Mexico City — The party celebrating the emergence of new unicorns has taken a three-month hiatus in Latin America, with the most recent announcement of a startup reaching a valuation of more than $1 billion having been in early August, with the merger of fintechs Yaydoo and Paystand, creating a binational, US-Mexican unicorn.

However, since July, no wholly Latin American unicorn has emerged, since Mexican fintech Stori achieved a value of $1.2 billion after extending its Series Cround, led by BAI Capital, GIC and GGV Capital.

Stori's unicorn status came amid an adverse environment for late-stage startups, however.

Marlene Garayzar, co-founder of Stori, told Bloomberg Línea that "investment is not going to stop, but it's going to go towards companies that really have a lot of clarity on when they are going to be profitable and have healthy unit economics".

Despite the decrease in invetment this 2022, unicorns still emerged in the first half of the year in the Latin America however, such as Chilean social insurtech Betterfly, Colombian proptech Habi, Mexican logistics startup Nowports, Ecuadorian paytech Kushki and Brazilian companies Dock, Unico and Solfácil.

Source: Bloomberg Línea