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DEALS

> Docket, a Brazilian document management platform, raised R$35m over two tranches from KaszeK Ventures, ONEVC, and Valor Capital, with participation from Canary and Wayra Brasil.

• CEO Pedro Roso: “We continue to focus on bringing technology to offer products that increasingly facilitate our customers to scale their documentation operations across Brazil.”

> #CVC BV (formerly Banco Vorantim) invested R$80m in WEEL, a Brazilian cash flow management platform. WEEL raised US$30m from Franklin Templeton in 2019 and US$6m from monashees, VB, and Mindset Ventures in 2019.

> KaszeK Ventures led a US$8.7m Series A in Ayenda Rooms, a Colombian hotel brand that received seed investment from SoftBank in 2019.

> e.bricks Ventures made undisclosed investments in Avenue, a Brazilian investment brokerage bridging US opportunities with Latin American clients; and bro., a Brazilian digital platform for consórcio consumer financing.

• Roberto Lee founded Avenue in 2017.
• Eduardo Rocha founded bro. in 2019.

> Redpoint eventures led a US$4m seed investment in Kzas, a Brazilian proptech platform matching residential sellers, buyers, and credit providers. This is Kzas’ first disclosed external financing.

• Two of the founders hail from Grupo ZAP, which merged with proptech VivaReal in 2017.
• Co-founder and CFO Eduardo Muszkat says Kzas is only open to “pre-qualified and approved buyers (pre-approved documents and credit line) and sellers (pre-approved and verified documents and property characteristics). Brokers are Kzas employees with a fixed salary plus bonus based on quality of service (not deals closed or value) aligning their interest to those of buyers and sellers.”

> Bertelsmann Investments and Source Code Capital led a US$10m Series A in Stori, a Mexican digital bank, with follow-on from Vision Plus Capital.

> Involves, a Brazilian trade marketing software platform, raised R$23.5m from Bridge One Investimentos. This is the company’s first disclosed external financing.

> DOMO Invest led a R$6m investment in IOUU, a lending marketplace for Brazilian small businesses, with participation from Indicator Capital and Devas Invest.

> DOMO Invest made a R$3m investment in Bloxs Investimentos, a Brazilian equity crowdfunding platform focused on real estate investments.

>  #CVC Global Pay Solutions, an El Salvador-based fintech, raised US$1.6m in seed financing from Ricorp Corporación Financiera.

>  KaszeK Ventures led an undisclosed investment in Olga Ri, a Brazilian cloud kitchen platform operating in São Paulo, with participation from Arbor Capital and angels.

> Vueltap, a Colombian last-mile delivery platform, raised undisclosed seed capital in late 2019.

> Pulpomatic, a Mexican fleet management platform, raised an undisclosed round led by Swanlaab Venture Factory. Wayra invested previously.

> Hustle Fund made an undisclosed investment in Academio, a Mexican edtech offering Spanish-language technical courses.

> FCJ Venture Builder made an undisclosed investment in Boxit, a Panamanian logistics startup using “smart lockers” for e-commerce deliveries.

> #ANGEL Mottu, a Brazilian platform for renting motos to food delivery companies, raised an undisclosed angel round from founders of 99, Yellow, and others.

> #ANGEL Bossa Nova Investimentos, GV Angels, Angels4Impact, and others invested R$380k in Polen, a Brazilian social impact payments platform for donations to non-profits.

> #US Zinier, a US-based automatic field service management platform with significant operations in LatAm, raised US$90m from ICONIQ Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Founders Fund, and others.

FUNDS

> e.bricks Ventures announced a first close of its third fund, a US$100m vehicle.

> Angel Ventures Pacific Alliance Fund II partnered with Unidad General de Inversión de Arabia Saudita (SAGIA) to promote cross-border entrepreneurship. Más info. en español.

> Latin Leap VC Studio (Colombia) partnered with Decacorn Capital (Singapore) to provide soft landing for Asian and Latin American entrepreneurs in their respective markets.

> SoftBank plans to deploy US$1b from its LatAm fund in 2020 and plans to continue investing in locally based funds. SoftBank invested in KaszeK Ventures (US$130m) and Valor Capital (US$100m) recently, according to Bloomberg.

STARTUPS

> M&A Vector, an investment arm of Omni Financeira, acquired 100% of Brazilian fintech Trigg.

> Colombian logistics platform Quick is expanding to Chile. Quick, formed when Julian and John Caviedes purchased a traditional logistics company in 2014, is self-funded to date.

> Mexican crypto exchange Bitso is expanding to Argentina.

> Brazilian logistics startup Loggi laid off some of its sales and marketing team.

> TechCrunch profiles Belvo, a Mexican fintech building a finance API platform with a focus on data for the under-banked. Belvo is part of the current YC cohort.

> Levita Magnetics, a Chilean magnetical surgery platform, was featured in an interview with Dallas, Texas weight loss surgeons.

> Check out LAVCA’s directory of 331 Latin American startups with at least US$1m in VC funding, verified by LAVCA (as of end-2018), our Unicorn Leaderboard, and our Inaugural Survey of Latin American Startups.

> VC investment in Latin American startups has quadrupled since 2016 to a record US$2b in 2018, according to LAVCA data. Access LAVCA’s Annual Review of Tech Investment in Latin America for the details.

NEWS

> It’s been an active couple of weeks for rideshare/delivery policy in Brazil: Uber won an appeal classifying drivers as contractors. Loggi, iFood, and Rapiddo appear to be receiving different legal outcomes regarding their delivery workforce in Brazil. More info. here.

> TikTok had over 7m Brazilian users in 2019, up over 3x in 2019, according to Comscore via Neofeed.

> Grupo Movile promoted Luciana Carvalho to VP of People and Performance.

REPORTS

> Since the 2011 launch of Wayra and the Telefonica Innovation funds (Axon Partners in Colombia, InvestTech in Brazil, and Scale Capital in Chile), Telefonica has emerged as one of the most active investors in Latin American startups, with over €20m invested over the past nine years, and €1.37m invested across 16 deals in 2019. Check out a full recap of 2019 activity here.

> Investments over US$100m are down slightly from 2018, driven by a drop in mega-rounds for Chinese startups, according to Crunchbase data.

> #US Stanford Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative published a 2019 report on the State of Latino Entrepreneurship, surveying ~5,000 Latino-owned businesses in the US:

Collectively, Latino-owned companies that employ others generated about $470 billion in revenue and employed over 3.2 million people in 2016, accounting for about 4% of U.S. business revenues and 5.5% of U.S. employment.

> ♀️ WX Insights 2020: The Rise of Women STEMpreneurs is a new report from IDB Lab and WeXchange, with collaboration from Santander, on Women Entrepreneurs in STEM in Latin America and the Caribbean that summarizes the profiles, needs, and challenges of this important community. The study is based on a region-wide survey of 1,148 responses. Download it here.

 #CHANGETHERATIO Also supported by IDB Lab, access LAVCA's Women in VC/Tech portal that aggregates key directories, surveys, interviews, and information on gender diversity in the tech ecosystem in Latin America: LAVCA.ORG/WOMEN

>  LAVCA Encontro Anual Brasil, an annual invitation-only meeting for VCs active in Brazil, is scheduled for April 22, 2020 in São Paulo. LAVCA VC and Tech Growth Coalition members are invited to a private dinner at Fasano following the program. Details here.

> Boards of Governors of the IDB hold their Annual Meeting in Barranquilla Colombia, March 18-22, 2020. IDB and the local government, with the support of LAVCA, will be hosting the Startup & Innovation in Latin America on March 21. For more information about the event contact Roxana Buitrago. 

> Investors from MAYA Capital, Canary, Astella, Innova Capital, Positive Ventures, Wayra, Google, 500 Startups, and others are offering free mentoring for female entrepreneurs through Female Force LATAM.

• GIf you’re in São Paulo, join MAYA Capital and Female Force LatAm for cocktails on March 4 with Claudia Sender (Latam Airlines), Sandra Costa (Grupo Sabin), Mariana Paixao (Loft), and Luciana Caletti (LoveMondays, Glassdoor). RSVP here.

> Google for Startups is accepting applications for its LatAm and Brazil acceleration programs. Globant is accepting applications for its corporate accelerator.

• Google and Globant are members of the Latin American Tech Growth Coalition to support high-growth startups in the region.

> SoftBank, in partnership with Correlation One, Microsoft, IDB Lab, and iNNpulsa Colombia, is accepting applications for an AI training course for employees of its portfolio companies in LatAm as well as others by application. Apply by Feb 21.

• SoftBank and Microsoft are also members of the Latin American Tech Growth Coalition.

> Colombia Startup & Investor Summit, organized by Telefonica Open Future, is accepting applications from startups with under US$1m in financing through Feb 27.

• Telefonica is also a member of the Latin American Tech Growth Coalition.

> #FINTECH The IDB and Finnovista are asking fintechs to participate in their third annual survey on the state of fintech in Latin America. Participate by Feb 21.

> MassChallenge MX is accepting applications for its accelerator program. Startups with under US$1m in financing are invited to the launch event on March 3 in CDMX.

> Foro Latinoamericano de Inversión de Impacto X, hosted by FLII, will be held in Merida, México, February 18-20th. Tickets here.

> Smart Capital Summit 2020 will take place in Medellín on February 27 and 28. More information here.

> SoGal Pitch Competition for women & diverse global entrepreneurs is Feb 29 in San Francisco. Details here.

INVESTOR POV

> Carolina Strobel joins Redpoint eventures as an Operating Partner. Formerly at Intel, Strobel is the only partner-level woman on the current team; Ann Williams, a former Venture Partner, is current COO of Creditas, one of the firm’s portfolio companies.

> Angel investor Anna Raptis on the opportunity for impact investing in Mexico:

Siento que como el país presenta muchos retos, hay muchísimas oportunidades de inversión. Hay muchas necesidades en la economía, hay muchas maneras de mejorar la vida de la gente ¡entonces por eso tenemos tantas oportunidades de inversión! En las áreas de salud, de educación, de alimentación, de inclusión financiera, de agricultura… Hay miles de oportunidades para aportar más sostenibilidad y eficiencia. Por eso estoy tan apasionada y contenta de vivir aquí, porque hay muchas oportunidades de crear cambios positivos.

> Greg Mitchell of Angel Ventures Peru for TechCrunch: Peru’s startup scene is ready for more: “While it may not be one of the largest countries in Latin America, Peru continues to have one of the best-performing economies and fastest-growing startup scenes.”

> Angel investor Claire Diaz-Ortiz dives into the available data on founder gender diversity in LatAm in Latin America takes the global lead in VC directed to female co-founders:

In 2019, investments into mixed female-male founding teams represented 16% of dollars invested in Latin America, 9% in the U.S. and only 8% in Europe. This number includes a $400m Series F into Nubank, the Brazilian challenger bank co-founded by Cristina Junqueira, who was — not for the first time — pregnant at the time of the raise. Junqueira is not only the female co-founder currently leading the largest neobank in the world, she is also the female co-founder currently leading the world’s largest venture-backed company.

THE FUTURE

> Americas Quarterly: Brazil's Risky Bet on Tech to Fight Crime:

Wherever adopted, facial recognition and crime prediction platforms are only as good as the underlying data and how the tools are managed. MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini has shown how facial recognition systems register error rates of 34.7% for black women as compared to just 0.8% for white men. In countries like Brazil, in which 64% of the prison population is black, there are real risks that recognition tools could go spectacularly wrong.

> TechinAsia interviews investors anticipating a significant drop-off in Chinese VC investment due to the coronavirus.

> WIRED: The 10,000-Year Clock Is a Waste of Time.

The LatAm Venture Bulletin is the VC/tech newsletter and content platform of
The Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America.

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