Paypal to invest $750M, and Dragoneer $100m, into MercadoLibre, Argentina’s e-commerce powerhouse

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

By Ingrid Lunden

It’s not only SoftBank that’s eyeing up the opportunity to tap into the quickly expanding market for e-commerce in Latin America. MercadoLibre, a marketplace and financial services powerhouse based out of Argentina and serving 18 countries across the region, has announced that PayPal is investing $750 million, and investment firm Dragoneer another $100 million, as part of a $1.8 billion equity offering to grow its business — specifically to expand the functionality of its e-commerce platform, improve its logistics infrastructure and invest in financial technologies “that further solidify the company’s position as a powerful provider of inclusive end-to-end financial technology and payments solutions.”

The remaining $1 billion of the equity offering will be offered as common stock, the company said. PayPal  and Dragoneer’s investments are contingent on the company raising the remainder publicly, although judging by the company’s track record as a public stock, and the fact that PayPal also announced this news on its own site, it doesn’t appear the parties are in great doubt about the deal’s completion.

Source: TechCrunch (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance, Technology
Tags
digital payments, e-commerce