> BanRegio is investing in four funds looking at fintech deals: VARIV Capital, Jaguar Ventures, 500 Startups, and Endeavor Catalyst.

> Bossa Nova Investimentos and Berrini Ventures are partnering to help develop health startups in Brazil.

> Six Argentinian private banks are launching Arfintech, a fund investing in startups in the financial services sector, including blockchain technology. The banks have committed US$3m to the fund, which has already invested US$800k in five startups.

> Semyon Dukach, a serial entrepreneur and refugee from the Soviet Union, is creating One Way Ventures, a venture fund for fellow immigrants. He will lead the firm along with Eveline Buchatskiy, former director of TechStars Boston and an immigrant from Brazil.

> IGNIA made an undisclosed investment in Afluenta, a peer to peer lending network in Argentina, Mexico and Peru. The IFC and Elevar Equity led a US$8m Series B in Afluenta in 2016.

> IGNIA also made an undisclosed investment in Mexican e-commerce platform LentesPlus, with participation from Stella Maris Partners and InQlab.

> Ideas & Capital led a US$1.5m pre-Series A investment in Dvdendo, a finance management platform, with participation from various angels.

> Alaya Capital Partners invested US$1m across Chilean startups MyHotel, Chattigo, and Welii.

> Puerto Rico accelerator Parallel18 invested US$75k each in Brands Of (Puerto Rico), Timokids (Brazil), and Be Better Hotels (Argentina). Paralell18 also announced 34 startups from 12 countries, including Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, for its fourth class.

> Brazilian private equity firm Patria Investimentos has invested US$100m to open up an Odata data center in Colombia.

ENTEPRENEURS

> PERU SPOTLIGHT: LAVCA interviewed MESA 24/7, a startup that wants to revolutionize the way restaurants interact with their dinners (interview in Spanish) and SpaceDat, an agtech startup with a drone enabled digital platform.

READ more about Peru's VC ecosystem and takeaways from the Peru Venture Capital Conference LAVCA participated in last month hosted by UTEC Ventures. 

> Intellibrand is a digital trade marketing platform that received a R$5m investment from DGF Ventures. LAVCA talks with co-founder Francesco Weiss about the digital marketing landscape in Brazil and Intellibrand’s expansion plans. Interview in Portuguese.

NUMBERS

> 155: Total number of active startups in LatAm with over US$1m in VC funding across at least two rounds, and still growing, as tracked by LAVCA. Check out the full LAVCA Startup Directory and sort by sector, stage, and geo.

> US$19.3b: Amount of venture funding raised by Asian startups in Q2 2017. Asia has officially overtaken the US for the first time in venture investments.

> 1%: Average amount of equity a VP of Sales gets at a seed stage startup in the US. EShares VP of Sales Tom Matta share average equity compensation for executives at VC-backed startup in the US:

At seed companies the VP of Sales gets an average of 1% of equity, while CTOs get 2.03% and COOs get 1.84%. However, they are given more than seed stage CFOs at 0.84% and VPs of marketing at 0.95%.

NEWS

> Dan Primack for Pro Rata: Uber and Russian search company Yandex are merging their ride-hail businesses in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and Georgia. Uber will invest US$225m for a 36.6% stake and three board seats of the combined company, and Yandex will invest US$100m for a 59.3% stake and four board seats. Employees will own the remaining 4.1% stake.

> Forbes.com interviews RecargaPay Founder & CEO Rodrigo Teijeiro about mobile payments in Brazil.

> International Banker references Goldman Sachs’ fintech report in Why Brazilian banking could be seriously impacted by fintech:

In an industry referred to by Goldman as being of an “oligopolistic market structure”, Brazil’s five biggest banks hold a whopping 84 percent of the nation’s total loans, compared with just 30 percent for the United States’ top five, and around 30 percent for India’s and Turkey’s.

INVESTOR POV

> MassChallenge Mexico and Greenberg Traurig released an eBook for entrepreneurs: Where to Start: Legal Entities, Term-Sheet Negotiation, Equity Pools, and IP Protection for Mexican Startups.

> Twitter discussion started by Fred Wilson on the two most disruptive startups of the last century.

> First Round Capital: The Tenets of A/B Testing from Duolingo’s Master Growth Hacker.

> Brad Feld: America Is Pushing Entrepreneurship To Other Countries.

> Josh Wolfe at Lux Capital for TechCrunch: ‘Chinafrica’ is a macro megatrend set to impact everything from Silicon Valley to Wall Street.

> Check out Series F, a newsletter on the future of venture capital, for more updates on emerging markets.

PEOPLE & PROGRAMS

> 1776.vc, a global accelerator supporting startups in heavily regulated industries, invites startups solving meaningful problems to apply to the 1776 Challenge Cup. Applications are open for teams in Caracas, Cochabamba, DF, Quito, Salvador, and Santiago.

> BayBrazil’s annual conference is September 21 at Google in Mountain View. Details here.

> MassChallenge Mexico welcomes 35 startups to its second class from fintech, transport, healthcare, and other sectors. 90% of the startups are from Mexico, and ⅓ of the founders are women.

> On August 3, Agora Partnerships, in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank, will host a reception in Mexico City to introduce 27 LatAm companies tackling social and environmental challenges through sustainable business models. Register here.

The LatAm Venture Bulletin is a news platform of the Latin American Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.

Have news we should include? Please email news@lavca.org.

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