Latin America
9 itemsBioLinker raises R$8.4m to automate DNA synthesis and train AI models in the Amazon.
The São Paulo biotech, founded by USP scientists, took R$7.2m from the fund of Amazon-focused accelerator Axcell and the balance from FAPESP's PIPE Phase 2 programme (roughly US$1.6m in total). Proceeds fund an automated laboratory at the Centro de Bionegócios da Amazônia in Manaus intended to generate large-scale biological data, and the company plans to double headcount from 12 to 24.
Kontempo raises $10.5m to open its industrial-credit infrastructure to suppliers.
The Mexico-based B2B fintech says it has processed more than $180m across 50,000-plus transactions for industrial suppliers selling on credit, and will now offer buyer analysis, financing, insurance, collections and reconciliation as infrastructure rather than only as a lender. Investors were not named. Supplier-embedded credit remains a defensible niche in Mexico's manufacturing base.
Siigo acquires Chilean sales-software company Bsale; terms undisclosed.
Bsale provides cloud invoicing, inventory and payments software to SMBs in Chile, Peru and Mexico. The deal moves Colombia's Siigo beyond accounting into sales management and follows its 2025 entry into Chile through Kame.
Potencia Ventures becomes the first international LP in KPTL's Fundo GovTech.
The impact investor joined the Brazilian public-sector-focused vehicle for an undisclosed amount. The fund targets R$150m, had R$107m committed as of July, and expects foreign capital to reach 25% of the total; it has made eight investments and aims for 16, with two more expected by year-end.
Endeavor Catalyst closes $320m fifth fund for founders "elsewhere".
The co-investment vehicle, which takes $1m–$3m stakes alongside institutional leads in rounds of $5m or more raised by Endeavor network entrepreneurs, now has more than $850m under management and plans 40–50 investments a year. With venture capital concentrating on Bay Area AI, it is one of the few scaled pools structurally committed to emerging-market founders, including Latin America's.
US yields at 2002 levels put Latin America's most exposed economies back in focus.
The 10-year Treasury topped 5.30% and the 30-year reached 5.72% as renewed Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent above US$101 and reinforced expectations of continued Fed restriction; Fed minutes pointed to at least one further hike. Most Latin American currencies weakened and the Bloomberg Dollar Spot index rose 0.3%, though BlackRock argues markets are pricing excessive tightening and sees limited further dollar upside. Citi's breakdown of which regional economies face the heaviest bill is the piece to read.
Mexico's local bond sales hit a record as issuers rush to market.
Corporates are front-loading issuance ahead of further rate pressure; analysts have meanwhile raised their peso forecasts for the dollar and expect Banxico to hold. Thursday brings Mexican inflation and Banxico minutes alongside Chilean CPI.
Colombia scraps the Petro-era cap on pension funds' foreign investment.
The De la Espriella government struck down the rule limiting AFPs' overseas allocations, a change that frees local institutional capital but may weigh on domestic asset demand. Separately, Bloomberg Línea examines why any IMF support for Colombia would differ from the programmes in Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador.
Argentina launches a "golden passport" as the US EXIM investment agenda begins.
Citizenship is on offer for a $350,000 non-refundable contribution or an $800,000 seven-year government bond purchase, while US officials held first meetings on a US$7bn EXIM investment plan for the country. In Brazil, Flávio Bolsonaro's first-round lead has encouraged Wall Street hopes of lower fiscal risk, with open questions ahead of the run-off.
Fintech & payments
4 itemsIncognia launches AI agent detection for financial institutions.
The Brazilian-founded fraud-prevention company now distinguishes legitimate agentic activity from unauthorised actions, alongside web behavioural biometrics and an MCP server for AI-assisted investigations. Meta and Sierra are separately developing a Personal Agent Protocol with Shopify, Stripe and Walmart, a sign that agent authentication is becoming the next infrastructure layer in payments.
Capitolis raises $120m Series E at $1.9bn, led by Citi with eight other banks.
The capital-markets optimisation platform also secured $100m in debt. Elsewhere, Paris-based Spiko raised a $90m Series B led by NEA for tokenised regulated cash funds, Mike Cagney's Navra took $19m from Ribbit for on-chain lending and yield, and London stablecoin platform Noah added $16m.
Revolut will cover costs for 680 customers whose data reached hackers via a compromised Italian government email domain.
Revolut says it was not itself breached and will not pay ransoms; exposed crypto holders face physical security risks. The same episode of Fintech Recap covers Chime's proposed acquisition of its partner bank Stride and Whop's "build your own neobank" feature.
Experian opens a Cashflow Data Bureau, Octane signs a $1.4bn forward-flow deal, and Anchorage buys Routable.
Experian's bureau gives lenders transaction-level cash-flow data for underwriting; Octane's facility, led by New York Life, backs powersports loans; Anchorage Digital's acquisition adds corporate payment rails to its custody business.
Venture & markets
3 itemsSpaceX seeks $40bn in debt, led by Apollo, to buy Nvidia chips.
The package would combine around $30bn of investment-grade bonds with $10bn of bank loans and follows Broadcom lining up $60bn in chip financing for Anthropic and others. Ray Dalio called AI a "classic bubble" nearing its bursting point; Nvidia's market value reached $5.65tn.
Mega-rounds continue: DeepSeek, Lambda, Moonshot and Vinci.
DeepSeek is reportedly seeking at least $12bn at a $74.6bn valuation, Lambda up to $4bn at $14.5bn pre-money led by Blackstone and Coatue ahead of an IPO, Moonshot AI closed at a $50bn valuation, and Vinci raised a $250m Series B at $1.5bn for AI hardware simulation. Type One Energy's $200m Series B and Ledgebrook's $200m insurance round led the non-AI tickets.
Fund closes: Disruptive secures $7.5bn toward a $10bn target; Forbion raises €2.3bn.
Sheridan Capital closed $1.1bn for healthcare PE and Dutch seed firm Graduate Ventures reached €100m of a €125m second fund. Uber agreed to buy ezCater for $2.3bn and SAP is acquiring Belgian talent-platform TechWolf.
AI & technology
3 itemsOpenAI releases 722 maths papers from an unreleased internal model.
Grouped into 372 result families, the claims include a proof of a weaker "quasi-Riemann hypothesis", with 162 papers formalised in Lean; OpenAI says nearly all results took a single prompt and about three hours of compute.
Mistral's "Le Chonk" and Aleph Alpha's "Kolibri" revive Europe's sovereign-AI case.
Mistral claims its new flagship is the best open model in Europe and the US and comparable to leading Chinese systems after nearly a year without a large-scale release; Aleph Alpha's Kolibri targets regulated sectors with German-language training.
AI agents implicated in attacks on Korean banks and an Australian government portal.
South Korean officials are investigating whether agents were used in cyberattacks on Shinhan, Hana and KB Kookmin, and OpenAI told Australian lawmakers it added immediate human-intervention controls after its agents accessed non-public Medicare data in June. Common Sense Media separately rated ChatGPT for Teens an "unacceptable risk", which OpenAI disputes.
Worth reading
3 itemsThree things founders should do differently in the AI era, from Joaquín Quiñonero (ex-Meta, ex-OpenAI Preparedness).
Spend on tokens rather than headcount, avoid research teams built to impress investors, and stay close to the work regardless of title.
How to raise a Series A: four investors on timing, narrative and whether AI-generated decks are tolerated.
Sifted
Capitalism and fertility rates: Russell Clark on whether humans are shifting from draft horses to thoroughbreds.
A provocative macro frame on declining population and the returns to physical labour.