With digital transformation on the rise in Latin America, especially in sectors such as fintech – that has been pushing the unbanked population of the region towards financial inclusion – funding activity in Latin American startups has been growing at a fast pace.
Brazil, for instance, ranked third in the number of unicorns in 2019, after startups Gympass, EBANX, QuintoAndar, Loggi, and Wildlife having reached the coveted status of $1 billion valuation this past year. However, not only Brazil is becoming a hotspot for funding in the region, as other markets are also attracting an ever-growing amount of investment in recent years – more precisely, Mexico and Colombia.
Although without including seed financings, and focusing only on venture rounds of Series A and beyond, Techcrunch’s platform Crunchbase released this Thursday a list of 7 countries where startup investment has been on the rise – comparing the year-over-year growth of the funding activity among these markets – and 3 out of 7 are Latin Americans.
#1 Colombia
With 236% YoY growth, Colombia placed 1st as the country that saw startup funding increase the most in 2019. The Colombian superapp Rappi, with the $1 billion investment led by Softbank last year, was featured with the greatest deal in the country, as Colombia attracted $1.25 billion in venture capital funding during the period.
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#4 Mexico
Mexico appeared in the 4th position of Crunchbase’s ranking. The country that watched the business loans platform Konfio and payments device Clip receive an investment of $100 million each, has attracted overall $495 million in VC funding during 2019, a growth of 89% year over year.
#5 Brazil
The country that has one of the most dynamic tech hubs in the world – São Paulo – Brazil placed in the 5th position of the list, with a growth of 79% in VC funding during 2019. The country, however, was the one that attracted the highest investment in total numbers among the Latin American markets: $2.47 billion. Fintech decacorn Nubank, as well as recent unicorns fitness startup Gympass and home rentals QuintoAndar were featured as the players that drew the most striking deals.
