Bloomberg Línea — Latin America saw a drop in the value of venture capital investment iof 60.8%, but the number of deals increased, albeit nominally, year-over-year by 1.83%. according to TTR Data’s annual report.
That meant that more seed-rounds were funded, due to the lower amounts of capital.
Meanwhile, the industry that grew the most in 2022 was software, by 3%, and into which investors poured more money.
These companies procured funding in Latin America this week:
Arthur Mining
Created by Brazilians, the US-based energy-tech company, which plans to start operating in Brazil in the first quarter of 2023, received an investment of 23.5 million reais ($4.5 million). The company’s goal is to increase the volume of cryptocurrencies in circulation through mining, helping energy companies optimize their assets.
The investment was raised among a number of family offices with large investments in energy and infrastructure, at a pre-funding valuation of $100 million.
With the investment, the company projects a threefold growth of its US operations, in addition to starting operations in Brazil and achieving a turnover of $40 million in 2023.
Vai
A Colombian carpooling platform for university communities, Vai closed a pre-seed round for $530,000 and hit a valuation of $3.2 million.
The investment round was led by local and international angel investors, and supported by advisors such as Makers Fellowship, BDO ScaleUp and the Entrepreneurship Programme (PEMP) of the Universidad de los Andes.
Roberto Amaya, COO and co-founder of Vai, said that the company’s goal is to expand into morecities in the country in the short term, with plans to expand into Mexico and Brazil between 2024 and 2025.
Ruedata
The Colombian-Mexican startup received investment from international venture capital fund Kamay Ventures. The amount of the transaction was not disclosed, but the fund told Bloomberg Linea that its average injection is around $300,000.
Ruedata’s business model consists of tyre-stock management software for transport companies, based on technology and data analysis.
The company aims to consolidate its business in Mexico and Brazil, improve the products it offers, and reach 100,000 vehicles by the end of 2023 in all of Latin America.
Ruedata currently has offices in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil, and clients in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and the Dominican Republic.
This is Kamay Ventures.’s second investment in the IoT vertical, after investing in Wiagro, and Ruedata joins other companies in its portfolio such as Auravant, Zippin, Kilimo, Retrypay, Altscore and Aerialoop.
