#010: What does LatAm really think about the Metaverse?
Plus: Food apps gone fintech, neobanks, and Habi's back at it
Hey technopolists,
This week was less Hot and more Not as the global meltdown trickles deeper and deeper into LatAm. Crypto’s collapse is hitting LatAm different, and our friend Bitcoin Bukele is back in the spotlight.
Meanwhile, I’ve beefed up the stat of the week for you with 3 graphs that explain LatAm’s feelings on the metaverse.
Finally, a quick housekeeping note - I’m away next week, so I’ll catch you again with the next edition on July 4th. ✌️
What’s hot
🏦 Making it offish’. Colombian regulators have approved food delivery app Rappi for a full-fledged banking license. Rappi already offers financial products to nearly 1mn users, but the approval means they can move into the big leagues: debit accounts and lending. Users won’t notice much of a change, but Rappi leaders will be uttering a massive sigh of relief, since a blocked license would be a huge obstacle for their fintech super-app hopes (see: Revolut’s banking license struggles in UK/US). The approval is good for growth, but the question on everyone’s lips (especially in this economy) remains: since consumer banking has notoriously low margins, where will Rappi find profitability? (Reuters)
🐵 Monkey see, monkey do. Mono, the Colombian B2B neobank for startups, raised a decent $6mn seed round led by Tiger Global with participation from noteworthy angels from Monzo and Revolut. The challenger bank is attempting to be the region’s first fully branchless neobank for SMEs with an emphasis on speed and ease, allowing customers to open accounts in 15 minutes. With their star-studded investor cast and a co-founder from Nubank, it seems like Mono is attempting to ape the success of more mature neobanks elsewhere. (TechCrunch)
💰 Credit where it’s due. Habi, the Colombian proptech that became a unicorn one month ago with a $200mn fundraise, closed $75mn in debt financing from a host of non-bank lenders and fintechs. The credit facility will allow Habi to extend financial products to its consumers — think mortgages and bridge loans. This move makes loads of sense, having cropped up at other proptechs in times of feast and famine alike. Why? Habi, which already offers financial products like mortgages, gets to increase its burn without diluting itself by freeing up equity that’s locked up in long-term loans to users. Investors will be happy to put their capital to use in a safe(ish) asset class like real estate (and this credit facility is probably asset-backed, though I’m speculating) while the markets go cuckoo. (LABS)
What’s not
💃🏽 The cumbia is stopping. Colombia has finally succumbed to the global trend of downsizing. Hunty, the e-learning platform, has laid off ~10% of its workforce (30 employees), while fintech Addi has made mass layoffs, though numbers have not been confirmed. Further south, Brazilian healthtech Sami has also confirmed a large round of layoffs. The bleeding has now touched all countries in the region and shows no signs of letting up yet. (Bloomberg Linea)
🇸🇻 Can’t stop, won’t stop. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is back at it, hinting about buying the Bitcoin dip (again) after his Bitcoin position worsened (again). Since last November, Bukele has reportedly invested roughly $100mn in Bitcoin, and as of this week, more than half of the value has been lost as Bitcoin’s price has plummeted. El Salvador’s dollar debt is now the worst-performing in all of LatAm, and their Bitcoin losses amount to 7% of the country’s impending $800mn debt payment due to the IMF in January. The administration is still touting its plan to sell Bitcoin-backed “volcano bonds” to raise additional funding, though the project is behind schedule and experts say may never materialise. Most Salvadorans oppose the Bitcoin bet, with roughly two-thirds of respondents disapproving his crypto policy in recent polls; however, Bukele still boasts 85-90% approval ratings as a leader, the highest in Latin America. (The Economist)
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Stat of the week
This week, I’m taking a pause from global indicators to zoom in on the metaverse. The research is based on a recent social listening study by ComScore, a media research group, based on mass scrapes of internet data. Three charts this week.
Here’s what jumps out about:
LatAm doesn’t love the metaverse (yet). Only 1 in every 4 mentions of the metaverse were positive. Without a benchmark, it’s tough to contextualise how this has grown. But we do know that 3/4ths of the population aren’t keen for it yet, making mass adoption a far-flung Zuckerberg ideal.
Mexicans are loudest – Argentinians, too. Mexicans talk about the metaverse more than Brazilians, despite being 40% smaller by population. Let’s not neglect Argentina, which fuels roughly 19% of regional mentions despite having only 7% of LatAm’s total population.
Crypto is quiet. Despite heavy adoption of cryptocurrencies, crypto and NFTs are the least commonly discussed themes - far behind VR and Facebook/Meta. There are 3.5x as many mentions for Zuck’s co. Some will see the underrepresentation as headroom for growth.
Source: ComScore
Smart links
I’ve replaced For the culture with Smart links, a carefully curated roundup of must-reads that will help you stay sharp on LatAm. Whether you want to hone your macro outlook or just sharpen your banter, these links get my chef’s kiss of approval.
Latin audiences don’t like the metaverse that much (Startups Brasil - Portuguese)
Chile is LatAm’s most entrepreneurial nation (Latinometrics)
Less is more: Value of VC in LatAm drops, number of deals rises (Bloomberg Linea)
Why the crypto crash hits different in Latin America (Rest of World)
Bitso processes $1bn in crypto remittances between Mexico & the US so far in 2022 (CoinDesk)
JOKR is leaving the US, ‘for now’, to focus on LatAm (TechCrunch)
Roldolfo Hernandez’ secret digital weapon (Rest of World)
Leftist Gustavo Petro wins Colombian presidency (FT)
‘It’s a war on the people’: El Salvador’s mass arrests send thousands into despair (The Guardian)
Suspects confess to Amazonian killing of UK journalist Dom Phillips & Bruno Perreira (BBC)
The end of the millennial lifestyle subsidy (The Atlantic)