China’s Billions Are Powering Latin America’s Tech Boom
By pouring investment into mobile commerce, the nation has found another way to dominate where America once held sway.
When Alex Tabor made his first trip to Beijing back in 2014, the Brazilian executive was worried about communication. Tabor doesn’t speak Mandarin, but he was hopeful that (with the help of a translator) he could get one thing across: the huge opportunity for Chinese companies looking to invest in Latin American tech firms.
While there, he met with officials at Baidu, China’s biggest online search engine, hoping to raise capital for his Internet discount hub, Peixe Urbano. Tabor was already focused on pivoting to a bigger business—one that could sell directly to users rather than just posting discounts. Baidu was interested, and took a majority stake.