TLDR

📣 Call for nominations | 2022 LAVCA Women Investors in Latin American Tech

📣 New rounds for Kapital, Mendel, Quinio, Ativy, Beep Saúde, mattilda and Cicada

📣 Fund closings for Quona Capital (USD332m Final Close)

📣 Exits and M&A | NXTP exits Retargetly; Yaydoo acquires Oyster Financial

📣 Startups | Restructurings for Kavak and Dock
 

Call for Nominations

 

LAVCA is accepting nominations for our annual lists of Top Women Investors and Emerging Women Investors in Latin American Tech.
 

Access the form to nominate senior-, mid-, and junior-level female investment professionals deploying capital from a VC fund, and women angel investors investing in 3+ LatAm tech startups a year.
 

Nominations close Friday, November 25.

Deals

▸ DEBT | Kapital, a Mexican finance management platform for SMEs, secured a USD100m debt facility from US-based debt investor Sivo.

• Tenacity Venture Capital led a USD10m seed round in July 2022. 

▸ Victory Park Capital and Industry Ventures led a USD60m equity and debt round for Mendel, a Mexican corporate spend management platform, with follow-on from ALLVP, BetterTomorrow Ventures and Infinity Ventures. 

• ALLVP and Infinity Ventures led a USD35m equity and debt round in January. 

▸ Northgate Capital led a USD40m equity and debt round for Quinio, a Mexican e-commerce aggregator, with participation from Alchimia Investments, and follow-on from DILA Capita, Cometa, AlleyCorp and Western Technology Investment. 

• Cometa led a USD20m seed round in December 2021.

▸ DEBT | Ativy, a Brazilian ERP platform, secured ~USD24m in venture debt from Milenio Capital and Paramis. 

• Antecipa Facil led a ~USD1.8m round in September. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | CZI, the investment arm of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, led an undisclosed Series C for Beep Saúde, a Brazilian at-home laboratory test and home care platform, with follow-on from DNA Capital, Bradesco, Endeavor Brasil and angel David Vélez (Nubank).

• This is the first known investment from CZI in a Latin American startup. 

• Valor Capital Group led a USD20m Series B in April 2021; DNA Capital invested ~USD1m in 2019. 

▸ FinTech Collective led a USD10m seed round for mattilda, a Mexican finance management and tuition collection platform for private schools, with participation from Wollef, DILA Capital, QED Investors, Picus Capital, Emerge Education, SMP and Xochi Ventures.

▸ KASZEK and DILA Capital led a USD7.6m round for Cicada, a Mexican corporate and government bond investing platform.

▸ Shift Capital and Order VC invested ~USD4m in Zerezes, a Brazilian affordable eyewear manufacturer and retailer. 

▸ DGF Investimentos led a ~USD3m round for Looqbox, a Brazilian developer of corporate search engines, with participation from HiPartners and Locaweb. 

▸ PE investor DSK Capital led a ~USD2m pre-Series A for Finplace, a Brazilian credit financing platform for SMEs. 

▸ CVC | CEMEX Ventures and Gruas M10 led a USD2m round for ObraLink, a Chilean sensor-based construction monitoring platform, with participation from Carao Ventures and Chilean construction company Echeverría Izquierdo.

▸ ChileGlobal Ventures led a USD1.2m seed round for Wareclouds, a Chilean storage management platform for SMEs. 

• Wareclouds raised USD1.2m in November 2021 from CLIN Fund, Plug and Play and others.

▸ Lara AI, a Mexican Virtual assistant and employee engagement platform, raised a USD1.1m round from Newtopia VC, 500 Global, FJ Labs, MrPink VC and Brazil Venture Capital.

▸ Ubanku, a Colombian neobank for teenagers and young professionals, raised a USD1m pre-seed round from Newtopia VC, Irie VC and EF Venture Capital. 

• Angels participating in the round also included Pablo Santos (Finaktiva), Stefan Krautwalt (Dafiti), Camilo Clavijo (Hubspot) and Mauricio Suarez (Melon).

▸ Tributei, a Brazilian fiscal process automation platform for accounting companies, raised ~USD200k from BossaNova Investimentos and FINEP, a startup accelerator program backed by the Brazilian Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Telecomunicações (MCTIC).

▸ Equitas Capital made an undisclosed follow-on investment in SoyMomo, a Chilean tech gadget manufacturer for children. 

▸ BossaNova Investimentos invested in 14 companies in the last month: Bússola Social (cleantech), Locates (proptech), 4 Hábitos (cleantech), Growyx (hrtech), Twiggy (e-commerce), Agidesk (enterprise software), Plano (fintech), Fiscalcripto (fintech), Tuto Digital (edtech), Webropay (fintech), Instanteaser (enterprise software), Upik (construction), Noby (edtech) and Radar Fit (hrtech). 

Funds 

▸ Quona Capital reached a USD332m final close for Quona Accion Inclusion Fund III, its third fund investing in early-stage startups working to advance financial inclusion in Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East. 

• Quona Capital’s first Latin American investment out of Fund III was in Uruguay-based e-commerce platform nocnoc in April.
• Quona Capital reached a USD150m final close for Fund I in 2021 and a USD200m final close for Fund II in 2018. The original target for Fund III was USD250m.
• Quona’s Latin America portfolio includes Solvento, Destaxa, Klar, Contabilizei and Finkargo.

▸ GoHub Ventures, the investment arm of Spanish water utility company Global Omnium, launched an early-stage fund with a ~USD60m target to invest in Europe and Latin America. 

• GoHub Ventures’ recent Latin American investments include Vozy (Colombia) and Fracttal (Brazil). 

▸ Clocktower Technology Ventures launched a second fund with a USD25m target to invest in Latin America fintech startups. 

• Clocktower’s recent Latin America investments include BHub, Caju, Naya Homes, Pomelo, Kushi, Pandas, Habi and Kamino.

▸ WEB3 | BBVA Mexico launched Digital Economy Fund, a retail-focused fund to finance Web3, NFT, metaverse and fintech initiatives locally. 

• BBVA’s recent activity in Latin America includes leading a USD300m Series D for Brazilian digital bank Neon in 2021 at a USD1b+ valuation.

▸ ANGEL | Gina Gotthilf of Latitud launched Tarasa Collective, a women investor angel syndicate to invest in early-stage startups in Latin America. 

• Angels include Alejandra Martinez (Room40), Allison Campbell (Zubale), Ana Cristina Gadala-Maria (QED Investors), Andrea Viejo (Laika), Brittany Yoon, Daniela Izquierdo (Foodology), Eugenia González Rodríguez (Calii), Fabiola Quinzaños (monashees), Isabella Bazó (Kavak), Luiza Bet and Paula Mejía Giraldo (Kuri Saúde), Maria Gomez (MUNI), Mariantonia Cabal (Uber), Maria del Mar Velez (Crack The Code) and Paola Neira (Latú Seguros).

▸ LAVCA publishes an annual directory of VC/Tech members, with profiles on 75+ firms active in Latin America.

Startups 

▸ EXIT | NXTP exited Retargetly, an Argentine audience segmentation and monitoring platform for marketing professionals, through a sale to US advertising company Epsilon.

• NXTP was the first institutional investor in Retargetly in 2014.

▸ M&A | Yaydoo, a Mexican vendor payment automation platform, acquired Mexican payments platform Oyster Financial.

• Yaydoo merged with US invoice collection platform PayStand in August at a reported USD1b+ valuation.
• monashees and Base10 Partners led a USD20.4m Series A for Yaydoo in August 2021.
• monashees and SV Latam led a USD14m round for Oyster Financial in January 2021.

▸ FOODTECH | Chilean foodtech NotCo partnered with Kraft Heinz to launch NotCheese, a plant-based American cheese in the US. 

• NotCo expects a national rollout of NotCheese in 2023.
• NotCo just partnered with Mexican restaurant operator Alsea to include its flagship plant-based products Not-Burger, Not-Chicken and Not-Milk in their restaurants and coffee shops, including Starbucks. 

▸ Argentine fintech Ualá launched a crypto trading platform. 

▸ Mexican auto resale marketplace Kavak is restructuring the leadership of its Mexican operations while expanding abroad in the Middle East. 

• Kavak secured USD675m in debt financing from HSBC and another USD135m in credit lines from Goldman Sachs and Santander in September.

▸ Dock, a Brazilian open API payments platform, announced a 12% reduction in workforce (180 employees) in Mexico and Brazil. 

• Lightrock and Silver Lake led a USD110m round in May at a USD1.5b valuation. 

▸ Mexican social commerce platform Neta shut down and returned capital to investors. 

• KASZEK led a USD4.9m seed round in October 2021, with participation from Founders Fund, Picus Capital, Next Play Ventures, Graph Ventures and Alter Global.
• CEO Nicolas Abad: “The social commerce dream has some similarities with ride-sharing: years and money burned in order to deliver a profit, but ride-sharing had the benefit of the longest bull market. There is only one successful social commerce in the world: Pinduoduo. The base of the pyramid only cares about price, they don’t care about convenience. Tough realization. In my honest opinion, it will be a race to the bottom in price.”

▸ CROSS-BORDER | Greek ride-sharing app Beat is closing its operations in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina. 

• Beat first expanded to Colombia in 2018.

News 

▸ CRYPTO | MercadoPago will now accept crypto payments in Mexico, after launching digital token payments and investing in Brazil last year. 

▸ The full impact of Twitter’s restructuring is still not clear for the platform’s local offices in Mexico and Brazil. 

▸ CROSS-BORDER | Rest of World: Chinese tech giants are creating a new class of elite workers in Latin America.

“As companies like Didi, Kuaishou, Huawei and TikTok expand across Latin America, they are hiring young, local tech professionals and accelerating their corporate careers. In return, Chinese companies are forming a specialized talent pool to gain an edge in a region where roles at American and European companies have long held prestige.”

• Diversification is taking place in hardware manufacturing as much as talent: Foxconn, the world’s largest cellphone manufacturer, just acquired a majority stake in PCE Technology de Juarez, a Mexican consumer electronics manufacturer.

Investors

▸ Federico Antoni of ALLVP, Anna Piñol of NFX, Dani Undurraga of Cornershop and Miguel McAllister of Merqueo launched Beta Podcast, an investor and operator space to discuss trends across the Latin American tech ecosystem including the rise in debt financing, early-stage investing and learnings from 2021. 

▸ Shu Nyatta of Bicycle Capital, Pierpaolo Barbieri of Ualá and Carlos Garcia Ottati of Kavak shared their view on the global case to invest in Latin America VC at the sixth edition of the Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh. 

▸ Scott Kupor, David Haber, Jen Kha and Gabriel Vazquez of Andreessen Horowitz visited São Paolo last week and expect to become more active locally. 

• Andreessen’s portfolio in Latin America includes Latitud, NG.Cash, Around, Morado, Fudo, Yuno 

People & Programs

▸ Congratulations to the 100 Colombian startups included in Forbes Las 100 Mejores Startups de Colombia. 

• The selection committee included H20 Capital, InQlab, Ewa Capital and iNNpulsa.

▸ CRYPTO | Binance appointed Frida Vargas as the new Country Manager for Mexico. Frida previously led Business Development for Bitso. 

▸ 500 Global opened applications for the 18th edition of its accelerator program Somos Lucha. Applications close November 20. 

Global Tech

▸ SIGN UP for GPCA’s Global Tech Brief. Edited by LAVCA Senior Advisor Julie Ruvolo, this bi-weekly newsletter covers tech activity in Asia, Latin America, Africa, CEE and the Middle East. Recent issues covered breastmilk innovation and China’s growing EV investment. 

LAVCA is now part of GPCA, the  Global Private Capital Association, and will continue to operate as a parallel membership organization with its own dedicated team and board.