> SoftBank Latin America Fund led a R$310m Series D in olist, a Brazilian ecommerce platform, with follow-on from Valor Capital, Peninsula, VELT Partners, FJ Labs, and angel investor Kevin Efrusy.
- SoftBank led a R$190m in 2019, with follow-on from Redpoint eventures.
- olist also announced the acquisition of Clickspace, a Brazilian SaaS for ecommerce marketplace management.
- READ LAVCA’s interview with Founder and CEO Tiago Dalvi below.👇
> #HEALTHTECH San Francisco-based VC Index Ventures led a US$19m Series A in Sofía, a Mexican digital health insurer and telemedicine platform, with participation from KaszeK Ventures and Ribbit Capital.
- Sofía is the first Mexican digital health insurance to receive regulatory approval, according to Index Ventures.
- Co-Founder and CEO Arturo Sanchez Correa on receiving regulatory approval from Mexican regulators: “We had to comply with the same requirements as any large 100-year-old institution, and there are no special provisions in the insurance market like the ones you can find for fintechs in Ley Fintech. The whole process took just shy of two years and required us to have a very robust team and significant capital requirements. On the flip side, now that we are a fully authorised insurance company and can operate without having to partner with an incumbent, we can move as fast as we want (and we intend to move very fast).”
> Tribe Capital led a US$13.5m Series A in Mati, a Mexico-based identity verification technology provider, with follow-on from Spero Ventures, Amaranthine, Operator Partners, Aglae Ventures, and Comma VC.
- In May 2020, Mati raised an undisclosed round from Spero Ventures, which spun out from Omidyar Network in 2019 with US$100m AUM.
> monashees, ONEVC, and Y Combinator led a US$5m seed round in Facio, a Brazilian financial education and payroll advance platform, with participation from angels Gabriel Braga (QuintoAndar), Michael Seibel (Y Combinator), and Igor Marchesini (SumUp).
- Facio recently launched a lending platform for employees to refinance debt obligations at cheaper rates.
> monashees and Qualcomm Ventures led an undisclosed Series A in Azion, a Brazilian developer of edge computing software applications.
> Google for Startups Brasil selected six new companies to join its Black Founders Fund: Aoca Game Lab, a gaming company, LegAut, an aggregator of public residential real estate documentation, EasyJur, a software development platform for law firms, WeUse, an on-demand clothing rental service, Treinus, a sports training platform, and Wellbe, a platform for employee health data management.
- Google for Startups launched the Brazilian Black Founders Fund in September, a R$5m investment fund to finance 30 early stage startups founded and run by afro-descendente entrepreneurs in Brazil. This follows a similar US$5m allocation for Black American founders.
- Previous companies selected to participate include Afropolitan, a Brazilian ecommerce focused on trending products from afro-descendente culture, TrazFavela, a last-mile delivery platform for underserved communities in city peripheries, and CREATORS, a Brazilian on-demand marketplace for creative services. READ LAVCA’s interview with CREATOR’s CMO Nohoa Arcanjo.
> #MINING Brazilian venture builder Happy Capital led a R$3m round in Minery, a Brazilian B2B commodity marketplace connecting small mining companies to potential ore buyers.
> Michel Klein’s family office, which owns a controlling stake in Brazilian retail company Via Varejo, made an undisclosed investment in Pet Anjo, a Brazilian marketplace for pet goods and services.
> #CROWDFUNDING Flapper, a Brazilian on-demand aviation services provider, raised US$2.5m in equity crowdfunding through SMU Crowdfunding.
> #AGTECH The Yield Lab LatAm invested US$100k each in Botanical Solutions, a Chilean plant-based products manufacturer for crop pest control, @Tech, a Brazilian agtech monitoring platform for livestock feedlots, and VOA, a Brazilian air drone manufacturer for pesticide and nutrient crop application.
> #ANGEL GVAngels invested R$1.5m in DeÔnibus, a Brazilian bus ticketing platform.
> #HEALTHTECH #ANGEL TissueLabs, a Brazilian manufacturer of equipment for human organ and tissue development, raised R$1.5m from economist Eduardo Zylberstajn and others.
> GlooPay, a Brazilian payments startup focused on the underbanked, raised an undisclosed amount from unnamed investors.
- GlooPay raised R$1.2m from North Star and Axen Capital in 2019.