Francisco Rioseco A717fd Aego Unsplash
Innogen Capital Ventures, an El Salvador-based venture capital fund, announced its second fund, ICV II, L.P. This new US$20 million fund seeks to identify early-stage startups with exponential growth potential in Latin America.
Innogen was created in 2018 in San Salvador, the capital of the Central American country. Its managing partners are Rodrigo Dumont, Christian Quinonez, Roberto Samayoa and Fernando Moran. The firm is one of the few in Central America to invest in fast-growing sectors such as healthcare, finance, artificial intelligence and e-commerce.
Some of their previous investments are the Colombian foodtech Foodology, the Argentinian blockchain company Koinbanx, and the voice recognition and machine learning company Atexto, originally from Mexico.
There are great opportunities in the technology business in Latin America. The region is currently at a point where digital transformation has been a catalyst for the adoption of technology solutions in various traditional industries.
Innogen Capital’s geographic focus is Central America, Mexico, Colombia and the Caribbean, with a vision of growing across the rest of Latin America.
According to LAVCA (lavca.org), the Latin American private equity association, investment in venture capital is at historic records. As of September 2021, the investment in this area is at US$11.5 billion dollars compared to 10 years ago when it was at US$143 million. It is a trend that will continue to rise in the next decade.
Central American Startups are Gaining Traction
Central America has become a fertile ecosystem for startups. Recently, the delivery super app Hugo attracted the attention of the European giant Delivery Hero, which acquired their operations for US$150 million.
Hugo, of Salvadoran origin, has 14,000 registered distributors, 7,600 affiliated businesses and more than 1.3 million users, according to Forbes Mexico. They run through El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.
El Salvador is also consolidating itself as an attractive market for investors, especially in industries related to technological innovation. This follows the decision of President Nayib Bukele to convert Bitcoin into legal tender in the country since last June.
The decree has made foreign investors and regional companies, such as Bitso, start or expand their operations in the country.
You may also be interested: Carïcaco, Newtopia VC and Carao Ventures join forces to promote startups in Central America
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