2024 LAVCA Deal Award Winners

Congratulations to HiLab, a Brazilian portable point-of-care diagnostic device manufacturer, for winning LAVCA’s 2024 Better Tech Award. Thanks to LAVCA Member Altitude Venturesfor nominating the startup for consideration this year. 

Other winners from the 2024 LAVCA Deal Awardsinclude H.I.G. Capital for their investment in Eltromidia; Patria for their investment in Frooty, Deetken Impact for their investment in Puntored, Linzor Capital Partners for their investment in Sies Salud and DOMO.VC for their investment in Stattuss4. View the full recording from the virtual ceremony here. 

MARK YOUR CALENDAR

LAVCA Tech Brasil is 21 August 2024 

LAVCA Tech Brasil is an annual meeting of LAVCA's network of Brazil-focused VCs and tech investors in São Paulo. This year's meeting will include keynote fireside chats, breakout sessions and networking opportunities designed to build meaningful relationships amongst investors active in the region.

LAVCA Tech Brasil 2024 is made possible with support from LAVCA’s Tech Growth Members. Special thanks to Google for hosting, along with AWS, Qualcomm Ventures, MercadoLibre, Riverwood Capital and SVB, for their continued partnership.

Stay tuned for additional details in the coming weeks. Contact Marcelo Pizzato mpizzato@lavca.org with questions.

Deals

▸ DEBT | CloudWalk, a Brazilian POS and blockchain-based payments platform for entrepreneurs and SMEs, raised ~USD313m through a FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditorios) from Itaú BBA, Bradesco BBI and Banco Votorantim.

• Coatue led a USD150m Series C for CloudWalk in November 2021 and a USD190m Series B in May 2021. 

▸ BOND led a ~USD78m Series B for CRMBonus, a Brazil-based marketing automation platform, with participation from Valor Capital Group, Riverwood Capital, Igah Ventures and SoftBank.

▸ DEBT | Pagaleve, a Brazilian credit platform, raised ~USD49m through a FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditorios) from Credix Finance. 

• Salesforce Ventures led a ~USD26m Series A in December 2022.

▸ BNPL | QED Investors led a USD45m Series B for Aplazo, a Mexican payment platform enabling buy-now-pay-later systems for merchants, with participation from Volpe Capital and follow-on from KASZEK, Picus Capital and Oak HC/FT.

• Oak HC led a USD27m Series A for Aplazo in 2021.

▸ monashees led a ~USD12.5m round for NG.Cash, a Brazilian digital money management platform for Gen Z, with participation from Tekton Ventures, Generalist Capital and follow-on from Andreessen Horowitz and 17Sigma. 

• monashees and Andreessen Horowitz led a USD10m seed round in February 2022.

▸ HEALTHTECH | Volpe Capital led a USD7m Series A for Welbe, a Mexican employee health and wellness platform for startups and corporates, with participation from the IFC. 

• NAZCA led a USD3m pre-seed round in May 2022. 

▸ Magneto, a Colombian recruitment automation startup raised a USD7m seed round from Alive Ventures, Pashin, Impact Ventures PSM and Latin Leap.

▸ CROSSBORDER | Primary Venture Partners led a USD6.8m round for Cargado, a US-based cross-border freight startup, with participation from RyderVentures and follow-on from Ironspring Ventures, Zenda Capital, Wischoff Ventures and Proeza Ventures.

▸ HRTECH | Atlantico led a USD6m Series A for Worky, a Mexican recruiting automation platform, with participation from ADP Ventures. 

• ARC Group Ventures invested in May 2022; Worky raised a USD3m round in July 2020. 

▸ PROPTECH | monashees and Valor Capital Group led an undisclosed Series A for Spot2, a Mexican commercial real estate leasing platform

• Streamline Ventures led a USD4.2m round in May 2022.

▸ Citi invested in Cicada, a Mexican corporate and government bond investing platform.

• KASZEK and DILA Capital led a USD7.6m round in October 2022.

▸ PROPTECH | Primary Venture Partners led a USD3.1m round for Naya Homes, a Mexican short-term and vacation rental platform, with participation from BBG Ventures. 

• Naya Homes raised a USD5.6m seed round in August 2022.

▸ FEMSA Ventures led a USD3m seed round for Celes, a Colombian retail data analytics platform, with participation from Primeline Group, Wayra Hispam, Kuiper VC, NOA Capital, Storm Capital, Santiago Gómez (Simetrik), Fabián Carrillo (Cluvi) and follow-on from MatterScale Ventures and Rockstart.

• Primeline Group led a USD1m seed round in July 2023. 

▸ Salvy, a Brazilian B2B virtual telecom operator, raised a ~USD2m seed extension from Pioneer and Arash Ferdowsi (Dropbox). 

• SaaSHolic led a USD1m seed round in December 2023. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | DoctorOne, an Ecuadorian telehealth platform, secured a USD2m loan from IDB Lab. 

▸ Invexor led a USD1.5m seed round for BTrust, a Chilean invoice auction platform. 

▸ Payssego, a Brazilian salary-on-demand service, raised a ~USD300k pre-seed round from undisclosed angels. 

▸ Ahimsa Capital led a ~USD280k pre-seed round for Veef, a Peruvian plant-based meat startup. 

▸ BoostLAB, the innovation arm of BTG Pactual, invested in four new companies: Beegol, a wifi monitoring platform, Incentivar, an employee incentive platform, Intuitive Care, a hospital billing automation platform and Regcheq, a compliance management platform. 

▸ Enseada invested in Rezultz, a Brazilian B2B sales management platform.

Exits and M&As

▸ EXIT | ACE Startups and GVAngels exited DeÔnibus, a Brazilian bus ticketing platform, through a sale to Travelier, an Israel-based road travel management platform. 

• GVAngels invested ~USD300k in DeÔnibus in November 2020. 

▸ EXIT | Confrapar exited JobConvo, a Brazil-based applicant tracking software company, through a sale to Senior Sistemas, a Brazilian management software company. 

• Confrapar invested in 2013. 

▸ M&A | Brazilian enterprise software developer TOTVS acquired the remaining stake in  RD Station, a Brazilian marketing automation platform, for ~USD51.8m.

• TOTVS acquired a controlling stake in RD Station in March 2021 at a reported ~USD360m valuation. 

▸ M&A | Celcoin, a Brazilian infrastructure developer for fintechs targeting the underbanked, acquired Regulatorio Mais (Reg+), a Brazilian compliance platform for fintech regulation. 

• Other acquisitions from Celcoin since 2021 include Finansystech and Galaxy Pay.  

▸ M&A | ClicOH, an Argentine e-commerce shipment monitoring platform, acquired Rayo, a Chilean on-demand delivery platform. 

• Tiger Global led a USD25m Series A for ClicOH in June 2022.
• Chile Ventures and Weboost led a USD700k seed round for Rayo in 2022.

▸ M&A | Israeli web analytics company Similarweb acquired Admetricks, a Chilean marketing data analytics platform. 

• NXTP invested USD30k in 2014 and USD250k in 2017 in Admetricks.  

▸ M&A | Softplan, a Brazilian CRM software for the legal and construction industries, acquired Deep Legal, a Brazilian performance monitoring platform for corporate legal departments.

• Softplan also recently acquired Refera, a Brazilian residential maintenance service marketplace.

Funds

▸ Accion Impact Management reached a USD152.5m final close for Accion Digital Transformation Fund, a new vehicle to invest in scaled-up and mature financial services companies with good digitization prospects that service SMEs in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa. 

• Accion also manages Accion Venture Lab, a USD23m early-stage fund with investments including Konfio, Tienda Pago, Terra Magna and Henry. 

▸ ABSeed reached a USD30m final close for Seed 3, its third flagship fund to invest in early-stage B2B startups in Latin America. 

• ABSeed’s reached a USD7m and a USD20m final close for its first and second flagship funds, respectively. 
• ABSeed’s recent investments include CashU, Construex, Uncover, VaaS and Arqgen. 

▸ Joao Kepler of BossaNova launched Equity Fund Group, a Brazil-based investment holding company to manage the private portfolio of his FO Braga Participaçoes and CaptAll Ventures’, the venture arm of media group M&P. 

• Joao Kepler stepped down as CEO of BossaNova in September 2023; Paulo Tomazela, former GP of KPTL, was appointed CEO.

News

▸ Congrats to Nubank for becoming the first digital bank to reach 100m customers outside of Asia. 

▸ Brazilian fintech Creditas reached profitability in Q1 for the first time since launch. 

• Creditas was set to raise a USD70m+ Series F second extension from existing investors in September 2023; Andbank led the USD50m first extension in July 2022 after the USD260m Series F led by Fidelity in January 2022.

▸ EVs | The Economist reviews Latin America’s adoption of green tech – EVs, solar panels and batteries – in the face of the ongoing US-China geoeconomic tensions: “... politicians in the United States fret that Latin America’s growing reliance on Chinese green technology, from electric buses to solar panels, is a problem and even a threat.”

• BYD, a Chinese EV manufacturer, recently acquired Ford’s former plant in Brazil for ~USD60m and plans to invest up to ~USD600m to produce 150k vehicles per year.

▸ WOMEN-LED | Mexicans will cast their presidential vote on June 2. Regardless of the outcome, Mexico will be led by its first woman president since its foundation. 

• Rest of World: Mexico is in a crisis. Political leaders are dancing on TikTok.

People & Programs

▸ Congrats to former iFood CEO Fabricio Bloisi for his appointment as Prosus and Naspers GroupCEO effective 1 July. 

▸ ABVCAP will host the ABVCAP Congress in São Paulo on 11-12 June. More information here. 

▸ Cubo Network will host VC.Vision: Mastering Fundraising and Liquidity for LatAm, its flagship event to connect GPs and LPs actively deploying capital in venture on June 14 in São Paulo. More details here. 

▸ MARK YOUR CALENDAR | LAVCA will be hosting LAVCA Week on 8-11 October in New York. Stay tuned for registration announcements in June.  

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.