Mauricio Tessi Weiss and Juan Nieto Villamandos have left Cemex Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of Mexico-based cement maker Cemex, to set up venture capital firm Zacua Ventures.
Weiss said: “After five amazing years at Cemex Ventures, launching the CVC unit, making our way into the very nascent contech [construction technology] ecosystem by then, creating hundreds of partnerships, meeting and investing in incredible entrepreneurs and making every day a learning experience, I decided to take the next step in my career.
Together with Juan Nieto Villamandos and Vivin Hegde, [former director for Hilti’s tech office, I am] launching Zacua Ventures [as] an early stage, global contech fund, supporting visionary entrepreneurs that are pushing to make the built world greener, more efficient and interconnected.”
Cemex Ventures has built a team with over 20 people in three offices, made 21 investments and launched three internal ventures and created a network of 800-plus corporates in the industry for the Construction Startup Competition, the largest open call for contech worldwide.
There has been plenty of activity in construction or property tech with corporations committing to VC funds, such as Fifth Wall and Pi Labs recently.
