Itaú Unibanco has signed an agreement to buy all of the shares of NeoSpace A.I. Technologies, a Brazilian startup that builds foundation models for large volumes of corporate data. The bank disclosed the deal in a material fact dated October 26, 2026, which it also filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The price is BRL 2.925 billion, or about $588 million at the exchange rate used by The Rio Times. One instalment will be paid at closing and the rest will be deferred over five years, subject to conditions, according to the filing. The deal needs approval from Brazil's competition authority, CADE, and from the Central Bank of Brazil.
NeoSpace will keep operating autonomously from the bank and its current team will be retained, Itaú said. Bruno Pierobon, the co-founder and chief executive, stays in charge, NeoFeed reported.
What NeoSpace built
NeoSpace develops what it calls large data models. Where large language models are trained mainly on text, NeoSpace's models are designed to work with data in any format, including the tables, records and documents that companies hold internally, NeoFeed reported. The company also offers platforms that let businesses train specialised models on their own data instead of relying on general-purpose ones.
Itaú is NeoSpace's best-known customer. According to the filing, the startup has worked for the bank for nearly two years, building models trained on Itaú's proprietary data. NeoFeed reported that NeoSpace also has customers in telecoms, aviation and energy.
Pierobon told NeoFeed the company is opening an office in the United States and was in advanced talks on two opportunities there and one in Europe.
The founders and the funding
NeoSpace was founded at the end of 2023 by Pierobon, Felipe Almeida, Gustavo Debs and Thiago Teixeira, according to NeoFeed. It is not the first time Itaú has bought a company from this group: Pierobon, Almeida and Debs co-founded Zup, a software and technology services company started in 2011, which Itaú acquired in 2019 for more than BRL 500 million.
In January 2025 NeoSpace raised $18 million at a $100 million valuation in a round led by Itaú, NeoFeed reported. Startups.com.br said the bank took a 15% stake in that round. Individual investors in the round included Martin Escobari of General Atlantic and Micky Malka of Ribbit Capital.
The acquisition price is close to six times the valuation of that round, less than two years later.
Why Itaú is buying
Itaú said the deal is meant to expand the use of generative AI across its businesses, including more personalised financial and credit products and its AI assistant. The filing describes it as another step in the bank's strategy to strengthen its own proprietary artificial intelligence capabilities.
Owning NeoSpace means the bank will control the models it already uses rather than buying them from a supplier. NeoFeed reported that the two companies already run joint projects applying NeoSpace's technology, and that the bank plans to make its generative AI assistant available to all individual customers of its app by the end of 2026.
Part of the price will only be paid over the five years after closing, and subject to conditions, according to the filing. Bloomberg Línea reported that the deal will be paid in cash.
The price and the timing
The dollar value of the deal depends on the exchange rate. The Rio Times converted the BRL 2.925 billion price at the previous Friday's rate to about $588 million, while other outlets reported figures between about $580 million and $589 million.
The announcement came on a volatile day for Brazilian markets, The Rio Times reported, with Itaú's US-listed shares falling during a wider sell-off after the presidential election.
The transaction is expected to close once regulators approve it. Itaú did not give a timetable.
