LAVCA Week 2024

At a time of increased market uncertainty, the 2024 venture program will focus on building and consolidating global relationships that can have an outsized impact on investors and founders in Latin America for years to come. 

Featured Sessions:

✪ Venture in a Changing World: A Playbook for the Years to Come

Nicolás Szekasy

Co-Founder & Managing Partner
KASZEK

Nick Beim

Partner

Venrock

✪ Finding Alpha: The Role of LatAm VC in Global Investor Portfolios

Eric Acher

Founder & Managing
General Partner
monashees

Scott Pittman

Senior Vice President, Chief Investment Officer

The Mount Sinai Health System

✪ Finding and Backing the Best B2B Founders with Bianca Martinelli (Alexia Ventures), Florian Hagenbuch (Canary), Mathew Pieterse (Bicycle Capital) and Dawn Powell (StepStone Group)

✪ The Future of Work & Collaboration with Dylan Pearce (Greycroft Partners), Bruno Yoshimura (ONEVC), Allen Taylor (Endeavor Catalyst) and Gabriel Engel (Rocket.Chat)

Stay tuned for additional program updates. View the full agenda here.

We look forward to seeing you in New York next month.

Deals

▸ Neon, a Brazil-based digital financial services company, raised a ~USD38m round from undisclosed investors. 

• Neon raised a USD64m round in December 2023; BBVA led a USD300m Series D in February 2022; General Atlantic led a USD300m Series C in September 2020.

▸ Oak HC/FT led a USD35m Series B for Cobre, a Colombia-based corporate treasury management platform, with follow-on from KASZEK, QED Investors and Canary.

• KASZEK led a USD13m round in June 2023; QED Investors and Atlantico co-led a USD14m Series A in February 2022. 

▸ CVC | PayPal Ventures led a USD15m Series A for Ume, a Brazilian PIX-based lending platform.

• Canary and NFX led a USD5.5m round and Ume secured USD4.5m in debt in April 2022.

▸ Moore Capital led a ~USD12.5m Series C+ for Gringo, a Brazilian car documentation management platform.

• Valor Capital Group led a USD30m Series C in September 2023; Gringo raised a ~USD38m Series B led by Vostok Emerging Finance in March 2022 and a USD8m round led by KASZEK in November 2021. 

▸ CLEANTECH | Bia Energy, a Colombian real-time energy consumption analytics platform for SMEs, secured a USD10m credit line from BBVA Spark. 

• KASZEK led a USD16.5m round in October 2023; Canary led a USD6m pre-seed round in July 2022.

▸ Haymaker Ventures led a USD8.5m Series A for AltScore, a Mexico-based alternative credit score generator for the underbanked population, with participation from BuenTrip Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, FarOut Ventures, TechStars and follow-on from Kamay Ventures. 

• Kamay Ventures invested in December 2022; Overboost.vc invested USD50k in January 2021. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | Canary and K50 Ventures co-led a ~USD4.4m round for Arvo, a Brazil-based healthcare payments platform, with participation from Latitud, Preface and Endeavor Scale-Up Ventures. 

▸ White Star Capital and North Island Ventures co-led a USD3m seed round for Etherfuse, a Mexico-based bond tokenization startup, with participation from Fuse Capital, Stellar Development Foundation, FunFair Ventures, Department of XYZ and others.

▸ Inventus Capital Partners and SVQuad co-led a USD2.6m seed round for Mercately, an Ecuador-based e-commerce solutions software, with participation from Techstars, Salkantay Ventures and BuenTrip Ventures.

▸ Puntored, a Colombia-based financial services startup for the underbanked, raised USD2m from Stellar Development Foundation. 

• The SEAF Colombia Agribusiness Fund (SCAF), USAID and DFC invested in Puntored in September 2022; Deetken Impact invested in February 2020.
• READ Deetken Impact | Puntored LAVCA Deal Case Study

▸ FOODTECH | ERGO, an Argentine plant-based food startup, raised a USD2m round from undisclosed investors. 

▸ FOODTECH | Cellva Ingredients, a Brazilian developer of next-generation nutrients for the food industry, raised a ~USD1.5m round with participation from Proveg, Rumbo Ventures, AirCapital, Fundepar and EA Angels.

▸ PROPTECH | Magma Partners led a ~USD970k pre-seed round for Plaza, a Brazil-based operational solutions platform for the real estate market. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | PyscoAI, a Brazil-based automation platform for the healthcare industry, raised a ~USD440k round with participation from dr.consulta, Ricardo Bottas (Amil) and Paulo Chapchap (Hospital Sírio-Libanês). 

▸ DOMO.VC led a ~USD300k round for Basemaker, a Brazilian adtech for content creators. 

▸ Atta Impact Capital invested in Vitrinnea, an El Salvador-based e-commerce marketplace for secondhand goods. 

• Caricaco invested in March 2023.

Funds

▸ CLIMATE | Mexico-based 1200VC made an undisclosed commitment to Lowercarbon Capital, Chris Sacca’s climatetech fund. 

▸ GENDER | Sororitê launched its inaugural fund with a ~USD5m target to invest in Brazilian early-stage startups with at least one woman co-founder. 

• WOMEN-LED | Sororitê was co-founded by Erica Fridman and Jaana Goeggel.

Exits and M&As

▸ EXIT | BTG Pactual exited Brazilian foodtech Fazenda Futuro after last investing in its ~USD60m Series C in 2021. 

• BTG Pactual also led a USD25m round in September 2020. 

▸ EXIT | SP Ventures exited InCeres, a Brazilian soil nutrition management platform, through a sale to Husqvarna, a publicly listed Swedish manufacturer of outdoor and lawn machinery. 

• SP Ventures invested in InCeres in a ~USD500k round in 2016. 

▸ M&A | Unico, a Brazilian digital identity protection platform, acquired Trully, a Mexican KYC and identity theft prevention platform. 

• Costanoa Ventures led a USD4.1m seed round for Trully in November 2022; Goldman Sachs Asset Management led a USD100m Series D for Unico in April 2022

People and Programs

▸ Congrats to Anderson Thees for being appointed as CEO of Endeavor Brazil. 

▸ Salkantay Ventures is looking for an Investment Analyst to join its team in Lima or Bogotá. Interested candidates are welcome to contact acceso@salkantay.vc. 

▸ CLIMATE | Salkantay Ventures partnered with Positive Ventures, Savia Ventures and Reciprocal to host From Patagonia to the Caribbean: Seizing the Climate Market Opportunity in LatAm, a curated space for founders and investors on September 25 2024 in New York to discuss opportunities in Latin America for climate investing. Registration is now open. 

▸ Quona Capital is looking for an Analyst to join its investment team in Mexico City. Interested candidates are welcome to apply. 

Global Tech

▸ Sign up for GPCA’s Global Tech Brief, a monthly newsletter that covers tech activity in Asia, Latin America, Africa, CEE and the Middle East. 

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.