Who run the world? Fintechs! Or at least they did it this week in Brazil, since we never had so much great news from financial startups in such a few days. First, we had another Nubank’s achievement, the Brazilian fintech reached the mark of more than 15 million customers in the country, but what has really shaken the Brazilian market this week was the announcement of the latest unicorn in the country: EBANX, the payments processing company that owns a powerful portfolio with brands such as AliExpress, Spotify and Airbnb. 

Now that EBANX is joining the unicorns club, Brazil has already reached 4 new companies valued at $ 1 billion in 2019, since Loggi, Gympass and recently QuintoAndar have also achieved the status. 

And talking about optimistic news on the financial market, guess who won’t give up on Libra? Facebook! The responsible for Libra’s project revealed to Bloomberg that despite the recent losses on the partners’ board the company keeps the optimism about the product and it plans to have more businesses joining the association soon. 

Meanwhile, the financial market was moving at a fast pace this week, a lot of other important great news has been highlighted in the media outlets and you cannot miss anything. So get ready and be up to date with this edition of LABS+1: 

4- Uber will acquire the Chilean grocery delivery startup Cornershop

A Latin American startup caught Uber‘s attention and now it will make part of the global group. Cornershop, the grocery delivery startup born in Chile, will be bought by Uber – which might have the majority ownership of the company as early as in 2020, according to TechCrunch. 

Wallmart was the first interested in buying the Chilean startup in a process announced in September – at that time, the whole deal was valued at $225 million, but the transaction was prohibited to move forward by Mexican antitrust regulators. Although Wallmart still works with Cornershop in the strategy to expand the service beyond the Latin American market – reaching Toronto in Canada – Uber will be the one to get the ownership. 

3- How Estonian Pipedrive turned Brazil into its second-largest market

In 2010, while still in its early steps in the small city of Tallinn, Estonia’s capital, Pipedrive detected a peculiar movement: Brazilians were prominent among the company’s first 100 customers.

This was the beginning of a promising and long-lasting relationship between Pipedrive and Brazil, which currently is only behind the United States in the number of customers. “This quick decision paved the way for us to get new customers and for Brazil to become the second-largest market in the world for Pipedrive,” Gonçalves recalls.

2- Nubank reaches 15 million clients in Brazil

The $10 billion fintech has a new achievement for the list: the mark of 15 million customers in Brazil, according to Nubank‘s CEO statement during the event Brazil Investment Forum, held in São Paulo. 

The credit card remains as the product with the biggest number of users as well as the most attractive to new users: 10 million of all costumers use specifically this product. Nonetheless, the company is investing in increasing its portfolio to keep growing. “We opened many new business fronts in the last 12 months and we are growing fast”, said David Vélez, Nubank’s CEO, during the event. 

1 – Brazilian fintech EBANX is Latin America’s new unicorn

If there were any doubts about financial services in Brazil being ready for disruption, this has certainly changed. The country has just won another unicorn company to integrate its set of startups valued at $1 billion: the payments fintech company EBANX. 

The fintech has raised a significant follow-on round from the growth equity investment firm FTV Capital, which leveraged EBANX to reach the coveted unicorn status. “EBANX has consistently outperformed our expectations, nearly doubling processing volumes in two years to over $2 billion US dollars,” said Robert Anderson, partner at FTV Capital, according to the official press release. 

LABS+1: After 6 years since the last original album, the Brazilian singer Humberto Gessinger is back

Famous in Brazil for being the leader and vocalist of the rock band “Engenheiros do Hawaii” during the ‘80s, the singer Humberto Gessinger is launching a new original studio album called “Não Vejo a Hora”. All the songs were based in two main styles: power trio and acoustic trio, the goal is to have less studio interference and keep the spotlight on the strength of the compositions.