VC Trends in Latin America in 2025

hosted by LAVCA and Silicon Valley Bank

Last week, we shared our current view on what is driving venture during our VC Trends in Latin America 2025 with SVB. 

Thank you to our panelists for a thoughtful discussion: Antoine Colaco (Valor Capital Group), Lara Lemann (MAYA CAPITAL), Bianca Martinelli (Alexia Ventures) and Hector Sepulveda (NAZCA). Special thanks to SVB’s Nico Toro for moderating, and to Andy Tsao for sharing US perspectives.

Highlights from our Ecosystem Insights Report:

• VC deployment remains steady, with early-stage accounting for 54% of dollars in 1H 2025.
• Mexico surpassed Brazil in VC investment for the first time in 15 years.
• The pipeline is healthy, with nearly 500 startups raising a first VC round in the last 18 months and emerging hubs contributing 21% of new VC-backed companies, with Montevideo among the fastest growers.

Thank you to everyone who joined and contributed to the conversation.

TECH SPOTLIGHT

Mamotest & Scaling Public Health in Latin America

Mamotest was initially established in Argentina to expand access to timely breast cancer screening. The company has since evolved from a tele-mammography network in Argentina to incorporate BolderAi, a cloud platform for AI-assisted, multi-modality imaging diagnostics operating in Argentina, Mexico and Spain, with advanced discussions underway in Brazil and other markets.

The model combines regulated cloud infrastructure, subspecialist routing, and public-private delivery to return radiology results in less than 24 hours, and in Spain, it has shortened diagnosis timelines by about one month.

Mamotest last raised equity financing from global healthcare names in 2023, including MSD (known as Merck in the United States and Canada), Johnson & Johnson and Philips Foundation.

LAVCA sat down with Guillermo Pepe, CEO of Mamotest, and Ken Gustavsen, Managing Director of MSD’s Impact Venture Fund, to talk about what it takes to scale equitable diagnostics across fragmented health systems.

Read the full interview, including more on Mamotest’s crossborder expansion, collaboration with global investors and making AI part of the conversation. 

▸ CLEANTECH | Vision Ridge Partners invested USD250m in VEMO, a Mexico-based electromobility startup.

• VEMO raised USD64m in debt financing in February. 

▸ Tribe Capital and Pelion Ventures led a USD100m round for Kapital, a Mexican finance management platform for SMEs, with participation from Y Combinator, Marbruck Ventures and True Arrow.

• Tribe Capital led a USD40m Series B in December 2023; Niya Partners and Tribe Capital led a ~USD20m Series A in May 2023.

▸ DEBT | Mexican fintech Trafalgar secured a USD50m debt facility from undisclosed investors. 

▸ DEBT | mattilda, a Mexican finance management and tuition collection platform for private schools, secured a USD50m credit facility from Lendable. 

• FinTech Collective led a USD10m seed round in October 2022. 

▸ DEBT | Amazon invested USD25m in a convertible note in Colombia’s Rappi. 

• The investment entitles Amazon to buy as much as 12% of Rappi through warrants, conditional on agreed-upon milestones. 
• This is Amazon’s latest attempt to gain a local edge in the last-mile delivery wars. 

▸ Valor Capital Group and Bewater led a ~USD22m Series B for Ume, a Brazilian PIX-based lending platform, with follow-on from PayPal Ventures, Globo Ventures, Canary and BigBets.

• PayPal Ventures led a USD15m Series A in August 2024; Canary and NFX led a USD5.5m round and Ume secured USD4.5m in debt in April 2022.

▸ FOODTECH | Birdman, a Mexico-based plant-based foods startup, secured a USD20m credit line from HSBC. 

▸ M&A | Mexican fintech Klar acquired Bineo, the digital banking subsidiary of Mexican bank Grupo Financiero Banorte. 

• Klar previously announced its intentions to begin processes to apply for a banking license in the country. 
• CEO Stefan Moller to Bloomberg: “Receiving payroll is ultimately the holy grail of any bank… [Bineo] is a business that has a much lower credit exposure than you would be used to seeing due to the time it’s been in operation,” Moller said. “It’s young, very tied to what we are trying to do and sold by an institution operated by people with a fairly high level of sophistication.”

▸ HEALTHTECH | Eos Ventures invested USD10m in Osigu, a Colombia and US-based healthcare claims management platform

• IDC Ventures led a USD25m Series B in October 2024. 

▸ BIOTECH | The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invested in an undisclosed Series A for Puna Bio, an Argentine biotech that cultivates beneficial microbes for soil enrichment.

• Corteva Catalyst invested in April; One Ventures and Builders VC led a USD3.7m seed round in September 2022; SOSV invested previously.

▸ INSURTECH | monashees, Canary and 8VC led a ~USD9.2m equity and debt round for 180 Seguros, a Brazilian embedded insurance provider for marketplaces and e-commerce platforms, with participation from FJ Labs. 

• 8VC led a ~USD31m Series A in February 2022; Canary, Dragoneer and Rainfall Ventures led a USD8m seed round in May 2021. 

▸ FOODTECH | Toteat, a Chilean restaurant management platform, raised a USD7.4m round with participation from Taram Capital and follow-on from Morro Ventures.

• Morro Ventures led a USD3.5m round in November 2022. 

▸ Base10 Partners led a USD4.5m round for Darwin AI, a Brazil-based conversational AI assistant.

• Canary led a USD2.1m round in February 2024. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | Angra Partners invested ~USD2.7m in Bioma Genetics, a Brazilian genomic and microbiota testing startup. 

▸ BIOTECH | Axcell invested ~USD1.5m in AmazonCure, a Brazilian biotechnology research startup. 

▸ Salkantay led a USD1.5m seed round for Guama, a Colombian fintech, with participation from Story Ventures, Hustle Fund and Techstars.

▸ Loto, a Colombian expense management platform, raised a USD1m pre-seed round with participation from Fen Ventures, Crestone VC, QAPU Ventures and Desygn Capital.

▸ Bossa Invest invested ~USD370k in Larian AI, a Brazilian travel agent platform. 

▸ Hubfi, a Brazilian back-office outsourcing platform, raised ~USD330k via crowdfunding. 

▸ HEALTHTECH | Gokei, a Chilean healthcare management platform, raised USD200k from Matías and José Tomás Daire (Buenaonda), Georges Bourguignon (VentiPay) and undisclosed angels. 

▸ Amplifica Capital invested in Pitz, a Mexican AI-based operating system for automotive repair shops.

▸ BTG Pactual and Sebrae launched FIC Sebrae Germina, a fund with an initial commitment of ~USD18m to invest in early-stage fintech companies in Brazil. 

• Sebrae will be able to invest up to ~USD90m through 2026. 

▸ Brazilian accelerator WOW announced a new ~USD3.3m angel fund to invest in early-stage startups with a focus on AI in Brazil. 

• WOW was first launched in 2013; notable exits include Squid’s sale to Locaweb and Anota AI’s sale to iFood.