After an April of decreasing investments, with the capital infused being less than $1 billion and 12% below March, Latin American startups have shown a recovery in May and the funding came back above the billion mark. In all, $1.26 billion was raised in 84 rounds, a result 53% better than April and 9% higher than May last year.
The data is from a new report issued by the Brazilian intelligence platform Sling Hub. According to the report, most May rounds were pre-seed and Seed (26) and Series A (10), and average checks came in at $15 million. The recovery in May was driven by the proptech and fintech sectors, which together took $725 million of the funds invested in the region.
Fintechs, by the way, lost their position as leaders in volume raised, something that had not happened since last September. This time it was the proptechs that raised the most funds, $369 million in 12 rounds. This is the sector’s best result since Brazilian startup Loft raised a $425 million Series D in March 2021.
Heading the list this time is a Colombian proptech, Habi, which raised a $200 million Series C led by Homebrew and SoftBank Latin America Fund. With this, the startup founded by Brynne McNulty Rojas and Sebastian Noguera also became the first Latin American unicorn proptech based out of Brazil, joining Brazilians Loft and QuintoAndar.
The silver medal went to the Argentine Belong and its $80 million Series C. Completing the list of proptechs invested in May are Spot 2 (Mexico), Philippo (Chile), Stattus4, Villa 11, Captei, Chavi and Yolo (Brazil).
Despite ranking behind in volume raised, the fintechs sector was still the one that closed the most rounds in May, there were 19, but with smaller checks adding up to $356 million.
The top 10 largest investment rounds in May looked like this:
Looking at the countries, Brazil continues to hold the largest share of investments, with 52% of the total volume: 60 Brazilian startups nabbed $547 million. Next comes Colombia, which with only 4 investment rounds raised $245 million, accounting for 19% of the region’s investments in May. More than 80% of the Colombian funding came from Habi’s unicorn round.
Three new unicorns on the scene
May ended by bringing three new unicorns to Latin America, from three different countries and sectors:
🦄 Habi, Colombia’s proptech – a real estate buying and selling platform founded in Bogota, Habi raised $200 million with Homebrew and SoftBank Latin America Fund. Founded in late 2019, Habi uses a custom-built pricing algorithm and database. With it, it says to be capable of selling a real state property in ten days, giving homeowners reliability and access to liquidity.
🦄 Dock, fintech from Brazil – Dock is a payment and Banking as a Service company. The fintech raised $110 million in a round led by two private equity managers, Lightrock and Silver Lake Waterman, and followed by existing investors, Riverwood Capital (owner of a relevant part of the company’s capital), Viking Global Investors, and Sunley House Capital. With the funding, Dock says it has reached an estimated market value of more than $1.5 billion.
🦄 Nowports, log tech from Mexico – It has built a solution to digitize the import and export logistics experience for Latin American companies. In May, it raised $150 million in Series C led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and followed by Tiger Global, Monashees, Soma Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Mouro Capital, Tencent, and Base10 Partners. According to Nowports, the startup reached unicorn status, with a valuation of $1.1 billion.
