Here are the highlights on Brazil’s tech and business scene in December:
Dec 23
Brazilian construction tech startup Ambar raised a large Series C round of, approximately, $36 million. The round was co-led by Brazil-based Echo Capital and Oria Capital, with participation from TPG Capital, Argonautic Ventures and others. Ambar was created in 2013 with the ambition to leverage technology to make the civil construction process more efficient.
Dec 23
QuintoAndar buys Argentine group Navent, that owns Imovelweb, and grows in Latin America. Navent has portals in six countries that have more than 6 million properties listed.
Dec 23
Brazilian social commerce app Facily closed its serie D-1 round, raising $135 million, which places the company at unicorn status. The round was led by Goodwater and Prosus, with Rise Capital, Emerging Variant, Tru Arrow and others also participating in the round.
Dec 21
Brazilian healthcare startup Alice has raised $127 million in its series C funding round led by Softbank Latin America Fund. Other investors include shareholders Kaszek Ventures and ThornTree Capital Partners and new investors such as Allen & Company LLC, G Squared, Globo Ventures and StepStone.
Dec 21
ZENVIA, a customer experience communications platform announced the signing of definitive contracts for the acquisition of Movidesk, a customer service and service desk software in Brazil. The closing of the transaction is subject to customary conditions precedent and is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2022.
Dec 16
Justin Mateen’s JAM Fund led a $21.5 million round of investment in the Brazilian fintech company Conta Simples. Valor Capital, Base10 Partners, Y Combinator, Quartz, and Big Bets also participated in the investment. The new round comes six months after the fintech received BRL 28 million from US accelerator Y Combinator.
Dec 15
Open Co, a São Paulo-based consumer credit company raised $115 million in a round led by SoftBank Latin America Fund. Existing backers Raiz Investimentos, IFC and LTS also joined the round. Open Co was created earlier this year by the merger of Geru, an online lender, and Rebel, a startup using AI and bank account data to underwrite risk and assess clients’ financial health.
Dec 15
Brazilian e-commerce solutions platform Olist has raised $186 million in a new funding round led by Wellington Management, becoming the newest unicorn in Latin America. Softbank Group, Goldman Sachs Group and Valor Capital were also among the investors in this new funding round.
Dec 15
Gympass Acquires Seattle-based Trainiac, a personal training startup based in Seattle.
Dec 14
Sami, a digital health plan focused on small businesses received a fundraising of BRL 110 million, led by DN Capital, monashees, Redpoint and Valor Capital venture capital funds. The startup has a model based on primary care, hospital network, telemedicine and preventive care, including gyms.
Dec 8
Nubank debuts on the New York Stock Exchange. became Latin America’s most valuable listed bank, at $41.5 billion
Dec 7
Clubbi, a Brazilian business-to-business resource for small food retailers, brought in $4.5 million in seed funding to expand across the country. Valor Capital Group co-led the round with ONEVC and was joined by Better Tomorrow Ventures, Latitud and Canary, which led Clubbi’s $550,000 pre-seed round.
Dec 6
Startup Worc received an investment of BRL 20 million from SoftBank. Worc combines profiles to recruit and select qualified professionals to work in the gastronomic sector and has already managed to connect workers with more than 14,000 job openings.
Dec 2
Delivery apps JOKR and the Brazilian Daki raised $ 260 million round to enter unicorn status, as they achieved a valuation of $1.2 billion. The round has the participation of investors Activant Capital, Balderton, Greycroft, G-Squared, HV Capital, Kaszek, Mirae Asset, Monashees, Moving Capital, Tiger Global, among others.
