Seven years after creating Mexican Zenfi, a financial health platform, the company has more than 3 million users, many who use the platform to consolidate and pay off their debt. Having reached profitability Zenfi recently took a new round of funding, this time $8.5 million. Zenfi intends to deploy the new funds into debit and credit products. He is also eyeing three countries in Latin America.
Mexican platform Beek, a type of Audible for the Spanish language, announced a US$13 million Series A. Beek started out as a book review platform. Today it also functions as a marketplace for audio content creators, where they can offer premium content. They plan to use the capital to boost content creators and improve the user experience.
Partech, the global VC firm with several funds that focuses on early- and growth-stage startups, has reached first close of Partech Africa II at €245 million (~$263 million), making it the largest Africa-focused fund yet. The African fund will now seek to reach a final close of not more than €280 million (~$300 million).
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.