Javier García oversees Mexico-based retailer and beverage producer Femsa’s corporate venture capital (CVC) unit, Femsa Ventures. He was promoted to director of corporate venturing and growth capital in March 2020.
Femsa hired García in August 2014 from professional services firm Bain & Company where he had spent more than six years developing and leading logistics-focused advisory projects.
His strategic planning manager role at Femsa involved García managing projects to seek out growth opportunities for the corporate and its portfolio companies. As part of the open innovation efforts, he helped found the in-house CVC fund and has been serving as head of Femsa Ventures since August 2018.
He told Global Corporate Venturing at the time of the unit’s launch: “Prior to taking on my current role with the creation of Femsa Ventures, I spent four years at Femsa’s headquarters doing strategic planning. Most of my time there was spent on building additional business platforms to Femsa’s existing portfolio.
“One example of this was the creation of one of the most robust 3PL (third-party logistics) platforms in Latin America. We made two acquisitions – and subsequent integrations – in Brazil’s LTL (less-than-truckload) and warehousing markets. We also acquired and integrated a 3PL company in Colombia and a warehousing company in Mexico.
“These four acquisitions complemented our existing operations – mostly in primary and secondary distribution – in seven Latin American (LatAm) countries. Today, Solística is one of the largest 3PL companies in LatAm, if not the single largest. Our strategic planning team has also done similar efforts in the small-box retail and beverage industries throughout LatAm.”
As one of its initial deals, Femsa Ventures co-led a $10m seed round for Mexico-based online groceries supplier Jüsto in October 2019. Femsa Ventures has seen an increase in deal activity in 2020, already having its most active year to date during the first semester.
García added that even though Femsa Ventures was only officially launched in mid-2018, the team had been working on the CVC initiative since he joined Femsa in 2014. He explained: “I personally re-visited the exercise in mid-2017 and went through the process of turning it from an academic, theoretical study into a practical business case, and recently into our operational proposal.
“Philosophically, we exist to build a structural support system to enable collaboration efforts between entrepreneurs and our business platforms. The existence of the fund is a vehicle to attract and engage with the ecosystem.
“Having a strong leadership presence in most LatAm countries with multiple industry platforms – manufacturing, retail, consumer goods, logistics – we believe that our contribution to the VC and entrepreneurial community can prove to be highly valuable.
“Although Femsa has been opportunistically engaging and collaborating with entrepreneurs for a long time through its business units, we are convinced that to maximise the impact of these efforts we need a structured platform that provides a ‘manufacturing process’ to these engagements.
“Our biggest challenge – which is also our most important opportunity – is to deliver on this potential both to the entrepreneurs and our business units. Once they both see the value of the interactions, the fund will become a very important tool in our innovation toolbox.”
García is in charge of two investment strategies at Femsa Ventures, conducting direct investments in startups with strategic value and indirect limited partner commitments to VC funds in the geographies where Femsa operates.
He earned an MBA from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM).
