Articles
How Magma Thinks About Marketplaces in Latin America
In this article, we’ll cover how we think about marketplaces and what we look for when investing, along with a brief history of why marketplaces are important.
In Q1, we built out our Mexico team, did four new investments and our portfolio companies continued to be successful. Q2 2019 buildings on Q1, with 4 new investments, two in Colombia and two Mexico, headlined by Dataplor and Vozy. We spent time in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, US and Argentina during Q2.
We also had our first exit out of our second fund, with Kushki
Pagos' acquisition of Chile's QVO to expand into the Chilean market. Magma portfolio companies have received $65M in follow on funding from funds like Accel, Kaszek, YC, Techstars and more, and sell $35M+ each year.
Kushki Pagos acquired QVO, Magma's first exit out of Fund II
Magma invested in QVO, a Stripe clone for Chile, in late 2018. We met Kushki Pagos, a Stripe clone for Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico around the same time and help make this deal possible, investing in Kushki in conjunction with the acquisition.
2. Sophia wrote What the VC Landscape is Really Like for Women Entrepreneurs in Latin America
Sophia's article covered the day to day of being a female founder in the region and the experience of Juliana Villalba, Marta Forero, Maite Muñiz, Maria Paz Gillet and many more entrepreneurs in her Crunchbase article.
3. Nathan wrote an article called From Seed to Series A for TechCrunch
It's hard to raise money, but it's even hard for Latin American founders. We covered the truth about raising money in the region for TechCrunch. This is a great companion piece to Jonathan Shieber's article about why A16Z and everyone else is investing in Latin America.
4. Four New Investments: Dataplor, Moons, Vozy
We invested in four new companies, two in Mexico and two in Colombia.
Dataplor - Dataplor's army of explorers can collect data for companies like Google, American Express and more across Latin America. TechCrunch, LatAm List. Magma was the only Latin American VC investing, along with 3 US funds.
Moons - Moons are 3D printed clear aligners like Invisalign, for the Mexican market.
Vozy - Medellin based company that has a voice assistant to help companies solve customer service and business challenges. Magma led this round, along with Colombian investors, Parallel18 and family offices.
5. We published our Magma Values and Magma Manifesto
One of the biggest predictors of success that we’ve seen so far is working with founders that share our values. When evaluating an investment, we spend time sharing our values and listening to the values that the founders and their team bring to the table. Read our Magma Values and Magma Manifesto on our blog.
6. Colombia and Mexico overtook Chile as our most invested markets
7. Top Crossing Borders Podcast Episodes
Cory Siskind, Base Operations - Using Technology to Secure Global Workforces
Daniel Bilbao, Truora - Fighting Fraud in Latin America
Mike Packer - QED Investors - How QED has Built a Fintech Niche in Latin America
8. Rebus' Juliana Villalba and Magma's Nathan Lustig held an event in Bogota about Raising Money in Latin America in conjunction with AWS.
