Good morning & happy Thursday! Today's issue is really hot as we're going to look into the rise of stablecoins, which just hit a market capitalization of $200 billion (key drivers pushing this, why it matters & what's next + some bonus reads on crypto & stables inside), and Mercado Libre & Nubank whose battle is reshaping LatAm's banking landscape (holistic recap of what's happening, why it matters & what's next + bonus deep dives into the latest financials of NU & MercadoLibre and why you should be super bullish on both of them). Let's just jump straight into the fascinating stuff '' This represents a remarkable 13% increase over the past month, driven by increased crypto trading activity, growing adoption in developing markets, and attractive yields in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms. Not too shabby! '...

Midway through 2024, Mike Packer, a partner at fintech-focused QED Investors, predicted we'd already hit the bottom for funding to Latin American fintech startups, and that a bounce back was coming. While momentum hasn't been a straight shot up and to the right ever since, it's looking like he was right. The volume of venture capital dollars invested into fintech companies based in LatAm has already surpassed 2023 with another month left in the year. So far in 2024, $2.6 billion has been invested across 174 deals, according to PitchBook data. This compares to the $1.5 billion invested across 241 deals in 2023. While these aren't huge totals, 2024 has already seen a 73% increase in funding volume compared to 2023. 'At a conference in May, I was speaking to some of our seed founders and said, 'I'm going to call this as the bottom of LatAm equity funding,'' Packer told TechCrunch. 'I knew a bunch of deals in the pipeline, it seems like we are off the bottom.' Sao Paulo-based Conta Simples raised a $41.5 million Series B led by Base10 in January for its expense management and corporate card software. In May, Felix Pago raised $15.5 million to help Latino workers send money to family in LatAm. Brazilian AI fintech Magie raised $4 million in a round led by Lux Capital. It was Lux's first investment into Brazil....

Companies operating in Latin America and the Caribbean are facing a dynamic and increasingly complex political landscape. They can no longer rely on alliances with national government leaders in power or costly arbitration when things go awry. Instead, they need better strategies to manage risk. These include proactive social media listening to identify and head off or more quickly respond to looming challenges; a community-centric approach, including investments in projects that provide long-term benefits to ensure local support; partnerships with longstanding local businesses that intimately understand their market dynamics; and more robust contingency planning to ensure business continuity amid political unrest....

Good morning & happy Friday! Today's issue is something I've been waiting for the whole week since we're going to look at Latin America's digital banking giant Nubank which continues to dominate across all fronts (breaking down their latest impressive Q3 2024 financials, what they mean & what's ahead for NU + some bonus reads inside), e-commerce & FinTech giant Shopify that's hitting its stride with expanding margins and enterprise momentum (unpacking their latest financial results, why they matter & why you should be bullish on Shopify + some bonus reads inside). So let's just jump straight into the fascinating stuff '' Earnings time ' Latin America's FinTech gem Nubank NU 0.00%' just posted its latest earnings, and we're struck again by the company's exceptional execution in building what has become one of the largest digital banking platforms in the world, now serving nearly 110 million customers '. Let that sink in....