📰 An exit and other news 📰

Do you like reruns of old classic movies? Or are you the kind to only watch new releases on Netflix?

At Capria, we’re a bunch of old classic movie nerds. But we still haven’t figured out whether life imitates art or art imitates life.

Anyway.

If there’s one movie we had to pick that exemplifies resilience, it has to be “The Pursuit of Happyness.” There’s a quote that Will Smith (who plays successful stockbroker Chris Gardner) says: “The world is your oyster. It’s up to you to find the pearls.”

Venture capital is also the same. We look for these “pearls” when we decide to invest in founders and build valuable companies together.

This is a great segue for us to share this year’s biggest news.

Portfolio Power

Last week, Capria and other investors in Awign, India’s largest tech-led, on-demand work fulfillment platform, sold their stake in the company in a full-cash buyout by Japanese conglomerate Mynavi Corporation.

Awign has seen 20x revenue growth since Capria first led its Seed round investment in 2018. With its asset-light and easy-to-configure tech platform, Awign has not only helped over 175 enterprises run their businesses at scale but also improved the lives of 1.5 million gig workers.

Awign’s growth trajectory is an example of disruptive innovation in job creation and income generation for India, which is core to our investment philosophy.

Founder’s Corner

A Japanese proverb says it is important to fall seven times but stand up eight times.

Kevin Hausburg, Co-founder and CEO of wagely, approaches business with this refreshing perspective that mistakes are inevitable stepping stones, not roadblocks.

Here’s his advice for fellow entrepreneurs.

GenAI Showcase

If you’re as excited about GenAI as we are, then perhaps you have read a recent article by Gary Marcus suggesting a potential “GenAI bubble” ready to burst within a year. Our Managing Partner Will Poole believes that while Gary Marcus’ voice helps cut through some of the euphoric froth of this market, there is just too much underlying intrinsic innovation and value creation happening for any kind of “bubble burst.”

In fact, we recently invested in goFlux, the leader in digitizing and financing agri-freight in Brazil. Earlier this month, goFlux announced that it has raised a Series A round worth USD 6 million, which was led by Capria. We see a huge opportunity for goFlux to not only promote access to underbanked SME carriers through its factoring product but also to apply Generative AI to enhance productivity and help their customers with easier decision-making and strategic planning in a complex data-rich domain.

In the latest episode of our new video series Wednesday Wisdom with Will, our COO Sandhya Thukaram and in-house GenAI evangelist Will discuss this “GenAI bubble” and how goFlux is implementing GenAI to transform Brazil’s agro-freight industry.

Partner Insights

Our Managing Partner, Susana Garcia-Robles, also believes that entrepreneurs who fail to recognize the impact of GenAI will risk falling behind and losing crucial investment opportunities. Susana had a chat with Fernando Santillanes of Milenio Diario, one of Mexico’s leading media groups, on the current state of GenAI adoption by companies.

Inside Capria-verse

“Sus calles respiran historia y diversidad” (Its streets breathe history and diversity). Wondering where this bout of Spanish came from?

At Capria, we test a LOT of tools and came across an AI voice generator ElevenLabs. Let’s just say we love it.

In fact, we even used it to create a video of our Managing Partner, Will Poole, speaking in Spanish ahead of his session at the Volcano Summit hosted by Volcano Capital in Guatemala City. Will claims his AI-generated Spanish was almost spot on with the audience (we’ll never know). Meanwhile, the session focussed on how companies can leverage the power of Generative AI to leapfrog to the next phase of growth.

You can view highlights of his trip here.

If you’re a tech founder in the Global South (India, Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia) with a solution to solve a problem at scale, you can reach out to us through our website.

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to write to us with your feedback, suggestions, or any other information.

Cheers,
Marketing Mavericks at Capria