Warren Buffett is a legendary investor, one known for making a huge fortune from buying and selling stakes in many companies. Via his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett has led investments in many companies across many industries.

• Though, in his long investing career, Buffett has largely shied away from one area – tech startups and companies. Paraphrasing his own words, it’s because he “didn’t understand it”. 

• As time has progressed, Buffett has somewhat become friendly with tech investments, starting with bigger names like Apple and IBM, and then Paytm, India’s premier fintech startup.

• Now, in his latest tech bet, Buffett’s Berkshire has ventured into Brazil to the country’s premier fintech startup, just like it did in India. 

• Berkshire has bought a $500mn stake in Nubank, a premier neobank and the largest fintech startup in Brazil and Latin America at large. The investment is part of a $750mn round for the company at a reported valuation of $30bn. 

• At $30bn, Nubank’s valuation makes it the largest tech startup to emerge from Latin America. It places it among the top ten most valuable startups globally, according to data from CB Insights.

• Berkshire’s $500mn investment is the largest single tranche of funding that Nubank has obtained since its start in 2013. With it, the Brazilian startup has now raised about $2bn in venture funding.

• Nubank is actually Berkshire’s second fintech bet in Brazil, after payments processor StoneCo. The firm bought a stake in StoneCo when it IPOed on the US markets in 2018.

• Berkshire’s Nubank investment is a sign that the investing giant is getting friendlier towards tech, even in privately-held startups. It’s like we can expect more tech investments coming from the company soon.

• Though we’re likely nitpicking on two events not closely related to each other, Berkshire interestingly invested in Nubank shortly after selling nearly all of its stake in American bank Wells Fargo by the end of this year’s first quarter. At that, you can call it a wealth transfer from traditional banks to digital banks.

Photo credit: Fortune Live Media, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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