Carïcaco, Newtopia VC and Carao Ventures Join Forces to Promote Startups in Central America

Three players in the world of entrepreneurship in Central America have announced an alliance to benefit startups in the region.

Carïcaco, a business and people accelerator, Newtopia VC, a seed capital fund, and Carao Ventures, an early stage venture capital (VC) firm, will now seek new markets together to add value to the companies that are part of their portfolios.

This new alliance will generate investment opportunities, mentoring for companies and networking activities for entrepreneurs, all organized by the funds.

Who is Collaborating?

Carao Ventures, the early stage venture capital firm, focuses on the small and medium markets of its home-base Costa Rica, and of Latin America in general. In particular, it seeks to support entrepreneurs with technical skills.

For their part, Carïcaco is an empowered business also based in Costa Rica. So far they have managed to promote more than 200 entrepreneurs throughout the country.

Finally, Newtopia VC is a US$50 million seed capital fund that seeks to invest in technology startups throughout Latin America. They operate from Miami, and one of their most recent investments has been the Colombian Hunty.

The Potential of Central America

This region has become a fertile ecosystem for startups. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Index, Costa Rica is in first place in terms of the amount of entrepreneurs in the region, as each year there are 800 new registrations either in a project accelerator, developer or incubator.

At the Latin American level, this country is in the sixth position above Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Puerto Rico and Barbados. Although the rest of the Central American countries do not appear in the ranking yet, Costa Rica can become an important hub that attracts and encourages entrepreneurs from the region.

The three organizations in the alliance believe this is possible, as each has been actively working on the growth of Central American startups and leaders.

Newtopia VC has called for Latin American startups in their initial stages to access a fund of US$50 million, while Caricaco launched Despegar I to support startups in their scaling processes. Carao Ventures launched a new investment fund of US$35 million that seeks to invest in early-stage companies in Central America, the Andean region and the Dominican Republic.

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