TLDR

📣 LAVCA Meeting Updates | Encontro Anual Brasil and LAVCA Week 2022

📣 New rounds for Geopagos, Arrenda, Combate a Fraude, treble.ai, NG.Cash, Darwin Seguros, Bia and FinanZero

📣 M&A | Yazo acquires mobLee

LAVCA Meetings

ENCONTRO ANUAL BRASIL 2022 | LAVCA’s annual Brazil investors meeting is back in person to convene leading VCs active in Brazil for a half-day program focused on networking and discussions on August 30 in São Paulo.

Quinn Li, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Qualcomm Ventures, will join us for a fireside chat as part of his inaugural visit to Brazil.

Carlos Ramos de la Vega, Director of Venture Capital at LAVCA, will present insights from our 1H 2022 VC data (already the second largest year on record after 2021) – including an update on venture funding going to women-led startups.

The program will also include the following breakout discussions:

• Helping Portfolio Companies Fundraise Through a Crisis
• Investing in Diverse Founding Teams

LAVCA Members are welcome to join us for dinner following the program. Dinner attendance is limited to one partner per firm; please RSVP directly to Marcelo Pizzato (MPizzato@lavca.org).

Encontro Anual Brasil is made possible with the support of Qualcomm Ventures. Special thanks to Google for hosting us, as well as supporting organizationsAWS, Meta, Microsoft, Mercado Libre, Movile, Riverwood Capital and Visa. 

LAVCA WEEK 2022 | Registration is open for LAVCA Week 2022, taking place October 11-14 at the Conrad New York Downtown. 

The 2022 conference will convene LAVCA’s unparalleled network of private capital investors from across Latin America, the US, Asia and other global markets for our flagship meeting, which will include networking and discussions on the latest trends in PE, VC and other private capital strategies.

Program highlights include:

• Keynote Speaker Robert F. Smith, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners
   
• Fireside Chat with Martin Escobari, Co-President, Managing Director and Head of General Atlantic Latin America and Cesar Carvalho,CEO of Gympass
   
• Panel Discussion Talent on the Move: Translating Track Records to New Ventures with Gregory Reider of Volpe Capital, Rodrigo Baer of Upload Ventures, Bianca Sassoon of 17Sigma and Gina Gothilff of Latitud; moderated by Adriana Tortajada of 1200VC
   
• Venture Debt Spotlight with Andrew Kahn of Partners for Growth, Andy Tsao of SVB, Gabriela Gonçalves of Nilla Capital and Matt Cole of Suma SaaS

H2 2022 VC/Tech Trends

Join LAVCA and Silicon Valley Bank for VC Trends in Latin America: H1 2022, a virtual discussion on LAVCA's 2022 VC/Tech Mid-Year Trends for Latin America Tuesday, August 23, 2022 from noon - 1pm EDT.

LAVCA's Director of Venture Capital Carlos Ramos de la Vega will present LAVCA's mid-year numbers on Latin American VC/tech investment, including top sectors of growth, key deals in the major markets, new unicorns and notable exits and M&As.

A discussion on the future of the industry in the region will follow with speakers:

• Eric Acher, Co-Founder and Managing Director, monashees
• Carolina Strobel, Partner, Antler
• Joaquim Lima, Partner, Riverwood Capital

☞ REGISTER NOW
 

Deals

▸ Riverwood Capital led a USD35m round for Geopagos, an Argentine payments infrastructure platform, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst. 

• Geopagos’ clients include Itau, BBVA, Santander, Banco Estado from Chile.
• This is Geopagos’ first institutional round of funding nine years after launch.

▸ SECURITY | Combate a Fraúde (CAF), a Brazilian digital identity platform, raised a ~USD18m Series A from Ethoca founders Darryl Green, Andre Edelbrock and Trevor Clarke, Kevin Efrusy (Accel), James Peck (NielsenIQ) and Andrew Prozes (LexisNexis).

• Fraud prevention startup Ethoca was acquired by Mastercard in 2019. Co-founder Darryl Green was appointed as CAF’s new CEO as part of the round. 

▸ Tiger Global led a USD15m Series A for treble.ai, a Colombian CRM for SMEs that runs on WhatsApp, with participation from Twilio Ventures, FundersClub and Gokul Rajaram (DoorDash). 

• Magma Partners invested in 2020; MAYA Capital and YC invested previously.

▸ monashees and Andreessen Horowitz led a USD10m seed round for NG.Cash, a Brazilian digital money management platform for Gen Z, with participation from 17Sigma and Norte Ventures.

▸ Banco Votorantim led a USD8m seed round for Darwin Seguros, a Brazilian car insurance platform, with participation from HIX Capital and angel Guti Vidigal (Singulare), and follow-on from Invisto.

• Duxx Investimentos and Invisto invested ~USD2.2 in July 2021. 

▸ ENERGY | Canary led a USD6m pre-seed round for Bia, a Colombian real-time energy consumption analytics platform for SMEs, with participation from Nazca, GFC, Marathon Ventures, MatterScale Ventures and Opera Ventures. 

▸ ping, a US-based voice platform enabling fleet drivers to hear their texts and emails instead of reading them while driving, raised a USD5m round from the BeKind Fund and others. 

• The BeKind Fund is Globant Ventures’ USD10m fund investing in early-stage startups working to mitigate the negative effects of tech, including issues around data privacy, AI bias, online abuse and polarization.

▸ FinanZero, a Brazilian consumer marketplace, raised a USD4.1m round with participation from Webrock Ventures, Dunross & Co and Atlant Fonder, and follow-on from Vostok Emerging Finance. 

• Vostok Emerging Finance led a USD7m round in April 2021; Finanzero raised a ~USD8.4m round in 2019 and a ~USD2.4m round in 2018. 

▸HEALTHTECH | Biothermal Logistics Solutions, a Brazilian manufacturer of reusable packaging for vaccines, raised ~USD4m from Elie Horn, founder of real estate developer Cyrela Group. 

▸ WEB3 | FITCHIN, a NY- and Argentina-based NFT marketplace for esports, raised a USD3.5m round from undisclosed investors. FITCHIN was founded by Argentine Santiago Portela.

▸ Clique Retire, a Brazilian smart locker management startup, raised a ~USD3.4m round led by Itaú Asset and Brazilian logistics investor GLP Investimentos. 

▸ BLOCKCHAIN | The Yield Lab and Yugen Partners led a USD3.1m round for ucrop.it, an Argentine blockchain-based crop management platform. 

• ucrop.it raised USD1.1m from The Yield Lab and Closed Loop Partners in 2021. 

▸ LAST MILE | Treggo, an Argentine last-mile delivery provider management platform for SMEs with operations in Mexico and Chile, raised USD2.8m from Newtown Partners, Verve Capital, Latin Leap, Bluewatch Ventures and Kube VC.

• Treggo raised USD600k and USD500k from family offices in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

▸ iV Ventures, the impact fund of Instituto Votorantim, led a ~USD1.8m seed round for DEEP, a Brazilian ESG monitoring platform for corporates, with participation from FRAM Capital and NINT.

▸ EL SALVADOR | GFC led a USD1.6m pre-seed round for Cubo, an El Salvador-based POS payment platform, with participation from Amador Holdings, Latitud, Rally Cap, X-VP and angels Daniel Vogel (Bitso), Federico Renero (Kavak) and Florence Frech (Leal). 

• This is GFC’s first known investment in a startup in Central America.

▸ HRTECH | Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners and StarFast Ventures led a USD1.5m pre-seed round for Hitch, a Mexican recruiting automation platform for corporates.

▸ WOMEN-LED | Agriconnect Global Ventures (AgroVen), a Brazilian agtech infrastructure provider, led a ~USD 800k round for Muda Meu Mundo, a Brazilian marketplace connecting small producers with food retailers. 

• Muda Meu Mundo was selected to participate in the 2021 LAC Women Founders Accelerator, the acceleration program for women-led startups in LAC organized by WeXchange/IDB Lab and Google.

▸ Captall Ventures, the CVC fund of media company Mene & Portella, invested ~USD400k in Showkase, a Brazilian social commerce platform. 

• Showkase was selected to participate in Meta’s Commerce Accelerator in 2020. 

▸ ContaÁgil, a Brazilian accounting platform for SMEs, raised a USD360k round with participation from Ventiur and BossaNova Investimentos, and follow-on from DOMO Invest, Urca Angels and Poli Angels.

• DOMO Invest, Poli Angels and Urca Angels invested in January 2021.

▸ BossaNova Investimentos and Equity Rio led a ~USD80k round for Wepipe, a Brazilian workflow and operations management platform. 

▸ DOMO Invest and RX Ventures, the CVC fund of Lojas Renner, led an undisclosed seed round for Logstore, a Brazilian supply management platform for retailers. 

▸ Livela, a Brazilian video commerce platform, raised an undisclosed seed round from Acrew Capital and angel Sikhinder Singh Cassidy (Google).

▸ iFood invested in Anota Ai, a Brazilian chatbot-based automation platform for restaurants.

▸ Clothing retailer H&M invested in Vestua, a Chilean clothing resale marketplace. 

▸ HRTECH | Brazilian multi-asset investor CV led an undisclosed seed round for Intera Talent Hacking, a Brazilian recruiting platform. 

▸ CRYPTO | G2 Fintech Fund invested in BELO, an Argentine digital crypto wallet. 

• Belo raised a USD3m seed round in May 2022.

🦄 View LAVCA’s Unicorn Leaderboard
for the latest list of LatAm unicorns. 
 

Exits and M&As 

▸ EXIT | Confrapar exited ChefsClub, a Brazilian restaurant and take-out discount platform, through a sale to Brazilian cash-back platform CRM&Bonus. 

• Confrapar invested in ChefsClub in 2015 and 2016.
• CRM&Bonus raised ~USD56m from SoftBank, Riverwood Capital, Igah Ventures and Volpe Capital at a ~USD200m valuation in October 2021.

▸ M&A | Yazo, a Brazilian broadcasting platform for digital events, acquired mobLee, a Brazilian white label engagement platform for in-person events.

• Invisto invested in mobLee in 2017.

People & Programs

▸ IDB partnered with Wayra to launch a climatetech open innovation challenge as part of the initiative Corporate Impact Venturing Latin America & Caribbean (CIV LAC). Interested founders are welcome to apply before August 12.

• Participating organizations include CEMEX Ventures, Emasa Ventures, Enel, EPM, Isa Group, Sumitomo Corporation Andes and Sancor Seguros Ventures.

▸ Bayer Mexico launched its second Digital Health Bootcamp for early-stage healthtech startups. Interested founders are welcome to apply. 

▸ DEEPTECH | Petrobras launched Petrobras Programa Petrobras Conexões para Inovação, the fourth edition of its program to invest ~USD4m in deeptech startups in Brazil. Applications are now open.

LAVCA Job Board

▸ Elevar Equity is looking for a Financial Analyst to join their team in Mexico City. Interested candidates are welcome to apply. 

LAVCA Members: We welcome your job recs for future editions. Email cramos@lavca.org with information on relevant opportunities.

Global Tech

☞ Sign up for GPCA’sGlobal Tech Brief. Edited by LAVCA’s Julie Ruvolo, this bi-weekly newsletter 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.