The firm, which is backed by Bill Gates, plans to invest in local funds and co-invest in local companies
Capria invested in Fen Ventures and has an association with LarrainVial for local investors were there is Del Río family and Mustakis Foundation
Almost everything is ready for Capria, the American investment funds accelerator that incentives projects with impact, and that it is backed by Bill Gates, to concretize its arrival in Chile.
There is a date, and only details are pending to be defined for the team that will lead the operations in Chile and LatAm to be installed in Santiago. The executive in charge will be Juan Luis Palma, Chilean, and Regional Director Latin America at Capria, who for the past 3 years has run the operations for the region from Seattle and that in March next year will move to Santiago.
“From the office in Santiago we will support our investment funds in Latin America and will look for new investment opportunities. The team will be integrated by people with regional investment experience and backed by the Capria offices in Seattle, Nairobi, Singapur, Bangalore and Paris”, tells Palma.
Juan Luis Palma, Regional Director for Latin America at Capria and the co-founder of the firm, Will Poole, met in March this year with the Minister of Finance, Felipe Larrain, to promote investments in venture capital.
In Chile, the executive highlights the association with LarrainVial for local investors, that includes Del Río family and recently Mustakis Foundation. He also adds that they invested in Fen Ventures, plan to invest in other funds and co-invest with those funds in local companies.
“The industry of venture capital is at a very good moment in Latin America, including Chile. The investments in the region doubled in 2018, cuatriple from 2016, reaching US$2 billion” states the executive who also states that the main reasons for the strong progress, have been foreign investors, success cases, millennials mentality and support from DFIs.
Palma highlights that in 3 years Capria has connected with 1.500 investment funds, due diligence 600 and to the date has selected 19 funds. From these, 9 are in Latin America with presence in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru.
“The plan is to have 80% of the capital of our funds of funds committed in investments, including funds and co-investments into companies. Additionally the plan is to close the fundraising for our current fund of funds, were we have already raised about 50% of the capital (US$48 million) from family offices, DFIs and foundations”.
This article was originally published on El Mercurio
