> 🦄 Salesforce Ventures led a US$120m Series F in Auth0, an identity verification solution founded by Argentines Eugenio Pace and Matías Woloski, with participation from DTCP, and follow-on from Bessemer Venture Partners, Sapphire Ventures, Meritech Capital, World Innovation Lab, Trinity Ventures, Telstra Ventures, and K9 Ventures. Sapphire Ventures led the US$103m Series E in 2019.
> QED Investors led a US$22.5m Series B in Brazilian digital brokerage Warren, with participation from Mercado Libre’s MELI Fund, WPA, and Quartz, and follow-on from KaszeK Ventures, Chromo Invest, and Ribbit Capital. Ribbit Capital led a R$25m round in 2019.
- Warren increased its AUM 5x from R$500m to R$2.5b in the last ten months, according to CEO Tito Gusmão. Gusmão shares his view on the biggest challenges to make investing a habit in Brazil: “It’s a combination of lack of financial education and ‘lack of necessity’. We used to be a country with interest rates as high as 14% only four or five years ago, and it was possible to leave money invested in subpar products offered by banks. Now, with interest rates lower than 2%, Brazilians have to find better products to invest their money, and these products can’t be found in these traditional institutions.”
> #PE Florida-based Cambridge Capital led a US$22.5m Series B in Liftit, a B2B Colombian logistics marketplace for independent truck drivers, with participation from H20 Capital, AC Ventures, 10x Capital, Banyan Tree Ventures, and alpha4 Ventures, among others, and follow-on from monashees, Jaguar Ventures, NXTP, and IFC.
- CEO Brian York shares his experience as LiftIt consolidates its regional expansion: “Finding talent has been tough. Most of the hires we make today come from a supply chain background with direct exposure to trucking. Also, most of the people we talked to, including some of our investors, advised against expanding so quickly to five countries and eighteen cities, but it ended up being one of the best decisions we've made, since it has helped us attract more customers, given that some of our clients have operations in more than one country.”
> #IMPACT Grupo Prisma, Albatross Capital, and Katapult Impact invested US$8.5m in Burn to Give, a socially responsible Chilean insurtech focused on providing life insurance to underprivileged families and incentivizing policyholders’ wellbeing with subsidized coverage.
> Soma Capital, InQlab, and Palm Drive Capital invested US$5m in LAIKA, a Colombian e-commerce platform for pet goods and services, to strengthen its operations in Colombia and expand to the Mexican market.
- Brazilian pet marketplace Petlove raised US$48m led by SoftBank earlier this year.
> #CLEANTECH Valor Capital invested US$4m in Solfacil, a Brazilian solar energy financing platform.
> Canary invested US$980k in Mobees, a Brazilian adtech startup for rideshare services.
> Canary and Norte Ventures led a R$5m round in Rapicare, a Brazilian medical supply SaaS startup for healthcare businesses.
> Uncork Capital and Bling Capital led a US$2.2m seed round in MonkeyLearn, a Uruguayan no-code data analytics platform.
> #GOVTECH MDIF and Luminate invested R$3m in Colab.re, a citizen-to-government engagement platform, with participation from EDP Ventures. MDIF and Flourish Ventures invested R$4m in 2017.
> #CVC Globant Ventures made undisclosed investments in Argentine startups Woocar, a driver safety platform, and in Drixit, a provider of safety compliance monitoring services for manufacturing plants.
> #CVC Kamay Ventures, an Argentinian fund backed by corporates including Coca-Cola Argentina and Arcor SAIC, invested US$250k in Arqlite, an Argentine provider of construction materials made out of recycled plastic.
> #EU Speedinvest, Kima Ventures, Seedrocket4founders, and ArkFund invested US$800k in Finnu, a Spanish fintech allowing Latin American consumers access to credit by using their phones as collateral.
> #ROBOTS Shenzhen-based Hax Accelerator invested US$100k in Tumi Robotics, a Peruvian robotics startup focused on providing inspection services for the mining industry.
> G2 Momentum Capital made an undisclosed investment in Envioclick, a Mexican logistics automatization platform.
> #AGTECH Agriconnect Global Ventures (AgroVen), a Brazilian agtech infrastructure provider, made an undisclosed seed investment in AgroBee, a Brazilian platform providing customized pollination services to crop producers and beekeepers.
> VC investment in Latin American startups has quadrupled since 2016 to a record US$4.6b in 2019, according to LAVCA data.