LatAm Tech Weekly

221: Fresh updates from the Bay Area, deals of the week, and much more!

Weekly writing about what is happening in LatAm tech. By day, I am part of the corporate development team at Itau Unibanco. By night, I am reading and learning about technology in general (now, with a focus on AI). During the weekends, I’m writing the LatAm Tech Weekly.

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Happy Sunday!

This is a special edition. I just got back from a week in San Francisco and Palo Alto, where I spent time with some of the most forward-thinking tech companies and venture funds in the ecosystem. If we crossed paths—and you’re reading this—thank you again for the time and the generosity of your insights. They were incredibly valuable for us.

And if you’re based on the West Coast, we didn’t manage to meet, but you are a reader (huge win) — reach out. Let’s schedule a call, and I’ll make sure we connect properly next time I’m in town.

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Opinions expressed here are solely my own and does not represent those of people, institutions, organizations that I may or may not be associated with in any capacity, unless explicitly stated.

I’m using this intro to share a few raw thoughts straight from the Valley.

If you’ve been following along, you know I make it to the Bay Area at least once a year. This trip felt different. AI has fully saturated the city. It’s not just a theme—it’s the atmosphere. The level of excitement (and very real FOMO) is palpable. Everyone is building, everyone is investing, and everyone feels like they’re one model launch away from being early—or too late.

Valuations reflect that energy. Deals getting done at 50–75x earnings came up more than once, and investor appetite remains strong. Unsurprisingly, AI dominated nearly every meeting.

One pattern that stood out: consumer AI continues to move faster than enterprise. End users are becoming more sophisticated at an incredible pace, which is pushing expectations higher inside companies—but internal adoption is still lagging. There’s a real gap between what people know is possible and what enterprises are actually ready to deploy.

Another recurring debate: the increasingly popular take that vertical SaaS is dead. The more nuanced version—one I agree with—is that vertical SaaS isn’t dead, it’s just unforgiving. Public vertical software companies are still down meaningfully from their 2021 peaks, in many cases 60–70%, which has clearly shaped sentiment. The winners going forward won’t be the ones that stay static—they’ll be the ones that can re-architect around AI workflows, agent-driven products, and much faster iteration cycles

One deal that came up repeatedly was the Brex × Capital One transaction. It’s being talked about less as a single transaction and more as a signal: incumbents are no longer pretending they can slow this down, and the smartest ones are choosing collaboration over resistance. One good example is Itau’s partnership with Cognition - also mentioned in several meetings as a sign that the bank is ahead of the curve.

Zooming out, a broader takeaway from the week is that model performance alone is no longer the differentiator. The real edge is shifting toward systems, infrastructure, and distribution—who can turn raw capability into something reliable, sticky, and embedded in real workflows. Agents, not copilots, came up again and again. So did the idea that software creation is getting close to zero-cost—while owning and operating production-grade software remains very expensive. That gap is creating both massive opportunity and brutal filtering.

Six months ago, most of this would’ve sounded aspirational. Today, it feels inevitable. The world is moving fast, and I am not afraid - I AM VERY EXCITED TO BE LIVING IN SUCH INTERESTING TIMES!

P.S: Hands down the best experience was riding the Waymo in the city. Check out this video! Highly recommend the experience if you are in the Bay Area. Picture above for illustrative purposes only, and done with AI :)

General news:

• WideLabs and NVIDIA launch Brazilian AI personas dataset introducing Nemotron Personas Brasil, an open dataset based on IBGE statistics to reflect Brazil’s demographic and cultural diversity, enabling more accurate Portuguese-language AI assistants and positioning Brazil within NVIDIA’s global sovereign AI initiatives. 🇧🇷

• Raquel Menopausa gains traction as AI-powered femtech for menopause care as the Brazilian app combines AI trained exclusively on scientific research to track symptoms and generate reports, reaching over 60,000 downloads in eight languages while remaining bootstrapped and planning its first funding round in H2 2026 to support international expansion. 🇧🇷

• Tether Gold consolidates leadership in tokenized gold market accounting for roughly 60% of gold-backed stablecoins as market cap grows beyond US$4B in 2025, supported by over 520,000 troy ounces held in Swiss vaults and rising demand for tokenized safe-haven assets amid geopolitical uncertainty. 🌍

• Terranta launches Colombia’s first regulated real estate crowdfunding platform operating under financial regulator approval with COP 1.5B in subscribed capital, using registered securities and blockchain-based tracking to formalize real estate crowdfunding in a sector representing about 9% of Colombia’s GDP. 🇨🇴

• Zoop posts strong growth as Tap to Pay scales embedded finance in Brazil closing 2025 with over 21M Tap to Pay transactions, R$700M+ in revenue and R$36B in payment volume, driven by contactless payments surpassing 70% of in-person transactions nationwide. 🇧🇷

• Meta suspends teen access to AI characters ahead of relaunch with parental controls as the company rebuilds the product to comply with PG-13 standards and regulatory scrutiny, enabling parents to limit or disable private AI chats across Meta’s apps. 🌍

• Hey Banco prepares to operate independently with full banking license as the Mexican neobank separates from Banregio, bringing over 500,000 customers, profitable operations and MXN 1.59B in assets into a standalone structure, signaling the maturation of Mexico’s digital banking market. 🇲🇽

Deals:

• Lerian raises US$5.7M seed round led by MAYA Capital to scale its cloud-native, open-source financial infrastructure, centered on its Midaz transaction ledger and modular compliance, reconciliation and reporting tools for scalable and regulated financial systems. 🇧🇷

• Jabuti AGI raises R$2.1M seed led by DOMO.VC marking DOMO’s first AI-first investment as the agentic AI startup serving enterprises like Banco BV scales high-volume customer service, handling 180,000 daily interactions and targeting R$25M in revenue in 2026. 🇧🇷

• Leracom AI raises US$1M pre-seed to expand AI-driven customer service led by WeBoost with participation from 99 Startups and Ganas Ventures, backing the Mexican startup’s SaaS platform that blends AI, automation and human oversight to improve chatbot performance across Latin America. 🇲🇽

• Claroty raises US$150M Series F at ~US$3B valuation led by Golub Growth to accelerate global expansion and AI-driven industrial cybersecurity products, reinforcing its IPO trajectory as demand grows for protection across converging IT and OT environments. 🌍

General news:

• Liqi launches BRLD stablecoin backed by Brazilian Treasury bonds positioning the real-pegged digital asset for corporate treasury and tokenized transactions, with institutional backing from Itaú, Pátria and Galápagos and plans to raise US$10M to scale infrastructure. 🇧🇷

• PagBank launches Minizinha Voz, Brazil’s first POS with AI voice assistant enabling voice-based payments, sales queries, calculations and inventory checks, bringing AI directly to the point of sale for small merchants seeking faster, hands-free transactions. 🇧🇷

• Accenture says nearly 80% of banks are testing agentic AI payments while trust remains fragile as fraud concerns rise, corporates demand wallets and stablecoins, and banks underestimate crypto adoption, pushing institutions to upgrade core systems, APIs and compliance to stay competitive. 🌍

• Brazil’s Central Bank makes Pix MED 2.0 mandatory strengthening fraud refunds by allowing tracking across multiple accounts and reimbursements up to 11 days after reporting, as authorities aim to curb rising Pix-related financial crime. 🇧🇷

• Mercado Livre enters Brazil’s pharmacy market after acquiring Target Pharmacy from Memed, initially operating under a direct sales model while engaging regulators to unlock marketplace-based drug sales in a sector worth roughly R$20B. 🇧🇷

• Razor shuts down operations after years of capital and supply chain pressure as the Brazilian high-performance computer maker struggles with rising component costs, funding constraints and high interest rates, highlighting the structural challenges of scaling hardware manufacturing in Brazil. 🇧🇷

Deals:

• Copel Ventures leads €3M Series A extension in Delfos backing the Barcelona-based AI startup providing predictive maintenance for renewable energy assets, as the company scales across Europe and expands AI capabilities for wind and energy infrastructure. 🇪🇺

• Mouts TI invests in logistics startup Tem Lugar backing the Brazilian platform that matches companies with underutilized warehouse capacity, funding AI-driven pricing, data integration and automation after facilitating more than R$10M in stored-goods transactions. 🇧🇷

• Preply raises US$150M Series D at US$1.2B valuation led by WestCap to expand AI capabilities, product and global reach, as the language-learning platform blends one-on-one tutoring with AI tools and reports improved EBITDA performance. 🌍

• Tuhabi acquires Pulppo to strengthen Mexico expansion adding a broker-focused commercial platform with 100 real estate firms and 800 agents, while keeping Pulppo independent and advancing Tuhabi’s long-term growth and AI strategy in the resale housing market. 🇲🇽

• SRM Ventures invests R$30M in fintech ERP Anbetec backing embedded credit infrastructure that connects ERPs, banks, Pix and receivables, as the platform processes over R$22B annually and scales credit origination toward R$150M by 2026. 🇧🇷

• Mercado Pago signs deal to sell ARS 150B+ loan portfolio to BIND securing long-term funding for its credit operations in its first structured portfolio sale in Argentina, reinforcing confidence in its digital lending model amid a constrained market. 🇦🇷

• Alfred raises US$15M Series A to scale cross-border payments led by F-Prime Capital to expand its unified API connecting banks, real-time payments and stablecoins across Latin America, after processing nearly 4M transactions. 🌎

General news:

• Itaú enables NFC-based Pix contactless payments on Android allowing in-store payments by tapping the phone on compatible terminals without QR codes, using the same NFC standard as digital wallets with authentication, as the bank pushes Pix usability at the point of sale to speed small transactions. 🇧🇷

• Hyperscalers set to invest ~US$500B in data centers by 2026 as Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Oracle, Meta and CoreWeave race to support AI workloads, sparking debate over potential overcapacity versus sustained demand driven by inference growth, hardware shortages and energy constraints. 🌍

• Distrito partners with Notion to support early-stage startups offering up to six months of Notion Business with Notion AI via its GenAI Lab, aiming to centralize documents and processes from day one and accelerate execution as Notion ramps operations in Brazil. 🇧🇷

Deals:

• PicPay raises US$500M in Nasdaq IPO at US$2.6B valuation pricing shares at US$19 in a deal that was reportedly over 12x oversubscribed, highlighting investor appetite for Brazilian fintechs. 🇧🇷

• SoftBank in talks to invest up to US$30B more in OpenAI as part of a round that could reach US$100B and value the company at ~US$830B, extending SoftBank’s all-in AI strategy to fund rising training and operating costs amid intensifying competition. 🇯🇵

• Jelou raises US$10M Series A to scale AI agents on WhatsApp led by Wellington Access Ventures with Krealo and Collide Capital, backing its Brain platform that runs compliant, in-chat transactions across payments, identity, credit and signatures for 500+ enterprise clients in 13+ countries. 🇪🇨

• Revena raises R$40M seed led by Canary with participation from Flourish Ventures and Caravela Capital to scale AI-driven automation of hospital revenue cycles, integrating with ERPs and serving 60+ hospitals after 20x growth in 2025. 🇧🇷

• Anthropic raises revenue outlook and seeks US$10B+ at US$350B valuation projecting up to US$18B in 2026 and US$55B in 2027 driven by enterprise demand for Claude and coding tools, while pushing breakeven to 2028 due to heavy training and compute costs. 🇺🇸

• Voa Health raises US$3M seed from Prosus to expand beyond AI-powered clinical documentation into a broader digital health platform, processing ~160K visits per month and targeting another 4–5x revenue growth in 2026 after a 4.5x increase in 2025. 🇧🇷

General news:

• Meta closes 2025 with US$201B in revenue despite massive Reality Labs losses as AI-driven advertising lifted annual revenue 22% and net income to US$60.5B, offsetting a US$19.1B loss in virtual reality, while Zuckerberg pivots focus to smart glasses, executes layoffs, shuts down Workrooms and scales back studio operations. 🇺🇸

• Kaspersky’s SOC as a Service business in Brazil grows 300% in 2025 making the country its largest Latin American market as companies outsource cybersecurity amid talent shortages, AI-driven attacks and rising regulatory risk, with 64% planning partial SOC outsourcing and 26% considering full SOCaaS adoption. 🇧🇷

• Google agrees to pay US$135M to settle Android mobile data lawsuit resolving claims of unauthorized background data usage since 2017, with potential payouts of up to US$100 per user and commitments to improve transparency and consent controls on Android. 🇺🇸

• SpaceX and xAI discuss potential merger ahead of SpaceX IPO as Elon Musk explores consolidating rockets, Starlink, X and the Grok AI model under one group, following a US$2B Tesla investment in xAI and recent valuations of ~US$800B for SpaceX and US$230B for xAI. 🇺🇸

• Triaxis Capital doubles down on Brazil’s Northeast with R$400M deployment plan targeting more than 30 venture investments across fintech, healthtech, SaaS, cybersecurity and AI, betting on undercapitalized early-stage opportunities in the region. 🇧🇷

• Agibank launches NYSE IPO targeting up to US$720M testing global investor appetite for Brazilian financials as the digital bank seeks a valuation near US$3B to fund growth, acquisitions and new products across its hybrid digital-physical model. 🇧🇷

Deals:

• Asaas acquires Mutuus to enter digital insurance expanding its SMB financial operations platform into embedded insurance distribution, with expectations of R$130M in insurance revenue by 2029 following prior M&A and recent R$100M credit funding. 🇧🇷

• Apple acquires Israeli AI startup Q.ai for US$2B marking its second-largest acquisition ever as the company brings in silent-speech and facial micro-movement AI technology, signaling a renewed push into advanced AI capabilities. 🇺🇸

• Alibaba’s Cainiao merges autonomous driving unit with Zelos in US$2B deal creating the Cainiao Robovan business operating over 20,000 autonomous delivery vehicles, accelerating AI-driven last-mile logistics and smart distribution across China. 🇨🇳

General news:

• Aquarela Analytics builds mission-critical AI models where hallucinations are unacceptable as the Brazilian AI company develops proprietary models and LLMs for aerospace, energy, telecom and government use cases, including supply-chain optimization at Embraer, betting on controlled environments, data sovereignty and systems designed to say “I don’t know” when information is insufficient. 🇧🇷

• Markets start treating the Magnificent Seven as individual AI bets as investors demand measurable returns on AI spending, with Microsoft shares falling despite earnings while Meta gains on stronger AI-driven growth expectations, signaling a shift from hype to execution scrutiny. 🇺🇸

• Brazilian M&A set to grow 8% in 2025 to US$51B led by energy and renewables accounting for 53% of deal value, as cross-border acquisitions by Brazilian companies rise 29% and global M&A tops US$4.9T driven by megadeals in tech and financial services. 🇧🇷

• Deezer flags up to 85% of AI-generated music streams as fraudulent after detecting 13.4M AI-generated tracks that now represent nearly 39% of daily uploads, pushing the platform to license its AI detection technology to protect royalties and address copyright risks. 🌍

• São Paulo prosecutors dismiss consumer complaint against Shopper ruling that alleged exclusivity contracts do not violate consumer law and should be assessed under competition rules, narrowing the case while keeping antitrust scrutiny on platform–supplier relationships. 🇧🇷

Deals:

• Telos Labs acquires fintech Flourish FI bringing behavioral loyalty technology and engagement data models into its impact-focused product suite, as Flourish founder Pedro Moura joins as an Operating Partner following a US$3.8M funding history. 🌍

• CADE clears Totvs’ R$3.05B acquisition of Linx without remedies approving the deal with Stone after finding limited market overlap, strengthening Totvs’ position in retail and point-of-sale software without harming competition. 🇧🇷

• TIM Brasil completes acquisition of V8.Tech taking full ownership of the IT and cloud services provider after antitrust approval, reinforcing TIM’s strategy to expand beyond telecom into enterprise technology services. 🇧🇷

Project Genie

What it is: Project Genie is an experimental AI research prototype from Google DeepMind that lets users generate, explore, and interact with AI-created virtual worlds in real time based on simple text prompts and images.

Why it’s significant:

• It goes beyond static image or text generation — Genie actually builds interactive virtual environments you can navigate like in a game.

• This represents a major leap toward more immersive AI experiences that blend generative models with dynamic world simulation — a step closer to AI-powered creative and spatial tools.

Early access and rollout:

• Initially available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the U.S., with broader access expected later.

In short, Project Genie stood out this week because it’s one of the first widely reported AI systems that transforms simple prompts into explorable, interactive worlds, moving AI from passive output to experiential creation.

P.S. - Also sensed in the Bay Are that Google is standing out in the race !

• Web Summit Qatar 2026
  Date: February 1–4, 2026
  Location: Doha, Qatar
  Description: Web Summit Qatar connects startups, investors, and global leaders to discuss innovation, entrepreneurship, and emerging technologies in the region.
  More info

• Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026
  Date: March 2–5, 2026
  Location: Barcelona, Spain
  Description: A leading global event focused on connectivity and mobile technologies, bringing together device makers, operators, and digital innovators.
  More info

• South by Southwest (SXSW) 2026
  Date: March 12–18, 2026
  Location: Austin, TX, USA
  Description: The world’s most influential festival blending technology, culture, innovation, and entertainment through talks, workshops, and immersive experiences.
  More info

• Smart City Expo Curitiba 2026
  Date: March 25–27, 2026
  Location: Curitiba, Brazil
  Description: A major smart cities event focused on sustainable urban development, digital transformation, and innovative public solutions.
  More info

• South Summit Brazil 2026
  Date: March 25–27, 2026
  Location: Porto Alegre, Brazil
  Description: A global innovation platform connecting startups, corporations, and investors to foster entrepreneurship and scalable business growth.
  More info

• Brazil at Silicon Valley 2026
  Date: April 6–8, 2026
  Location: Sunnyvale, CA, USA
  Description: A conference connecting Brazilian leaders and entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley to promote innovation, investment, and cross-border business.
  More info

• VTEX Day 2026
  Date: April 16–17, 2026
  Location: São Paulo, Brazil
  Description: One of the world’s largest digital commerce events, bringing together global retail leaders, brands, and technology innovators.
  More info

• Gramado Summit 2026
  Date: May 6–8, 2026
  Location: Gramado, Brazil
  Description: A technology and innovation festival combining business, strategy, marketing, and public-sector innovation discussions.
  More info

• RIO2C 2026
  Date: May 26–June 1, 2026
  Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  Description: A creativity-driven event connecting technology, media, audiovisual, music, sustainability, and entrepreneurship.
  More info

• South Summit Madrid 2026
  Date: June 3–5, 2026
  Location: Madrid, Spain
  Description: A global innovation conference connecting startups seeking scale with investors and corporations looking for new opportunities.
  More info

• Web Summit Rio 2026
  Date: June 8–11, 2026
  Location: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  Description: Part of the Web Summit global series, the event connects startups, investors, and tech leaders across Latin America.
  More info

• London Tech Week 2026
  Date: June 8–12, 2026
  Location: London, UK
  Description: A five-day event bringing together founders, investors, and global leaders to discuss technology’s impact on society and business.
  More info

• Febraban Tech 2026
  Date: June 24–26, 2026
  Location: São Paulo, Brazil
  Description: One of the main financial technology and innovation events for the banking and financial services sector in Latin America.
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• Full intense week, nothing to share

• Full intense week, nothing to share

“AI won’t replace humans. But humans who use AI will replace those who don’t.” — Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI)