the Monaco of South America, became a pandemic refuge for thousands of wealthy summer-home owners. Now investors are pouring millions into offices and education services in a bet that immigration will accelerate the popular beach town’s shift to year-round city. (Bloomberg)
🇻🇪 Venezuela
U.S. prepared to authorize Chevron to boost Venezuela's oil output. Chevron Corp could soon win U.S. approval to expand operations in Venezuela and resume trading its oil once the Venezuelan government and its opposition resume political talks, four people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. (Reuters)
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