Here are the highlights on Brazil’s tech and business scene in June:
June 30
São Paulo-based motorcycle rental startup Mottu raised a $40M series B.
“The company, which aims to give independent couriers a way to work for logistics and food delivery apps, also secured $10 million in debt financing”.
June 30
Credit Suisse-Backed Firm’s Ex-Partners launched “an asset manager focused on credit products in Brazil as fixed-income funds post huge inflows in the biggest Latin American nation”.
June 30
MAYA Capital, which invested in unicorn companies Merama and NotCo, closed its 2nd fund with $100M for early-stage Latin American startups.
June 21
BayBrazil in Miami for the first time. Along with our partner J.P. Morgan, we gathered startup founders, investors and tech leaders in the emerging Brazilian-American entrepreneurial community.
June 20
Camila Farani, one of the largest angel investors in Brazil, bets on Staged Ventures, a new investment fund manager focused on the internationalization of Brazilian startups. The expectation is to invest US$ 50 million, around R$ 252 million, in the first 12 months. Alongside Camila at Staged Ventures are Geraldo Neto, creator of venture capital GAA Investment, Flavio Pripas, former head of Cubo in Brazil and current CSO of Digibee, and eight other investors.
June 9
Alphabet committed to invest $1.2 billion in Latin America over the next five years to support economic development and digital transformation in the region. Of this amount, $300 million – split into $50 million in cash contribution and $250 million in advertising credits – will go to Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, which funds sustainability NGOs and economic opportunities for women. Donations will also support “organizations working to protect biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest”.
June 9
According to a new market map of the Brazilian agtech ecosystem, The Radar Agtech Brasil, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated technology development and adoption in Brazil’s agriculture sector. A map details 1,574 agtech companies in 33 categories and three field segments and its creators added a new company each day of the past 15 months; that’s 449 new companies in just over a year. Check here more details about the study.
June 9
Valor Capital will set up an investment structure in seed investment, specific to finance startups and projects involving crypto assets. It was raised $500 million in its new series of venture capital funds, which it will be able to allocate up to 20% of resources in the crypto and blockchain technology ecosystem.
June 8
Venture debt, a financing modality that was not very popular among startups is growing, at a time when investments in startups are not at their best. In this context, Voiter will allocate up to R$150 million in financing startups, through a debt venture.
June 8
Take Blip, an online messaging platform for businesses, raised $70 million in a Series B round led by Warburg Pincus. The investment brings Take Blip’s total raised to $170 million. Brazil-based Take Blip has evolved into a cloud product that extracts insights from customer-business interactions across channels including WhatsApp, Instagram, Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Chat and Telegram.
June 6
Zippi, a fintech that offers weekly working capital via pix to self-employed professionals and small businesses, raised $16 million in a series A led by Tiger Global. Other investors that also joined the round includes Y Combinator, Globo Ventures, Volpe Capital, Rainfall Ventures, Hummingbird, Mantis, MSA Capital and Soma Capital. To date, Zippi has raised about $22 million, already considering Series A.
June 3
Maestro ABM, an account-based marketing software startup, received a pre-seed funding of US$130,000 led by SaasHolic. Company trains and develops people to implement ABM (Account-Based Marketing) and shorten the complex sales cycle.
June 2
The venture capital manager KPTL announced the launch of an investment fund focused on startups that generate a positive impact on the climate and forests. The initiative plans to invest R$ 200 million over the next five years and has the Vale Fund as a strategic partner, responsible for the ideation and coordination of one of the largest initiatives to recover areas currently underway in the country.
June 1
Agrotools, a startup focused on analytics and big data solutions for agribusiness, raised R$ 85 million to pursue an M&A and internationalization strategy. The funds came from investors such as Horácio Lafer Piva, from Klabin; Henry James Salomon of BrProp; in addition to Bradesco’s Inovabra fund. The platform provides individual producer data that guarantee special conditions for him when taking out a loan.
News gathering by Thais Chertman
