Wenceslao Casares
Patagon.com
Latin America’s first online financial and trading portal · Buenos Aires, Argentina
Portrait: Christopher Michel from San Francisco, USA / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
The founder
Wenceslao Casares, from a Patagonian sheep-ranching family, co-founded Patagon.com with Constancio Larguía in the late 1990s as Latin America’s first online financial and trading portal. After the Santander deal, he went on to found Bitcoin company Xapo (2013) and later Lemon Cash, becoming one of the region’s earliest and most persistent fintech founders.
How it was sold
At the height of the dot-com boom, Banco Santander Central Hispano acquired 75% of Patagon.com in March 2000 for $529 million in cash — one of the largest internet acquisitions in Latin American history at the time. (Some accounts cite a higher "total deal" figure closer to $750M including the founders’ retained stake, though $529M/75% is the figure most consistently sourced.)
Sourced & verified
In the news
Coverage of the Patagon.com deal from independent outlets — read the original reporting, not just our summary.
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