Emerging Markets Spotlight: South America
We’re thrilled to present the fourth and final installment at Conduit that focuses on emerging markets, detailing vertical-agnostic startup leaders in distinct regions. In the last part of our series, our team sat down to evaluate the rapidly expanding tech ecosystem in South America.
In this report, we focused specifically on three regions: Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina, each carrying a unique consumer ecosystem and funding environments. With more than 200 million people and a rapidly growing economy, Brazil retains a range of thriving sectors, spanning auto, logistics, real estate, e-commerce, and food delivery.
Compared to Brazil, Colombia offers a relatively new investment market, only attracting about 12% of South American early-stage investments. Within the region, the majority of these investments are concentrated in Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín.
Finally, Argentina is quickly becoming a regional center for both agtech innovation as well as globally active fintech growth. U.S. multinationals like Microsoft, Intel, Amazon and IBM are omnipresent in Argentina’s capital of Buenos Aires.
Brazil
Nubank is a financial services company providing payment solutions, free-of-charge credit cards and equity investment to Brazilian customers. Through Nubank, users access their accounts via their mobile phones, and directly manage their payments and money transfers. The company has now raised $820 million across seven venture rounds, most recently closing a $400 million Series F led by TCV in 2019.
iFood is an online food delivery service that enables its users to easily order food online from a wide variety of cuisines to be delivered at home, operating between delivery partners, restaurants, and customers. In 2018, iFood’s umbrella corp Movile announced $500 million of fresh funds aimed at making it one of the world’s biggest players in the meals delivery market.
QuintoAndar is an apartment rental marketplace that enables its users to browse, view, book, and rent the property directly through its app. In tandem, QuintoAndar also allows advertising for properties and brokers’ services to assist users during the purchasing process.
Colombia
Rappi is Colombia’s major online food delivery platform and the country’s first unicorn startup after a marquee $220 million Series D led by DST Global. The company was accepted into YC in 2016 and has since continued to attract the attention of foreign investors. Softbank invested $1 billion in the company in 2019 as part of its infamous $5 billion Innovation Fund.
Viajala is South America’s top air travel metasearch platform while offering the largest discount flight search engine in the region. The company was founded by Thomas Allier in 2013 and notably received investment and support from Colombian government initiative RutaN.
Platzi is the largest tech school in South America and one of the top communities specializing in technological innovation. Platzi helps students from all over the world acquire in-demand skills while staying up-to-date with the broader global tech industry. In 2014, Platzi was the first company from South America to be admitted to Y Combinator.
Argentina
Uala is a fintech service that offers its users an innovative and integrated experience, providing more convenient and lower-cost services than other alternatives. It allows users to carry out a wide variety of financial transactions while enabling users to request loans through the app and invest in public markets. Its investors include Kevin Ryan, Jefferies, and Goldman Sachs.
Satellogic is the first vertically integrated geospatial analytics company that drives outcomes with planetary-scale insights. Satellogic’s low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation, platform, and data science teams work together to deliver end-to-end solutions at the right cost. Most recently, the company raised a $50 million Series C in December 2019.
Ripio is the leading Blockchain company in Latin America’s fintech ecosystem. Its core product is a digital crypto wallet, which currently has over 150,000 active users. Critically, Ripio is the first major fintech company of its kind to offer online credit and protected payment services.
At Conduit, we connect the world’s best operator-investors and founders building the next generation of startups around the world.
As we scale our platform, understanding key market shifts across verticals will become increasingly vital. Our team will be digging deeper into emerging trends and first movers in the coming weeks, which you can find here.
