Welcome to the rounds of the week. This week venture capital shook the region with its multi-million-dollar investments that led to the creation of two more Latin American unicorns: Colombia’s Habi and Brazil’s Dock.
With the new members of the Latin American unicorn club, the region now has 44 startups worth more than $1 billion.
In terms of early-stage investments, this week Belo, Mentum, Welbe and Elevva were the lucky ones to receive capital to boost the growth of their businesses.
Belo
Belo is an Argentine digital wallet that allows users to exchange Argentine pesos and crypto. The company announced a $3 million investment in a seed round led by CRV, The Venture City, NEWTOPIA, Latitude, Liquid 2, Infinity Ventures Crypto, Magma Partners and Sur VC.
The funding will allow Belo to further develop its crypto digital wallet locally and regionally. The capital will also be used to strengthen its expansion strategy to other Latin American countries, add more talent, launch new solutions aimed at businesses and companies, invest in the development of new functionalities, and improve its brand positioning and marketing strategy.
Manuel Beaudroit, CEO and co-founder of Belo, said the company has had strong growth since launching its app in September 2021, which demonstrates growing interest in the crypto world.
Belo is the first fintech in Argentina to offer a prepaid Mastercard, which allows for the paying of merchants directly with cryptocurrencies, and offers cashback between a minimum of 2% and 21% of the amount spent. The fintech aims to add one billion users worldwide to its platform in the long term.
Mentum
The San Francisco-based startup enables companies in Latin America to offer investment services digitally. This week it announced a $4.2 million seed round led by Gradient Ventures, a Google investment fund, and also participating were Global Founders Capital, Soma Capital, TwentyTwo VC, Y Combinator and the co-founders of Plaid and Jeeves.
The startup founded in 2021 by Daniel Osvath (CTO), Gustavo A. Trigos (CEO) and Simon Avila (COO),was part of that year’s summer batch of the Y Combinator accelerator, which accelerated its growth.
Mentum’s investment API allows any financial and non-financial firm to create fully digital investment products that comply with local regulations. Through a set of ‘widgets’, Mentum helps firms incorporate investment experiences in a few lines of code in a matter of weeks.
Welbe
This Mexican healthtech offers a 360° health platform for employees. This week it also announced a $3 million pre-seed round led by Nazca, one of the region’s leading funds, which has also invested in Mexico’s Kavak, Jüsto, albo and Ben & Frank.
Also participating in this round were Marathon Ventures, led by Alejandro Echavarria and León Papu; H20 led by Daniel Lloreda and Mauricio Porras; and Ike Asistencia, one of the largest assistance companies in Latin America.
In addition, also participating were several angel investors linked to startups such as Ricardo Weder, founder of Jüsto; David Geisen, country manager for Mexico of Mercado Libre; André Maxnuk, Mexico CEO at Mercer, and Luis Berrondo, director of M&A at Crédito Real.
The healthtech founded in Mexico by Marcus Paiva and Eduardo Medeiros will use the capital to improve its technology, attract key talent, expand partnerships and boost its development, growing its network of doctors and laboratories with the aim of reaching 100,000 active users by the end of 2022.
Elevva
The start-up that partners with leading e-commerce vendors to leverage their businesses this week announced the raising of its first round of capital for $30 million.
Its founders, Maximiliano Chab, Aníbal de Frankrnberg and Félix Elizalde, raised capital from global and regional funds such as Asymmetric Capital, MatterScale Ventures, Canary, Redwood Ventures, Latitud, Blustone, Primo Ventures, Norte, Stanford GSB ‘s 23 Fund, Bolt Ventures and angel investors such as Pierpaolo Barbieri (founder of Ualá), Ariel Lambrecht (founder of 99taxis and Mara), Matt Robinson (founder of GoCardless), among others.
The startup seeks to solve the main ailments of Latin American e-commerce and thus improve the experience and profitability of vendors. Less than seven months after its creation, it has a presence in Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
