Startup investors have been putting a whole lot more capital into Latin America for the past couple years. Now they have something to show for it: A large and fast-growing stable of unicorns. What’s remarkable about this list is how different it would have looked just a year or so ago.

Link: https://news.crunchbase.com/news/latin-america-unicorn-startups/

We’re in the middle of a wave of interesting new productivity software startups – there are dozens of companies that remix some combination of lists, tables, charts, tasks, notes, light-weight databases, forms, and some kind of collaboration, chat or information-sharing.

Link: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/9/27/new-productivity

China ordered 12 internet giants including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. to step up data security protections, including the exporting of key information. The companies, including Meituan, Xiaomi Corp., ByteDance Ltd. and Ant Group Co.

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-30/china-orders-tech-giants-to-boost-data-security-protections

Payments fintech Square announced its intention to acquire Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) firm Afterpay for $29 billion in an all stock transaction. Square’s press release quotes Square CEO Jack Dorsey as saying: OK, whatever you say Jack.

Link: https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2021/08/02/why-square-acquired-afterpay-for-29-billion-merchant-and-cashapp-user-acquisition/amp/