> Dalus Capital led a US$3m Series A investment in Sirena, an Argentine mobile SaaS sales solution, with participation from NXTP Labs and unnamed local funds.

Co-Founder and VP of Marketing Julián Bender says Sirena connects customers and sellers in traditional businesses, and integrates with the business’ communication channels, including sales reps using their own mobile phones to communicate with leads.

> Astella Investimentos made a US$1.2m seed investment in SumOne, a CRM for small retailers. SumOne CEO Lucas Prim:

Nosso propósito: ajudar os negócios locais a usarem ferramentas digitais para transformarem seus negócios para a nova realidade socioeconomica. Hoje a grande maioria de estabelecimentos são de food service, mas muito pela minha familiaridade com o ramo (já tive uma rede de restaurantes). Atendemos também pet shops, barbearias, lojas de suplementos e até mesmo sex shops!

> An unnamed family office made a US$2m Series A investment in Priced, a Brazilian big data analytics platform for retail. Angel investor Leonardo Teixeira previously made a seed investment in 2015.

> Sinai Ventures, Mexamerica Ventures, and others made a US$1.46m investment in Flint, a Mexican mobile wallet app that was accelerated at Y Combinator in 2018. Flint was founded by four students from Prepa UP.

> Wayra Brasil announces investments in Back4App, Getup Cloud, RankMyApp, Social Miner, and DB18.

> Metha, a renewable energy startup from Paraná, Brazil, is one of 19 startups to receive R$1m from Finep Startup (formerly Startup Brasil). Finep Startup plans to invest R$400m over the next few years. Here’s the full list:

Byond, Fitbank, GeekSys, Incentivendas, Kokku, Mainô, Marina Tecnologia, Meerkat, Metha Soluções, NeuroUP, Oktagon, Omics, Optimale, Pragas.com, Projeta Sistemas, Prosumir, @Tech, Treevia Forest Technologies, VM9

> Last issue we covered Konfio’s US$25m Series C, led by Vostok Emerging Finance, with participation from existing investors KaszeK, Quona Capital, QED, the IFC. Jaguar Ventures also followed on.

FUNDS

> The Chilean Entrepreneur Association (ASECH), made up of diverse entrepreneurs with the aim of promoting entrepreneurship in Chile, announced a new CLP$500m fund to support the local startup ecosystem.

> #HEALTHTECH Brazilian medical diagnostics companies Fleury and Sabin partnered to co-invest in healthtech startups. Their first investment is in Qure, an Israeli healthtech fund partnered with OurCrowd.

> SEBRAE, Brazil’s organization to support micro and small businesses, announced plans to invest R$45m in up to five early-stage funds. Funds must have a FIP structure and at least R$50m in deployed and liquid assets to qualify. 

EXITS

> ALLVP and Mountain Nazca exited Petsy, a petcare ecommerce platform, through a merger with Mexican pet retailer Maskota.

M&A

> Hand Talk, an automatic translation platform for sign language, acquired ProDeaf, its main Brazilian competitor, for an undisclosed amount. Hand Talk was accelerated at Google Launchpad in 2016 and received investment from Bossa Nova Investimentos and unnamed angels.

IMPACT

> Elevar Equity, Omidyar Network, and The Rise Fund announced an undisclosed Series A investment in Grupo VI-DA, an Argentinean digital literacy and education company run by Viviana Zocco.

While 90% of Latin America is covered by mobile broadband, only half of that population is connected and online, and the other half are restricted by a lack of locally-relevant content, digital skills, and a limited ability to pay. Furthermore, according to the 2015 PISA results, 46% of 15-year-olds in Latin America do not meet minimum standards of literacy and text comprehension.

> ANDE has launched funding for impact measurement and gender inclusion in Latin America, and will disburse US$150k across 4-6 projects, with the goal of building capacity among intermediaries, small/growing businesses, and researchers to measure impact with a gender lens. Details here.

> Chilean innovation platform SocialLab partnered with RutaN and Comfama on a program to support cultural entrepreneurs achieve social impact.

> Valor reports on the rise of impact investing among the new generation of Brazilian family offices.

> Quartz: When will “socially responsible investing” become just “investing”?

> Innovate UK, through the Colombian Prosperity Fund Programme, will invest up to £3m to enable UK and Colombian partners to address agricultural challenges in post-conflict and conflict-affected regions in Colombia. Apply by July 18.

> SVX Mexico is hiring a Financial Officer for impact investments. Apply here.

NEW MEMBERS

> LAVCA welcomes new members Indicator Capital and Lii Ventures.

Indicator Capital is a Brazil-based fund doing seed/Series A tech investments with a focus on fintech, retail, healthtech, and edtech.

• Investments include: Arvore, Back4App, EduQC, iugu, Medicina, Social Miner, Worldpackers
• Partners Derek Bittar, Thomas Bittar, and Fabio lunis de Paula are based in São Paulo.

Liil Ventures is a CVC fund backed by unnamed transportation corporations, that is focused on city-level scenarios to catalyze innovation globally, including smart cities mobility/transportation, fintech, blockchain, and AI.

• Investments include: Cabify, Keyo.
• Contacts: Verne Lizano, Managing Director, Nadim Matuk, Investment Principal and Mariana Taladrid, Principal, in Mexico City.

STARTUPS

> Nubank says they are the biggest fintech by customers outside of Asia, with 4 million credit-card holders and 1.5 million current account holders. CEO David Velez tells the Financial Times:

Nubank has been able to grow faster than any other digital bank in US and Europe, even though the macro-economy has been far worse.

> Dr. Consulta has expanded from one to 51 branches in three years, and claims to have Brazil’s largest clinical data set, drawn from 1 million patients, according to the Financial Times.

> ComparaGuru, a Mexico-based financial management platform for comparing insurance and banking products, rebranded to Coru. READ LAVCA's interview with CEO Fernando González-Ambía, also an Executive in Residence at QED Investors.

> GuiaBolso is winding down Just, its online lending service, and will offer credit through partnerships with Banco Vorantim, CBSS, and others.

> Mexican ecommerce platform Kichnik says it surpassed 100,000 affiliated stores on its platform.

> Digital House launched in São Paulo in April and has almost 500 students enrolled.

> In Loco, a Brazilian location-intelligence software platform backed by Naspers, is expanding into the US.

> Finconecta, a Miami-based fintech backed by The Venture City, was selected as an Endeavor company. Finconecta (formerly Above and Beyond) is run by Bolivian co-founder and CEO Jorge Ruiz.

> BrainHi, a scheduling software for medical appointments backed by Magma Partners, is the first Puerto Rican startup to enter Y Combinator. 🥂 Here’s to many more.

NEWS

> Financial Times: Brazilian startups defy economic gloom with record fundraisings.

> Investors tell Valor that the funding gap for Brazilian startups has moved up from R$250-500k to R$1-2m.

> Google completed construction on an underwater fiber optic cable network stretching from Florida to Brazil, and will connect it next to a cable network in Uruguay.

> General registration is NOW OPEN for the LAVCA Venture Investors Annual Meeting in New York on September 27.

> WeXchange Pitch Competition recently launched. Women entrepreneurs, especially those with a focus on STEM, are encouraged to apply by July 30. And SAVE THE DATE—this year’s WeXchange is November 6 in Lima, Peru.

> Canary is hosting a Brasileiros em Tech event on July 12 in San Francisco with executives from Brex, Instagram, Dr. Consulta, and TFG. RSVP here.

> Scotiabank is hosting its first LatAm Ecommerce and Technology Forum on November 6 in Mexico City to connect its investment clients with leading FOs, VCs and startups in Mexico and across the region. Email Marcela Villarreal (marcela.villarreal@scotiabank.com) to request an invitation.

ENTREPRENEUR POV

> Wevo is a Brazilian ecommerce cloud integration platform applying AI/ML and big data to integrate multiple software platforms for businesses, including Unilever, Nestlé, Drogaria São Paulo and Volvo. Wevo raised its first funding in an undisclosed Series A investment from Cventures Primus and Omnilink founder Cileneu Nunes.

LAVCA interviewed co-founder and CEO Diego Lupinari about the company’s critical pivot in 2014 and global ambitions:

We have big plans for the future. Companies worldwide need to connect data and systems. It is not unique to Brazil, but a global reality, primarily due to the growth in the range of niche solutions for e-commerce and back-office processes. There’s no big player in the iPaaS segment in Latin America, and we know our business has real potential to reach this status and be global, so we plan to open offices in the United States and Europe in the next two years.

THE FUTURE

> NYTimes tracks China’s rapidly expanding tech surveillance state in Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras.

> Vanity Fair: Tim Berners-Lee, the man who created the World Wide Web, has some regrets:

“We demonstrated that the Web had failed instead of served humanity, as it was supposed to have done, and failed in many places.”… Berners-Lee has been working on a new software, Solid, to reclaim the Web from corporations and return it to its democratic roots. Sometime this November, he estimates, half the world’s population—close to 4 billion people—will be connected online, sharing everything from résumés to political views to DNA information. As billions more come online, they will feed trillions of additional bits of information into the Web, making it more powerful, more valuable, and potentially more dangerous than ever.

The LatAm Venture Bulletin is the VC/tech newsletter and content platform of the Latin American Private Capital Association.

Have news we should include? Please email news@lavca.org.