Latin American e-commerce platform MercadoLibre has raised $2bn from a public share offering and direct investments from PayTech giant PayPal among others.
The company offered around $1.15bn of common stock priced $480 per share, MercadoLibre said.
Paypal picked up $750m of common stock in MercadoLibre, while an affiliate of Dragoneer Investment Group bought $100m of Series A perpetual convertible preferred stock.
The ecommerce giant has raised a total of $2bn through the offering, it said on Friday.
MercadoLibre was founded in 1999 and operates six integrated ecommerce platforms including MercadoLibre, MercadoPago and MercadoEnvíos. Through the company’s tech platform, companies and individuals can buy and sell goods and services over the internet.
The company has planned to use the proceeds of the offering to expand its e-commerce platform, strengthen its logistics infrastructure and invest in its PayTech products.
“Over the past 20 years, we have heavily invested in developing the preeminent e-commerce and FinTech ecosystem in Latin America,” said MercadoLibre CEO Marcos Galperin.
“We are excited to welcome these investments which will allow us to significantly accelerate our growth.
“We look forward to accelerating our leadership in ecommerce and payments and foster financial inclusion in Latin America as a result of our alliance with a global leader in the industry such as PayPal.”
Last year PayPal backed online fraud prevention start-up Arkose Labs and led a $50m investment round for cross-border payments processor PPRO Group.
Copyright © 2019 FinTech Global
