Amazon and Spotify turn LatAm into a testing ground

#073: Ebanx eyes India – and an IPO.

Hola technopolists,

Major trends on the global stage are making their way directly to Latin America on an even shorter timeline than we’re used to.

OpenAI announced that its next update to ChatGPT will enable it to ‘see, hear, and speak’. Reader, be shooketh. Amazon is responding by ploughing up to $4bn into rival Anthropic, while Spotify is joining the fun by using ChatGPT for Spanish-language podcast translations that’ll try to accelerate their Latin growth story.

In global IPO markets, Instacart gave tech startups another data point to cautiously celebrate. It soon caught on in Latam, with Daki (JOKR’s Brazilian wing) announcing their own fundraise and IPO aspirations just days after their American lookalike floated — even if it was a downround.

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What’s Hot

🇮🇳 Ebanx eyes India and IPO. The Brazil-born paytech juggernaut ramped up its global expansion plans by announcing that it will soon operate in India and 10 other new geographies, bringing its total global footprint to 29 countries. In India, Ebanx will support payments on the fast-growing UPI network — the PIX of India, which boasts 22% adoption in the world’s most populous country and is set to process a billion daily transactions by the end of 2023. Next up: the company is eyeing an IPO in the next 1-3 years, according to CEO João Del Valle. (Bloomberg)

📱 Prime Video adds ads in Mexico and co. Following suit with streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+, Amazon has announced it will introduce advertisements into Prime Video next year. Ad-supporting streaming will be the new normal in core markets (US, UK, Germany, and Canada) by early 2024, while a second wave (including Mexico, France, Italy, Spain, and Australia) will take effect later in the year. Amazon stated there will be less advertising time than linear TV, and users will be able to avoid them altogether by paying an additional $2.99 per month. (TechCrunch, Bloomberg Linea)

🤖 Spotify’s AI podcast translations. The Swedish streaming platform announced a testing period for AI-powered podcast translations this year. Building on OpenAI’s new major update, which will enable ChatGPT to ‘see, hear, and speak’, Spotify will translate a handful of episodes from its top-performing podcasters (including Bill Simmons, Steven Bartlett, and Monica Padman) into Spanish, French, and German; imagine next-gen dubbing, but in the speaker’s actual voice. Spanish is the obvious link to Latin America — which has been a key growth geography for the streaming giant in recent years — as it aims to capitalise on podcasting’s strong engagement rates. More in the Stat. (Reuters)

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What’s Not

🦄 JOKR/Daki loses its uni-horn. Daki, the Brazilian arm of grocery delivery JOKR, raised a $50mn Series D led by the VC arm of Pernod Ricard, Convivialité Ventures. A mega-round isn’t hot? Not this time, since the company’s valuation dropped to $800mn post-money — a 40% slide from the $1.3bn valuation it achieved on its February $50mn Series C. As a consolatory hat-tip to JOKR’s PR team, though: the announcement’s timing couldn’t have been better orchestrated, immediately following Instacart’s IPO in a not-so-subtle hint at its own listing in coming years. (TechCrunch)

🛩️ Maxmilhas’ bankruptcy. Maxmilhas, a subsidiary of the recently-bankrupt travel platform 123milhas, filed for bankruptcy protections in Brazil as contagion from its parent company’s collapse spreads. The company stated that, despite being a separate legal entity from 123milhas, the fallout from its parent company’s bankruptcy caused revenues to plummet 70% and triggered insolvency of its already-shaky financial position. In legal filings, Maxmilhas requested protection from debts totalling $45mn, bringing the total amount of debt between the two companies to $513mn. (Bloomberg Linea, Startups Brasil)

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Stat of the Week

Having spent several years working in an audio startup, I can say with some certainty: automated translation is a sort of holy grail in podcasting.

A content producer doesn’t need a consultant to tell them that translation from English to Spanish would add 40% to their addressable market size overnight. Multi-language audio is so powerful that platforms like Podimo have risen to success through a language-specific strategy.

Yet Spotify’s new automated translation test isn’t just about reach. Podcasts are ‘sticky’ (in startup parlance), and the Swedes are hoping to convert that stickiness into better revenue, both from advertising and free-to-paid user conversion.

So, how big is the opportunity for Spotify?