Mexico’s Proeza Ventures has raised US$50 million to boost mobility startups

Contxto – We needed this. The past few days have been rough for disruptive mobility in Latin America. Lime retreated from the region. Rappi’s blitzgrowth strategy stalled and people’s livelihoods got thrown into disarray.

Luckily, Proeza Ventures—a portfolio management company based in Monterrey (the Mexican one) and Houston (the Texan one)—pre-released the news that they had successfully raised US$50 million, especially for mobility startups.

The fund goes by the name P.V., and the sum makes it the largest regional startup mobility-exclusive investor in the region.

The company has a vested interest in this line of investment, due to its logistical industrial tech focus. Specifically, it runs two global platforms operating in the mobility and agroindustry sectors. Within its mobility platform, it is a Tier-1 supplier of structural automotive products for light and commercial vehicles, as well as frames for light trucks in North America.

“Our mission is to discover and invest in visionary founders building early-stage startups transforming the way in which we think about mobility and with whom we can partner to make a more sustainable world”, said Rodolfo Dieck, Managing Director at Proeza Ventures.

No longer running on fumes

This all begs the question: wasn’t the whole mobility industry saturated and going to pot?

Well, yes and no. There are clearly some segments of the market that are saturated and which are not allowing even the biggest players to prioritize ruthless growth over profitability.

However, just look at the wide array of subsections of the industry which P.V. intends to put its money into:

Its capital will go into 12 to 15 startups raising early and growth-stage financing. Their goal is to cover the full mobility value chain from industrial tech (automatization, 3D printing), to smart components, MaaS and digital data services.

“We expect to be writing first-time checks in the range of US$500k and up to US$2 million reserving enough capital to support companies in their development trajectory”, said Dieck.

Clearly, mobility—being such a broad playing field—still has a lot of scope for investment, but only for those who are truly keen in innovating and disrupting the market.

So don’t waste your tears on Rappi, there is clearly quite a bit of juice left in the mobility fundraising game yet.

-AG