Founded in August 1999 in Argentina, MercadoLibre expanded rapidly to Mexico, Brazil and other Latin American countries. MercadoLibre was founded by Marcos Galperin at the time when he was still in Stanford University taking up a business course. His finance professor, Jack McDonald helped him raise funds for his startups. Funds were contributed by a number of angel investors such as JPMorgan Partners, Hicks Muse, Flatiron Partners, GE Capital, Banco Santander Central Hispano and Goldman Sachs.
MercadoLibre became the partner of eBay for Latin America in September 2001 after eBay acquired 19.5% of the company’s stakes in exchange for ibazar.com.br, eBay’s Brazilian subsidiary.
MercadoLibre acquired eight operation sites of one of its closest competitors, DeRemate, in November 2005. In August 2008, the remaining operations of DeRemate were acquired by MercadoLibre.