At Contxto, almost every day we learn about companies that are raising capital in Latin America. Many are in their initial stages or are closing their Series A or B.
But what industries have attracted the most VC money globally this year? As 2021 ends, we have enough data to know the trends that VCs have followed. This gives us a good idea of where will they pour their capital in 2022 and what we’ll see in Latin America next year.
In this regard, the Emerging Tech Indicator (ETI) revealed that the most favored sectors globally through the third quarter of 2021 have been Web3 & DeFi, enterprise SaaS, supply chain technology and gaming.
This Is How VC Investments Are Going
The report noted that it monitored 189 early-stage deals and seed rounds during the third quarter of the year, 23 fewer than in Q2, in which 15 of the leading global venture capitals participated.
Despite fewer deals, the ETI noted that these financings reached US$6 billion in Q3, one of the highest since 2015, while in the second half they reached US$5.4 billion.
The three deals that stood out in the third half of the year were NFT FTX, a crypto trading platform with US$900 million in a Series B; Dapper Labs, a consumer-centric gaming-based blockchain streaming product with US$250 million in a Series D; and JORK, a delivery platform with US$170 million in a Series A.
Furthermore, among the 31 market segments analyzed by the report, the ones with the largest investments were Web3 & DeFi with $1.3 billion in 12 deals. That is followed by fintech with $860 million in 28 operations; enterprise SaaS with $493 million in 16 operations; supply chain technology with $454 million in seven operations; and gaming with almost $387 million in eight operations, where the most benefited startup is Dapper Labs.
How About Latin America?
Globally, these sectors are growing and VCs are paying attention to them. However, Latin America is not far from this reality since fintech is the sector that receives more investment, according to a study by LAVCA.
The report also detailed that investments almost doubled during the first half of 2021, compared to the same time period in 2020. It mentioned that a “maturing venture capital ecosystem has led to the birth of multiple unicorns this year.”
Some of them are: online retailer MadeiraMadeira; crypto exchanges Bitso and Mercado Bitcoin; payment aggregator Clip; online car buying and selling startup Kavak; open-source company Vercel; delivery platform Cornershop; foodtech NotCo; collaborative software platform MURAL; platform for businesses to create their own e-commerce, Tiendanube; and fintech Ualá.
For its part, ALLVP conducted research in which it unveiled the “soonicorns”, the next companies to be Latin American unicorns:
It is clear that fintech companies continue to lead; in fact, those offering financial services to companies are standing out. However, others in the SaaS sector, Web3 & DeFi, proptech, edtech, foodtech, e-commerce and delivery have strong positions too.
We will have to keep watching until the end of the year to see which global trends the region will follow and which startups will stand out.
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