LAVCA DATA

Q1 2026 Preliminary VC Data

Latin American startups raised ~USD1.3b in VC dollars in Q1 2026, up from ~USD978m in Q1 2025, marking the strongest first quarter since 2022.

The largest disclosed VC rounds in Q1 included Kavak (USD300m), Ualá (USD195m), ADDI (USD89m), ARQ (USD70m), Humand (USD66m), Pomelo (USD55m) and Somos Internet (USD40m).

LAVCA Members: Stay tuned for additional insights and official figures coming mid-May. LAVCA Members can email Emanuel Hernandez, Managing Director of Research, at ehernandez@lavca.org for additional data requests.

▸ DEBT |  IDB Invest provided USD50m in debt financing to Colombian proptech Habi. 

• Habi’s latest equity round for USD200m included the participation of SoftBank, Tiger Global, Endeavor Catalyst, Clocktower Technology Ventures and Homebrew, among others. Habi has raised USD250m+ in credit lines and structured loans since 2022. 

▸ DEBT |  BBVA Spark extended a USD50m credit line for Aplazo, a Mexican payment platform enabling buy-now-pay-later systems for merchants.

• QED Investors led a USD45m Series B for Aplazo in May 2024; Oak HC led a USD27m Series A for Aplazo in 2021.

▸ DEBT | CrediSmart, a Colombian loan provider for electronics, secured a USD48m structured credit facility with Lendable. 

▸ DEBT | BBVA Spark approved a  ~USD40m credit line extension for HayCash, a Mexican sales advances platform. 

▸ DEBT |  CashGO, a Brazilian credit platform for property owners, raised USD23m in debt through an FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditorios) from Augme Capital, Arx Investimentos and RBR.

▸ DEBT | Precato, a Brazilian judicial debt payment platform, raised ~USD19.4m through an FIDC (Fundo de Investimentos em Direitos Creditorios) structured by TAG Investimentos.

▸ Canary and ONEVC co-led a ~USD5.8m seed round for Inner AI, a Brazilian AI integration platform for entrepreneurs, with participation from Norte Ventures, Crivo Ventures and Phenomen Ventures.

▸ Dalus Capital led a USD5m round for Pulpos, a Mexican WhatsApp-based sales management platform for SMEs. 

• Pulpos raised a USD4m seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, HTwenty, Latitude and Newtopia in April 2024. 

▸ Prelude led a USD4.5m seed round for UnblockPay, a Brazilian cross-border payments platform, with participation from Crescera Capital, Triaxis Capital, Plug and Play, Wintermute, Reverie, Signature Ventures and undisclosed angels. 

▸ Dalus Capital led a USD2.7m seed round for Satellites On Fire, an Argentine startup focused on early fire detection, with participation from Draper Associates, Draper Cygnus, Vitamin°C, SAVIA Ventures, Avesta Fund, Reciprocal Ventures, Zenani Capital, Innventure Agrifoodtech, AIR Capital VC, Antom.la, GAIN, Embarca and undisclosed angels. 

▸ DOMO.VC led a ~USD1.1m round for Nuvidio, a Brazilian digital identity verification platform, with participation from Rei Carvalho (Emailage) and Amador Testa (Quod).

▸ Cifrato, a Colombia-based accounting platform, raised a USD1m seed round from YC, Fen Ventures, Decelera Ventures and Kuiper VC.

▸ EDTECH | Mercurial Atlantic Investments invested ~USD950k in Kaizen Mentoria, a Brazilian student support platform. 

▸ Smart Money Ventures and Sororité Ventures co-led a ~USD500k round for Eluvi, a Brazilian tourism platform.

▸ Brookfield acquired Tabas, a Brazilian digital manager of multifamily buildings. 

• Blueground and Echo Capital led a USD6.6m Series A in 2022. 

▸ Silva, a Brazilian forest nursery startup, raised an undisclosed round from MOV, the Itaúsa Institute, CBKK and Denis Minev (Bemol).

▸ Spectra Investimentos reached a ~USD160m first close for its seventh fund with a ~USD320m initial target and a ~USD400m hard cap aimed at fund commitments and co-investments.

• Spectra will earmark 5% of the fund to co-invest alongside angel investors. 
• Spectra’s Jamie Keller: “Os fundos passaram a investir junto con esses anjos para garantir espaço no cap table. A ideia da Spectra é testar se essa dinâmica também pode funcionar no Brasil.”

▸ Mercado Libre made an undisclosed commitment to Gradient V, Gradient Ventures’ fifth flagship fund with a USD220m target to invest in AI startups globally. 

• This is Mercado Libre’s first LP commitment to an independent venture fund, according to LAVCA Data, giving advanced access to emerging tech stacks across ecommerce and fintech. 
• Gradient spinned out of Google in late 2025 and is led by Managing Partner Darian Shirazi. 
• Gradient’s portfolio in Latin America includes Toku, Niva, Spline, Heru and OlaClick. Gradient exited R2 in 2025 to in a sale to Ant International in 2025. 

▸ Chile-based Araucaria Venture launched its inaugural fund with a USD18m target to invest in early-stage startups developing solutions in the foodtech, agtech and climatech spaces. 

▸ MEDIA 4 EQUITY | Brazilian marketing company Meio&Mensagem launched M&M Ventures, a ~USD6m media for equity fund managed by 4equity Media Ventures.

▸ Nubank is setting up shop in Abu Dhabi as it looks toward MENA expansion. 

• The move appears geared less toward near-term retail scale and more toward regional positioning, capital access, and partnerships beyond Latin America.

▸ Telefónica sold its Mexico business for USD450m to Melisa Acquisition, a consortium led by OXIO and Newfoundland Capital Management. 

• The deal advances Telefónica’s retreat from non-core markets and gives OXIO scale in one of the region’s largest telecom markets.

▸ Anthropic is planning a Brazil office in 2027, as interest in Claude grows in the country. 

• Catch up quick: Anthropic added to the AI craze this past week with the launch of Mythos, a model that is allegedly so powerful that instead of Anthropic releasing it to the general public, it launched Project Glasswing, a 40-company consortium designed to test the model and develop defenses against AI-enabled cyberattacks.

▸ MercadoLibre opened its first fulfillment center in China, with shipments already flowing into its five largest markets in Latin America. 

▸ Situational awareness: Global mega-funds are back in market. 

• Jeff Bezos is launching Prometheus, a USD100b AI/manufacturing global fund to acquire and modernize industrial companies, while Coatue is launching a new AI-focused fund spanning public and private markets. 

▸ Brazilian online grocery startup Trela shut down operations.

• Trela raised a USD25m Series A in 2022 and counted General Catalyst, KASZEK, SoftBank, YC, 17Sigma and Pierpaolo Barbieri among its backers. 

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