Canary musters US$75 million for Brazilian startups

Contxto – More investment-related fun today. Although now let’s switch around to the investor’s side of the table and talk about them for a change, hm? Brazilian Canary Ventures announced this week it’s finished fundraising and its US$75 million Canary Fund II is officially ready for lift-off.

As for the targets of this mullah, Canary stated it’s primed for Brazilian startups that show high growth potential.

This isn’t very explicit if you ask me, but hey, Canary knows what it’s doing.

Funding funds fun

Canary began gathering dough for this fund since July and has already invested in six companies since then. The plan is to disburse these millions within the next two years among a total of 50 startups.

The lovely people and institutions who’ve contributed to Canary Fund II include businessmen, family offices from Brazil and abroad, as well as entrepreneurs with vast experience in tech.

What startups will take off and scale with this fund? Let’s wait and see.

Canary’s funding approach

This VC is pretty new to the investment game, having been founded in 2017. Its focus are Brazilian startups, preferably tech-based, and providing them with their first investment whether it’s seed funding or Series A.

For the folks at Canary, it’s equally important to transition their portfolio companies into more advanced stages of financing. As a result, the VC stated it will be saving capital for this purpose.

Based on its investment strategy, the VC estimates a 10-year time frame for a return on investments.

Despite its apparent youth, Canary has been quietly making itself present in various rounds throughout Brazil.

Some examples include its participation earlier this year in Buser, alongside SoftBank. Or its investment in healthtech SouSmlie in October.

These accomplishments aren’t coincidental. Canary was founded by entrepreneurs and investors with vast experience in startups. Namely, Mate Pencz, Florian Hagenbuch, Júlio Vasconcellos, Marcos de Toledo (its current Managing Partner) and Patrick de Picciotto.

Later on, Instagram’s Mike Krieger, as well as Nubank’s founder, David Velez joined Canary as investors.

With their powers combined, Canary continues to grow through its network of 49 partners. As one can easily tell, at this VC’s core are investors encouraging the Brazilian startup ecosystem.

Something that’d be awesome to see in other countries of Latin America.

-ML