Contxto – Brazilian proptech Loft kicked 2020 off with a big investment and is the first unicorn of the year. Today the startup announced its Series C for US$175 million in a round co-led by Andresseen Horowitz (“a16z”) and Vulcan Capital.
Other investors who participated were Fifth Wall Ventures, QED Investors, Thrive Capital, Valor Capital, and monashees.
It’s worth noting that this is the second time Silicon Valley’s Andresseen Horowitz invests in the startup. It had previously chipped in for its Series A worth US$18 million alongside monashees. Meanwhile, Fifth Wall Ventures, a venture capital (VC) firm specializing in proptechs, had contributed to Loft‘s Series B for US$70 million in March of 2019.
This is the first time Vulcan Capital invests in a Latin American startup.
Loft’s latest funds will be used to expand into additional parts of Brazil, as well as into Mexico for marketing purposes.
Related article: Loft holds second funding round in less than one year, raises US$70 million
Achieving unicorn speed
What’s mind-boggling this time around is the rate at which Loft has grown. That is, considering Mate Pencz and Florian Hagenbuch founded the startup in August of 2018. In 16 months it’s already hitting that billion-dollar valuation milestone.
Now, given Loft’s business model of buying off apartments, perking them up, then reselling them leads to capital being consumed quickly and is needed to keep charging forward.
Besides expanding further within São Paulo, Loft aspires to cover more Brazilian cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Porto Alegre, and Curitiba. Plus, Loft is also looking to tread into Mexico City by mid-2020.
Such big plans, of course, require big mullah.
Luckily for Loft, the now not-even-two-year-old scaleup joins QuintoAndar as a Latin American proptech unicorn.
I know, I know. We said we’d try to mellow-down on the unicorn hype in our ultimate recap. But it’s just so hard to resist and not write about it.
So, I’m breaking my New Year’s resolution, but it’s totally worth it.
Related article: Ultimate 2019 Latam Startup Ecosystem Recap
-ML
