OLYMPIC PRE-GAME

“O Supremo, em decisão monocrática do Ministro, acaba de decidir o óbvio: bloquear aplicativos na infraestrutura da rede é inconstitucional.”  

—Ronaldo Lemos, Director of ITS-RIO 

> WhatsApp went down in Brazil… again. This is the third time in eight months a judge-mandated blackout affected a core communications service used by 100M Brazilians, and comes only two months after May’s 72-hour blackout. Ronaldo Lemos, one of the authors of Marco Civil, Brazil’s groundbreaking internet legislation, says the blackouts are in direct violation of Marco Civil, the Constitution, and the Convenção Americana de Direitos Humanos. The Supreme Court agreed and lifted the blockage a few hours after it went into effect.

> Samsung launched mobile payment service Samsung Pay in Brazil in time for Rio2016, with support from Banco do Brasil, Brasil Pré-Pagos, Caixa, Porto Seguro, and Santander. This is Samsung Pay’s first market rollout in LatAm; they face competition from PayPal’s XOOM, which operates in 13 countries in the region.

DEALS

> Media Digital Ventures (MDV) Latin America, a media-for-equity fund managed by VARIV Capital and Antai Venture Builder, invested US$5m in CornerJob, a Barcelona-based work marketplace, as part of a US$25m Series B led by Northzone. The US$5m injection will promote CornerJob in Mexico, already one of the startup’s leading markets. MDV Latin America invested in the Series A earlier this year.

> Movile and Just Eat injected another US$30m into iFood, the leading online food ordering platform in Latin America. The funds will be used to expand its operations and establish a presence in Mexico by acquiring a portion of SinDelantal. 

> Goldman Sachs led a US$10m investment in Brazilian trucking startup CargoX, with participation from prior investors Valor Capital, former DHL Express US CEO Hans Hickler (also an investor in Mandaê) and Uber Co-Founder Oscar Salazar. CargoX has secured US$14m in funding to date. 

> CVentures Primus, managed by CVentures and CRP Companhia de Participações, invested R$5m in uMov.me, a corporate mobile app platform based in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

EXITS

> VARIV Capital exited part of its investment in Wallapop, a Barcelona-based mobile marketplace for second-hand goods. Wallapop has over 25M downloads to date, and Mexico is a top five market; VARIV invested in the Series A in 2014.

> MercadoLibre purchased Axado, a freight management platform, for R$26m, generating a 4X return for Fundo SC, a Santa Catarina-based fund managed by FIR Capital and BZPlan. Fundo SC invested R$1.2m in Axado in 2013.

> redBus, an Indian bus ticketing platform owned by Naspers-backed Grupo Ibibo, bought a 50% stake in Peru-based Busportal from Wayra Perú for an undisclosed amount. The investment will give redBus an entry into the online bus ticketing markets in Latin America, including Peru, Colombia, and Chile.    

PARTERNSHIPS

> Rappido, Movile’s on-demand delivery and distribution service, is gaining traction in Mexico on the heels of a merger with 99Motos, Rappido’s Brazilian competitor, earlier this year. Via TechCrunch:  

In Mexico, Movile is partnering with the country’s logistics giant, Grupo ampm in a joint venture to launch Rappido MX. It’s a similar strategy to the company’s roll-out in other countries in Latin America. Last year, Rappido took a position in the Colombian delivery service Mensajeros Urbanos to gain a foothold in that country’s expanding delivery market.

NEW FUNDS

> Porto Seguro has launched Porto Capital, a R$400m partial VC fund focused on market growth and venture capital in the Brazilian insurance industry.

> Boston-based Beamonte Investments announced the first close of Venture Academy Fund, a Mexico and Colombia focused VC fund, with close to US$6m in capital commitments.

NEW MEMBERS

> LAVCA welcomes new VC member firm Porto Capital. Anibal Messa and Frederico Mesnik manage the fund from São Paulo.

> LAVCA welcomes new VC member firm Scale Capital (formerly Inversur). Founder and GP Nils Galdo Nogales manages the fund from Santiago.

INTL POV

> US VC investments slowed noticeably in Q4’15 and Q1’16, but global financings dropped a further 6% in Q2’16, down to 1886, according to CBInsights.

> Bessemer Venture Partners has translated their must-read 10 Laws of Cloud Computing into Portuguese. Download it here.

> Y Combinator president Sam Altman talks about transitioning from building a great product to building a great company in later stage advice for startups.

> Unicorn Instacart has reduced the time required to fulfill an average order by 40% by deploying a team of data scientists to optimize its shopping workforce, helping the company become gross margin positive.

> Take heart: Line has broken the IPO seal and is officially the biggest American IPO this year.

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

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