拉美资产最大银行联合巴西银行（Unibanco Holding SA）表示，已收购巴西人工智能初创公司NeoSpace AI Technologies Ltda.，交易金额为29亿雷亚尔（5.8亿美元），旨在帮助加速该银行的技术雄心。
Unibanco Holding SA, Latin America’s biggest bank by assets, said it acquired Brazilian artificial intelligence startup NeoSpace AI Technologies Ltda., in a 2.9 billion-real ($580 million) deal to help accelerate the bank’s technology ambitions.
该交易将帮助伊塔乌银行（Itau）将NeoSpace的技术与银行的金融服务专长相结合，以开发其自身的人工智能模型，伊塔乌银行周一在一份声明中表示。这笔全现金收购将使初创公司保持自主管理和架构，创始人布鲁诺·皮耶罗邦（Bruno Pierobon）担任首席执行官。
The transaction will help Itau develop its own AI models by combining NeoSpace’s technology with the bank’s financial-services know-how, Itau said Monday in a statement. The all-cash takeover will leave the startup with an autonomous management and structure, with founder Bruno Pierobon as chief executive officer.
伊塔乌银行表示，NeoSpace成立于2023年，开发的人工智能可识别大数据集中的模式和复杂关联。伊塔乌银行已是该公司客户，并于2025年初领投了1800万美元的融资轮次。该银行认为NeoSpace的模型是个性化其客户服务的一种方式。
NeoSpace, which was founded in 2023, develops AI that identifies patterns and complex links in large datasets, the bank said. Itau is already a client and led an investment round of $18 million in early 2025. The bank sees NeoSpace’s models as a way to personalize its customer service.
伊塔乌银行一直在大力投资以现代化其平台，因为巴西金融部门试图跟上发达的金融科技行业。该银行于2024年将不同的移动应用统一为一个应用，因为客户正从实体网点转移，而银行则寻求机会加强与单一产品客户的联系。
Itau has been investing heavily to modernize its platforms as Brazil’s financial sector tries to keep up with a well-developed fintech industry. It unified different mobile apps into a single one in 2024 as clients shifted from physical branches and the bank sought an opportunity to amplify its ties to single-product clients.
这一推动旨在增加银行在分析每个客户风险时可获取的数据量，同时确保这些客户更广泛地留在该银行。随着竞争加剧，传统银行和其他地方的金融科技公司也在尝试这一举措。
The push is aimed at increasing the amount of data the bank has access to when analyzing each client’s risk, but also at making sure those clients stick to the bank more broadly, a move traditional banks and fintechs elsewhere are also trying to make as competition intensifies.
该银行在过去十年中进行过其他技术收购。2019年，它表示同意收购Zup，这也是由皮耶罗邦创办的一家初创公司，为将新开发的系统集成到旧架构中提供服务。
The bank has made other acquisitions in tech in the past decade. In 2019, it said it agreed to buy Zup, a startup also founded by Pierobon that provides services to integrate newly developed systems to legacy structures.