Mercado Libre

In nineteen ninety-nine, Marcos Galperin was twenty-two years old in Buenos Aires. The internet was coming to Latin America. Galperin saw a gap. eBay was American. Mercado Libre would be Latin American. He built an online marketplace across Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. He also copied eBay. eBay worked because Americans had credit cards. Latin America had neither cards nor trust. Most people were unbanked. A buyer and seller could match on the marketplace, but payment collapsed. No PayPal equivalent existed. Mercado Libre could not grow without solving this. So Galperin built Mercado Pago. Not as a feature. As a separate company.