> Naspers and Innova Capital invested US$82m in Movile to increase the company’s stake in iFood. This comes only six months after a US$53m round from the same investors.

> Vostok Emerging Finance led a US$50m investment in Creditas. This follows a R$60m Series B earlier this year led by the IFC, with participation from Naspers’ new fintech division in Latin America, and existing investors Redpoint eventures, KaszeK Ventures, Quona Capital, and QED Investors.

> TPG's The Rise Fund made its inaugural investment in Latin America in Digital House, an Argentina-based coding school, with participation from Endeavor Catalyst, Omidyar Network, and previous investor KaszeK Ventures. U2’s Bono also participated through his involvement in The Rise Fund.

> General Atlantic made an undisclosed investment in Gympass, a Brazilian B2B gym membership platform operating in ten countries.

> Movile made a R$15m investment in Sympla, a Brazilian ticketing and event management platform.

> Bozano Investimentos made an undisclosed investment in Brazilian retail software provider EAC Software.

> Criatec 2 made a R$6.5m investment in Chipus Microeletrônica, a Brazilian startup specializing in energy efficient chips.

> Bossa Nova Investimentos made a R$700k investment in Credere, a Brazilian enterprise software for car dealerships.

> BR Startups made a R$1m investment in Wayra-accelerated QueroQuitar, a Brazilian debt negotiation and financial education platform.

> Colombian fund Odiseo made a US$125k investment in Liftit, a Colombian cargo transportation startup. This is Odiseo’s inaugural investment. 

> Mindset Ventures had a first close of its second fund. With a target of US$25m, the fund will focus on investments from US$200k-US$1m in startups in the US and Israel.

Mindset Ventures co-founder Daniel Ibri says 20% of the portfolio is made up of female co-founders / CEOs, including Emedgene, SAM, and Scoutible. #CHANGETHERATIO

> BNDESPar will invest up to R$40m in Primatec to fund investments in 16 incubators and technology parks in Brazil. Primatec’s investments include Rockhead Estudios, TecSUS, and Myleus Biotecnologia.

> Adobe Capital, the venture-capital unit of Mexico-based New Ventures, raised US$21m for its second investment vehicle, Adobe Mezzanine Fund (AMF) II, to finance small and medium-sized enterprises in Mexico and Latin America.

IMPACT

> Village Capital awarded US$75k to Mutuo Financiera, a startup offering credit and other financial products to small businesses in Mexico, and Fintual, a Chilean robo-advisor.

> MassChallenge Mexico awarded MXN$2m in zero-equity cash grants to four startups from their 2017 accelerator program: Urbvan, Iluméxico, Totolines, and Econduce.

> Pomona Impact has made a US$150k investment in Ecofiltro, a social impact water filtration startup based in Guatemala with a presence in Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. The funds will be used to expand the company's business to Colombia and Panamá.

> Congrats to LAVCA member PC Capital whose fund, Mexico Development I, was named Best for the World Fund by B the Change Media for setting the measurement bar in impact investing based on its GIIRS Rating.

> The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) published a report of findings from their first comprehensive survey of the state of impact measurement and management (IMM) in the impact investing industry. Download it here.

> Impact Alpha: About a quarter of LAVCA’s list of 43 women venture/tech investors are impact investors.

> SITAWI Finanças do Bem is hiring an Analista Sênior de Relacionamento e Captação de Recursos, based in São Paulo. Apply here.

> MercadoLibre acquired Ecommet, a Brazilian e-commerce software provider, for R$36.5m.

> Somos Educação acquired edtech startup Stoodi for a reported R$15m.

• Somos Educação acquired AppProva earlier this year, generating a net IRR of 51% for AppProva investor e.Bricks Ventures.

UPDATE: COLOMBIA VC & TECH

> #PUBLICPOLICY Last week LAVCA, alongside ColCapital and Brigard & Urrutia, held a meeting with Colombian policy makers to discuss updated regulations for private equity and venture capital funds and implications for the local industry. The draft decree, Proyecto de Decreto de Fondos de Capital Privado, gives PE/VC funds separate dedicated regulation.

> VENTURE CAPITAL: In November, LAVCA participated in Smart Capital Colombia, hosted by Ruta N and Capitalia Colombia. READ LAVCA's update on the Colombian startup ecosystem and download LAVCA's presentation here.

“Private investors are waiting to see venture-backed businesses complete the full cycle of VC funding seamlessly—making the leap between seed and early stage to later VC and growth rounds—and in which second generation funds emerge and flourish.

> INTERVIEW: ESCALA Educación is Breaking Down Barriers to Higher Education in Colombia.

Accion Venture Lab, Mountain Nazca Colombia, Invictum Capital, and several Colombian angel investors made an undisclosed seed investment in ESCALA Educación, a social enterprise to help students save for higher education, and ultimately reduce income inequality marking the startups first institutional investment. In this interview, co-founder Andrea Echavarría explains how the company is helping Colombian families achieve higher education – university – through planned saving.

“For many, this is the first time they are saving formally with the financial system, so the financial literacy that we are generating is big.

NEWS

> Reuters: Didi Chuxing is making plans to expand to Mexico, its first market outside of China.

• Mexico City is Uber’s #2 city globally, behind São Paulo
• Read our primer on the tangled web of investors in LatAm rideshare apps.

> Nubank closed a new R$250m credit line from FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditórios). Nubank previously raised R$200m and R$445m credit lines from Goldman Sachs.

> ELITE, London Stock Exchange Group’s international business support program, partnered with Instituto Mineiro de Mercado de Capitais (IMMC) and Federation of Industries of the State of Minas Gerais (FIEMG) to launch ELITE in Brazil.

> Gizmodo: How Facebook Figures Out Everyone You’ve Ever Met.

> 78% of female founders, vs. 48% of male founders, said they've been harassed or know someone who's been sexually harassed, according to First Round Capital’s survey of 850+ founders.

• Men were 4 times more likely than women to say that the media has overblown the issue.

> 2017 is the year digital ad spending finally beat TV: Digital ad spending reached US$209b worldwide in 2017, while TV brought in US$178b, according to the research arm of IPG Mediabrands.

• TV ad spending isn’t shrinking, but digital keeps growing.

PEOPLE & PROGRAMS

> Thanks to David Velez of Nubank, Ben Gleason of GuiaBolso, Dan Parker of the Texas Tech University System endowment, and Roberto Martini of FLAGCX for joining us at VC in São Paulo, our bi-annual meeting of VCs investors in Brazil. A special thank you to Wayra Brasil for hosting.

> Congratulations to Jennifer Reyna of Mexico's Gaszen, a household energy management platform for winning the Annual WeXchange pitch competition.

> Congrats to Agruppa co-founder Carolina Medina Gutiérrez for making MIT Technology Review’s list of Innovadores Menores de 35 Humanitarios.

• Agruppa is a Wayra-accelerated startup that optimizes the current fruit and vegetable supply chain between farms and mom-and-pop shops in Bogotá, Colombia.
• READ our interview with Agruppa co-founder & WeXchange winner Carolina Medina Gutiérrez.

> 500 Startups is accepting applications for Batch 23, which begins Q1 2018 in San Francisco. Apply for early application by Dec. 15.

> ChileGlobal Angels launched AngelesAP, a network to connect angels, family offices, and corporate investors focused on the Alianza del Pacífico (Chile, Colombia, México, and Perú).

> Startupbootcamp will launch its first program to scale fintech startups in Mexico City, in partnership with Finnovista.

> PayClip joins Google Launchpad Accelerator’s 5th class. General Atlantic made an undisclosed investment in PayClip earlier this year.

> Telefónica appointed Miguel Arias as Global Director of Telefonica Open Future_.

> Easy co-founder Dennis Wang joins Nubank as VP of Operations.

> Polymath Ventures is hiring a Senior Business Designer, based in Mexico City. Apply here.

INVESTOR POV

> Anderson Thees of Redpoint eventures shares 5 Things he needs to see before making a VC investment.

> Neil Shen of Sequoia Capital China on Why China’s “copycat” image is starting to fade: “I would suggest that US companies should actually try to learn from China."

> Hans Tung of GGV Capital (investor in Xiamoi, Airbnb, Wish, muscal.ly) on China’s bike-sharing phenomenon: “Every category that we have invested in since 2000 until now has been called a bubble.”

CRYPTO

> Bloomberg: Latin America’s Wealthy Families Are Buying Up Bitcoin.

> Maduro wants to launch a Venezuelan crypto-currency called the petro to get around sanctions imposed by the US and other nations. Engadget asks: “What good is a digital currency if it still leaves you starving?”

> The Exponential View asks: Might Bitcoin cost us our clean energy future? “At the current rate of energy consumption, the network will consume as much electricity as the whole world uses today by Feb 2020.”

This marks the final edition of the LatAm Venture Bulletin in 2017. We will resume bi-weekly frequency after a brief break over the holidays. Thanks, as always, for your continued interest and support and we look forward to a dynamic 2018!

The LatAm Venture Bulletin is a news platform of the Latin American Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.

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

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