Andre Maciel, former managing partner at telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s $5bn Latin America-focused fund, has extended the first close of his independent venture capital firm’s first fund to $80m.
Maciel (pictured), along with Gregory Reider and Milena Oliveira, set up Brazil-headquartered Volpe Capital in 2019 with SoftBank’s backing. Its first fund also has investment bank BTG Pactual and digital bank Banco Inter as limited partners, according to TechCrunch.
Maciel led an investment by SoftBank in Banco Inter he said delivered about $1bn in profits for the corporate.
Volpe Capital has received a commitment from its management team of about 7% to 12% of the fund, according to Maciel. Marcelo Claure, head of SoftBank LatAm, has also invested in the fund, as have the $5bn fund’s managing partners, Paulo Passoni and Shu Nyattta.
Volpe Capital plans to invest in about 15 and up to 20 early-stage companies at series A-stage in Latin America, with a primary focus on the Brazilian market, Maciel said. Its first deal was an investment in Uol Edtech, a Brazil-based online education subsidiary of internet company Grupo Uol.
Maciel said LatAm technology had been in an upward spiral and now has $200bn in value, the majority of which is in Brazil. That wealth in turn means thousands of Brazilian developers are launching companies with more seed money available.
Maciel spoke at the last Corporate Venture in Brasil conference and said in the keynote his team had been so busy they had barely slept in the previous six months. SoftBank’s deals at that time, in late 2019, covered a spectrum from fitness (Gympass) to e-commerce delivery (Loggi) and fintech (Creditas) with an overarching theme of data.
