☀️ Good morning!
Truly innovative ecosystems embrace entrepreneurs in all shapes and forms, especially if they come from other entrepreneurial organizations. This has been true in places like Silicon Valley, where the IBM Mafia bred the generation of innovators that would found their own companies to disrupt other tech incumbents.
Other so-called Mafias have been key to growing the tech world we inhabit. Paypal, Facebook, and even Amazon have seen their former employees spawning new, exciting companies inside and outside the US. Famously, Adolfo Babatz worked at Paypal before coming up with the idea for Clip, one of the Mexican fintech pioneers and is now worth over USD$2 billion.
ALLVP has already done some interesting analyses on what the Linio, Rocket, Rappi, and Uber mafias are creating in Latam. And a hard truth: these early disruptors did have to start from scratch in a region that was decades behind Silicon Valley in terms of access to venture capital. In 2016, only USD$500 million of VC money were pumped to Latam. 2021 – just five years later– closed with a record $6.5 billion.
This outstanding growth has created a massive appetite for all types of Latam startups. That's why it has made their current experience a bit different when raising capital.
"Right now, the market is very willing to place investment in Latam thanks to regional success stories such as Rappi and Nubank", Joaquin Serrano, co founder of e-commerce builder Sumer (backed by Rappi's founders), told us in this week's interview. Another company created by former unicorn employees that is now joining the VC bonanza: Palenca and Aplazo (both ex Uber).
Whether they come from startup graduates or were created by 'new' entrepreneurs, the current record multitude of VC-backed companies is only going to multiply –at least for a few more years.
–Daniela Dib
|
