LatAm Venture Bulletin - May 25, 2016

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LatAm Venture Bulletin

FINTECH IS HEATING UP

The IFC led a R$60m Series C in GuiaBolso, with previous backers KaszeK Ventures, Ribbit Capital, and QED Investors. This is the IFC’s first investment in a Brazilian fintech startup. GuiaBolso raised US$1m in seed financing in 2013 from Valor Capital, e.Bricks and angel investors. Valor and e.Bricks returned for a US$3m Series A in 2014, led by KaszeK Ventures. In 2015, Ribbit Capital led a US$7m Series B with Omidyar Network, QED Investors, Ed Baker, head of growth for Uber; Mark Goines, and early investor in Mint.com; and Peter Kellner, co-founder of Endeavor. 

> Announced this week, Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund led an US$8m investment in Konfio, a Mexican online lending platform, joined by Quona Capital, QED Investors, KaszeK Ventures, and Jaguar Ventures. Accion and Jaguar also invested in 2014. Konfio is KaszeK and QED’s first investment in Mexico. QED also has investments in fintech startups BankFacil and Nubank in Brazil.

GuiaBolso and Konfio are two breakouts among hundreds of fintech startups in the region. FintechLab counts 130 fintech startups in Brazil, and says half of them have annual revenues above R$1m. Finnovista counts 140 fintech startups in Mexico and 70 in Colombia. The opportunity is dramatic: About half the region’s population is unbanked, including 60% of Mexico and Colombia, according to the World Bank.

> Fintech was the single largest sector of venture investment in 2015 across Latin America, with US$143m invested over 21 deals (and US$80m invested in Nubank alone),  as we detail in Latin America Venture Capital: Five-Year Trends, LAVCA’s report of venture investment in the region from 2011-2015.

 
 

DEALS

NXTP Labs, Neveq II and Telor International Limited invested US$2m in Properati, a real estate startup based in Buenos Aires. Properati has raised US$4.2m since 2013.

> South Ventures made a follow-on investment in Trocafone, a Brazilian e-commerce startup. Trocafone raised R$20m from Swiss investment bank Sallfort in April. Previous investors include Wayra, Grupo Telefônica, 500 Startups, Lumia Capital, Quasar Ventures, and NXTP Labs. Trocafone closed 2015 with R$40m in sales of 50K “semi-used” devices.

Capital Invent, ON Ventures, and a group of Mexican angel investors invested US$800k in TiZKKA, a Mexican fashion community.

> Dila Capital and a group of angel investors acquired a minority stake in Yadatex, a Mexican textile manufacturer.

> Curitiba Angels made an undisclosed investment in DroneMapp, a Brazilian drone mapping startup. This is Curitiba Angels’ second investment after Contabilizei in 2014, and DroneMapp’s first venture funding. Check out the DroneMapp team on Facebook.

 

DIGITAL M&A

Brazilian e-commerce startup Brasil/CT acquired Único Sistemas, an integrated point of sale and ERP platform. Invest Tech led a US$35m round in Brasil/CT earlier this month. 

eBay acquired Spanish online ticket marketplace Ticketbis to fuel Stubhub’s expansion into Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

LAVCA members Qualcomm Ventures and Intel Capital make PitchBook’s list of the 10 most active corporate investors since 2010. Alphabet leads with 84 acquisitions, followed by Yahoo, IBM, Facebook, Oracle, and Cisco. Globally, corporate acquisitions accounted for 72% of 2015 VC exit value and 78% of all exit activity, according to PitchBook data. 

Brazil saw a 35% increase in IT M&A transactions in Q1 2016, while overall M&A transactions were down 20%, according to a report by TTR and Merrill Corporation.

 

NEW FUNDS

The IFC is considering a US$2m capital commitment to 500 Startups’ second LatAm-focused micro VC fund, which has a target size of US$10m. As per SEC filings, the firm’s previous LatAm fundraising effort raised at least US$2.5m in 2014.

Get more fundraising data in Latin America Venture Capital: Five-Year Trends, LAVCA’s comprehensive new report on the early stage ecosystem in the region.

 
 

PEOPLE & PROGRAMS

> Mexico’s Finance Minister Luis Videgaray visited Silicon Valley this week to invite investors to support the development of the Mexican fintech startup ecosystem.

500 Startups is looking for 20-30 Latin American startups for its acceleration program, which includes US$65k in funding and a new space in Colonia Juárez in Mexico City. 500 Startups has invested in 100 Latin American startups to date. Applications close June 12.

Microsoft is offering entrepreneurs at Cubo free access to Microsoft cloud services and mentorship. Cubo launched in São Paulo in 2015 with support from Redpoint e.Ventures and Itau Bank. 

Silicon Valley Bank has hired Jackie Hyland as Director for Latin America. Hyland previously led Accion Venture Lab's deal activity and portfolio engagement in the region.

Colombia’s Polymath Ventures is looking for an Investment Associate for the firm, as well as CEOs for a portfolio company in Colombia, and another in Mexico. Email Carlos Pradilla at carlos.fpradilla@polymathventures.co

 

INVESTOR POV

Gonzalo Costa of NXTP Labs shares perspectives from entrepreneurs at Workana, Afluenta and Funne.ly on raising capital in LatAm, in a guest post for TechCrunch.

Walker Fuller at River Cities Capital Fund lays out a process for SaaS companies to determine how much to capital raise and when.

Mahesh Vellanki at Redpoint digs into how JustEat and GrubHub went from almost identical growth numbers to opposite trajectories.

Venrock partner and former Apple Music Group co-founder David Pakman explains how the music industry is keeping startups from attracting venture investment.

Fred Wilson at Union Square Ventures asks when it’s the right time to fire someone. Or “act on a hiring mistake”, in more euphemistic terms...

 

THE FUTURE

Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the “device” to fade away…. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.” — Google CEO Sundar Pichai

WIRED looks at how Elon Musk recruited some of the best AI talent on the planet for his billion-dollar OpenAI project.

Chris Dixon says voice (Siri, Alexa, etc.) is a novelty today, “but in technology the next big thing often starts out looking that way.”

Buzzfeed’s Charlie Warzel goes cashless for a month and details the present pain points around the frictionless future of money.

Google wants to blur the line between web and apps with Instant Apps later this year.

 
 

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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