LatAm Tech Weekly Special Edition Startups Fever
#45 - Crypto winter, the future of e-commerce and payments, deals of the week and more!
Happy Sunday!
This week’s newsletter was done in collaboration with Startups.com.br
- On June 25th, Startups.com.br will be hosting the first edition of Startups Fever, a day long event that will discuss the hottest topics around startups, venture capital, and innovation. Opportunities in VC in Brazil, blockchain, life after an IPO, recruiting, unicorns, fund raising and much more.
- You´ll hear from names such as Romero Rodrigues (Headline Ventures), Carlos Pessoa (G2D), Rodrigo Dantas (Vindi), Marcela Quintella (Education Journey), Artur Rufino (Octa), Luiz Manzano (Big Bets), Andres Mutschler (Westwing), Marcio Kumruian (Netshoes, ZiYou e Tunne) Manoela Mitchell (Pipo Saúde), Tatiana Pimenta (Vittude) Maria Fernanda Musa (Endeavor) and many more;
- I´ll host three panels: (i) Is it worth leaving a corporate job to be a founder? (ii) Is it possible to have a career on a startup? (iii) Who are startups looking for?
- After all the content, participants will have an opportunity to network and hang out to the sound of some good rock n´roll played by a band led by Daniel Ibri, Mindset Ventures´s GP.
- You can get your ticket with 30% OFF use the code FEVER30 (thanks Gustavo Brigatto!)
- Startups Fever was created by Startups, Conta Simples and StartSe and is sponsored by Bhub, Trace Finance, DAXX Omnimedia, Sympla and Intercom. Better Drinks, Finsiders, Sebrae for Startups, Emerging VC Fellows and Confraria do Empreendedor are also supporters.
BUY YOUR TICKETS NOW WITH DISCOUNT!
Interested in collaborating with the LatAm Tech Weekly Newsletter? Respond to this e-mail and we can discuss!
On to Other Updates…..
Two hot topics during this week: the crypto winter and the active discussion on how the pandemic DID NOT alter that much our relationship with commerce and payments as we anticipated.
Even though Binance CEO said this week that the “crypto winter” is a great time to hire talent and acquire firms - Bitcoin prices melted this week amidst the Celsius colapse. For those who don’t know what happened - this is a TL;DR version: on Sunday night, the Celsius Network, one of the largest crypto lending platforms, abruptly announced a “pause” on withdrawals and transfers, citing “extreme market conditions.” As a consequence, Bitcoin’s value fell below $24,000—down nearly 14%—the lowest level it has been in 18-months following Celsius’ announcement. Ethereum, the world’s second most valuable cryptocurrency by market cap, saw its value decrease by more than 18.3% dropping below $1,200. Following the downturn, Coinbase announced it will cut 18% of employees as the situation worsens. I am eager to see what comes next, but still bullish on the blockchain concept - it is here to stay.
On to the second topic, The Information wrote an interesting piece on how investors and founders were sure that the pandemic would permanently transform how people shop and pay. However, the current months shows that those expectations aren’t exactly living up to reality. To be clear, e-commerce continues to be a bigger chunk of overall U.S. shopping when compared to pre-pandemic. However, not all shoppers who were forced online stayed, as the share of purchases made online has shrunk from its pandemic-era peak. Concurrently, Amazon shares have dropped more than 40% from pandemic-era heights. PayPal has plummeted 77% from its 2021 highs, and Shopify, which sells software to help small businesses sell online but makes most of its revenue from processing their payments, is down 82% from a November peak. Of course some of this decline comes from the adjustments in tech valuation. However, it is worth thinking about the fact that to some extent things might go back to “normal” - as people decide to go out to shop.
Now, let’s go ahead to this week’s news…. Please note the new section on what I learned from readers - continue to send interesting articles my way!
Views expressed in this newsletter belongs to me, and not to any organization, affiliates, or employees.
B3, the Brazilian stock exchange is preparing the launch of the bitcoin futures contract, a product that aims to give exposure to crypto to all types of clients.
The new contract will be traded at a ratio of 1/10 of a Bitcoin – around US$ 3,000 or R$ 15,000. The exchange chose Bitcoin as a price index and it will follow a similar regulation of index futures.
GK Ventures, venture capital fund founded by Eduardo Mufarej, led the BRL 30mm round in Negócios Verdes, joining investors such as Daniel Goldberg, former Farallon, and Marco Kheirallah, former BTG Pactual. The new Company is a merge between Sulminas and Rolth and will be focused on providing environment friendly solutions to industrial waste disposal.
Another CVC on the way: Brazilian company Suzano announced the start of Suzano Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital strategy of the company that will have USD70mm to invest in Startups. The idea is to focus on biotech and boost the firm’s Open innovation agenda.
Linx announced its first acquistion being part of the Stone Co. holding – Plugg.to, tech company especialized in integrating brick and mortar retailers to marketplaces. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
El Salvador Loses 50% of Its Bitcoin Investments Due to Crypto Collapse
The country’s investments in the cryptocurrency reached its lowest point in all of 2022, despite the fact that just a month ago it increased its positions
Sami, healthtech that raised BRL 111mm six months ago, laid off 75 out of its 550 employees amidst the recent downturn of the tech landscape.
Revelo, HRTech focused on helping companies hire and manage developers, just announced the acquisition of two Mexican companies – ListoPro marketplace of tech talent and CeroUno (developer bootcamp).
With an IPO in mind, SuperLogica hires Diogo Bassi, previous CFO from Unico and Petz as CEO.
Mexico’s Jüsto Prioritizes Profitability Over Unicorn Status. The online supermarket has raised more than $250 million and is seen by some as becoming Mexico’s next unicorn, but its founder Ricardo Weder says he is in no hurry.
Clicampo, platform for SMB farmers providing supply chain and business solutions to increase their revenue by leveraging innovative technology raised USD 8mm in a seed VC round with investors such as Maya Capital and Valor Capital Group.
Destaxa, Brazilian payment orchestrator for offline merchants raised USD 3.1mm in a seed round with notable investors such as Pipefy’s Alessio Alionco, Olist’s Tiago Dalvi, Quona Capital and other. The company uses its proprietary payment rails to help merchants seamlessly work with multiple payment acquirers and accept over 100 payment networks.
What did I learn from readers?
I recieved a very good article from a reader about Tiger Global’s trajectory until now and its recent losses from the recent downturn. Interesting read on how the Fund “changed the rules in Tech Investing”. I highly recommend it! (Thanks to Camilo Telles, founder of Antecipa and angel to several companies)
What am I reading?
Itau BBA Tech Bi-Weekly - reply to this email to recieve it!
Newsletter Clouded Judgment by Jamin Ball – interesting analysis on SaaS multiples and how it is hard to grasp a long term tenure as the software business just started to consolidate 5 years ago.
What did I listen/watch?
Interesting documentary on Netflix: Keep Sweet: Pray and obey
JOB POSTS
Be sure to checkout the new website Layoffs Brasil. Great initiative to help the ecosystem reallocate professionals that were dismissed from tech companies due to the recent downturn.
Here is what top tech companies are looking for…
Banking Analyst: Nomad
Head of Branding - Beep
Growth Marketing leader - CapTable
Head of Sales - Rural
*respond to this newsletter if you want to post a job or if you have interest on the openings above*
Quote of the week:
“We suffer most often in imagination than in reality.” Seneca
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