March 2024 update on Capria Global South Fund II GenAI at work and closing new investments
Highlights
- Wagely, Asia’s leading financial wellbeing platform for workers, has secured USD 23 million in a new funding round in which we participated. The funding comprises a mix of equity and debt financing. Wagely will use the proceeds to expand their earned wage access (EWA) service in Indonesia and Bangladesh.
- Our portfolio company BharatAgri (an advisory-driven crop-input e-commerce platform for farmers) has been awarded ‘Best Agri Startup of the Year’ by Entrepreneur India. They continue to refine their GenAI-enabled chatbot to dramatically reduce the cost of customer service resulting in bottom-line improvements.
- Will Poole spoke on ‘Deriving Business Opportunities from Artificial Intelligence (AI)’ at The GCC Director’s Association (GCCDA) in Dubai in January. It was great to see companies in Dubai & Riyadh starting to use GenAI.
- Surya Mantha, Susana Garcia-Robles and Sandhya Thukaram attended the two-day Investopia event at the SALT summit in Abu Dhabi in February. Generative AI is a hot topic in the region with many conversations on how best to use this technology to leapfrog to the next phase of growth.
Portfolio Updates
- Wify, headquartered in India, has emerged as the #1 home furnishings installation player by bridging the gap between modern home brands and skilled technicians. Note that Wify stands for “We Install For You”; they need a new name, and we’ve sourced a branding agency to help with that. With the growing number of urban households and rising disposable incomes in India, the demand for modern home solutions has surged. While most players have a strong portfolio of modern products and efficient supply channels, they face challenges in providing at-home or on-field support to consumers. Wify addresses this by upskilling traditional tradesmen and integrating technology, resulting in increased productivity, higher worker incomes, and improved customer satisfaction. What’s more, Wify is one of the few companies in the fast-growing gig economy sector that has demonstrated strong evidence of income growth for gig workers. Currently, the average annual income of these workers is below USD 1,000, but Wify has shown that they can increase it by 2-3 times within 1-2 years of being on the platform, creating stickiness in their tradesmen supply where others struggle. With their new AI generated video coming soon (have you watched the Sora demo yet?), we are looking forward to helping Wify further improve its just-in-time training programs with this amazing tech
- Kueski, headquartered in Mexico City, is a fintech providing fast and easy access to online credit for qualified individuals across Mexico’s middle and lower-income segments. Capria recently kicked off an engagement to help Kueski build a GenAI-powered financial advisory chatbot that will help customers with limited financial literacy better understand the products and services they cross-sell to them. Access to credit remains one of the significant untapped opportunities in the region, with Mexico hosting the world’s 5th largest unbanked population with 60M people. This presents immense potential for Kueski to grow and extend its offering. Recurrence drives more than 84% of Kueski’s revenues, meaning customers value not only the service but also that a significant portion of their customer base completes the terms of their loans. Kueski is the most accepted BNPL provider in Mexico and a category leader in LatAm. Kueski is well positioned to add new users to the formal financial system, increasing its leadership in the middle-income digital consumer credit opportunity.
Generative AI Network for Founders
Our team recently launched GAIN – Capria’s GenAI Network for Founders (access with password “GAIN!”). This will help us to accelerate connections among the 1,000+ founders in our network via practical learning on the latest GenAI tools and tech. GAIN also delivers tech workshops in partnership with the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft, providing technical frameworks for deploying GenAI strategies, and, most importantly, supports our efforts to create more GenAI-forward and valuable companies.
We have also invested substantial time and resources to accelerate the adoption of GenAI technologies across our portfolio. This includes an internal 7-person GenAI team (including 4 GenAI software developers) to help portfolio companies identify and rapidly prototype solutions and assist them in deploying them. You can see some of the early work here. We are not aware of any other VC firm investing in tech to help their portfolio succeed in the applied GenAI domain.
Insights from Capria’s Partners in the News
- Dave Richards wrote an article about how GenAI is enabling the creation of a new generation of profitable businesses that can reach much larger audiences in the Global South was published on YourStory, India’s most widely read startup news site. In the article, Dave elaborates on how GenAI is breaking down barriers to reaching the aspiring middle class, thereby increasing TAM and investment opportunities.
- Susana Garcia-Robles was featured in the latest column of Whitepaper, a leading business publication in Mexico. Susana explains why Mexico is a priority for Capria Ventures, as well as the importance of the region for Spanish-speaking startups for their growth in LatAm. The story also captures Capria Ventures’ dedication to fostering entrepreneurial growth in the Global South.
TRAILBLAZERS in our Portfolio
Complete Applied GenAI Portfolio
310 AI
Protein design using GenAI.
Ascend Vietnam Ventures
Agtech / Food, AI/ML, Biotech, Healthtech
5C Network
India’s largest AI-powered digital diagnostics platform.
Capria Ventures
AI/ML, B2B, Diagnostics, GenAI, Healthtech
Agrofy
Leading B2B ag-inputs & equipment marketplace for farmers and suppliers in LatAm.
Capria Ventures, SP Ventures
Agtech / Food, B2B, Climate, E-commerce, GenAI
Aitomatic
Industrial application engine that incorporates human expertise & industrial data to deliver AI solutions at scale.
Ascend Vietnam Ventures
AI/ML, SaaS
Betterplace
Premier enterprise HR management solution for the blue collar workforce.
Capria Ventures
GenAI, HRtech, Jobtech / HRtech, SaaS
BharatAgri
Improving farming outcomes through personalised data-driven services advisory and e-commerce.
Capria Ventures, India Quotient
Agtech / Food, Climate, GenAI, Logistics, Sustainability
CareerNinja
AI-Powered skill learning built on top of internet’s content bank
Capria Ventures
AI/ML, Edtech, GenAI, Upskilling
Citysense
Cloud-based platform that provides the infrastructure and tools needed for the development of scalable smart cities.
Angel Ventures, Fen Ventures
AI/ML, Retailtech, SaaS, Satellite imagery
Classera
Gamified learning management platform powered by AI to encourage social learning.
Global Ventures
AI/ML, Edtech, Learning Management System
Colektia
Software platform that helps financial institutions create new digital collections models based on artificial intelligence.
Angel Ventures, Fen Ventures
AI/ML, Debt Collection, Fintech, Fintech Infrastructure
