Bridge was born between 2020 and 2021 from the collaboration of 10 entrepreneurs who initially started making angel investments. However, in mid-2021, they decided to scale their operation by creating an institutional fund that raised over USD $15 million destined for investments in early-stage startups throughout Latin America, from Mexico to Argentina, including Brazil.
Francisco García, Investment Associate at Bridge, who has a long history as a VC at firms like Dux Capital, explained exclusively to Contxto:
“These funds are intended for investments in pre-seed and seed stages throughout Latin America, covering from Mexico to Argentina, including Brazil. Thus, they cover all countries in LatAm and are not limited to Spanish-speaking countries alone.”
Despite being a young fund, Bridge has already made 18 diversified investments in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, focusing on various industries, including fintech, edtech, logistics, cybersecurity, and more.
Founders
Investment Thesis
Bridge has clearly outlined its investment thesis focused on supporting startups with strong technological potential and scalability. On average, they invest around USD $300,000 in ticket sizes, ranging from USD $200,000 to USD $500,000. “Our focus is on companies that, thanks to technology, have the potential to become billion-dollar businesses or even trillion-dollar ones,” explains Francisco García.
More than the product or service, the fund’s attention is focused on the founders of the startups. “We believe in the principle of ‘first who, then how, then what‘ —continues García— which means we prioritize the people behind the idea before the product itself.”
Additionally, Bridge doesn’t limit itself to the initial investment. They have a follow-on strategy that strives to build an empathetic relationship with the companies they invest in. “This is reflected in how we differentiate ourselves from other funds, leveraging the value-add of having founders on our team and understanding their needs and challenges,” adds the investor.
One of Bridge’s major differentiators is its focus on founders. In fact, “eight out of the ten original partners of the fund continue to operate their startups, giving them a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities that entrepreneurs face,” explains García. Prominent figures among them include Daniel Vogel, CEO of Bitso, and Federico Ranero, COO of Kavak.
Recently, Bridge has been working on enhancing its approach using data. The firm is investing in internal algorithms based on machine learning and AI, with the goal of predicting, with tangible information, which startups are more likely to succeed. This data-driven initiative reflects their ongoing efforts to stay at the forefront and optimize their investment strategy.
The Future of Bridge
Although they have already achieved significant milestones, Bridge is looking ahead. They are currently working on closing more investments to have a portfolio of 30 startups. Additionally, they are considering the creation of a new fund, although the details are still being defined.
Bridge’s commitment is to financial investment and investing in people, emphasizing founders before anything else. With this mindset and its innovative approach, Bridge positions itself as a force to be reckoned with in the Latin American VC landscape.
In conclusion, Bridge is synonymous with diversification and a founder-focused approach. Spanning a spectrum of sectors from Fintech and Logistics to Cybersecurity and Femtech, they are characterized by their industry agnosticism. However, a critical aspect that resonates strongly in their philosophy is the centrality of the founder. They seek to invest in companies with a solid technological core and the potential to scale into multimillion-dollar or even billion-dollar businesses.
Investment Portfolio
Fund 1
- Weetrust: Weetrust helps businesses transform their services and operations with Digital Contracts, Identity Verification, E-Notary, and Digital Trust as a Service in Latin America.
- Súper: Súper creates radically simple insurance products for Latin America. No adjusters, automated claims, or guaranteed payments. They specialize in catastrophes (natural disasters), life, and health insurance in Latin America.
- Jefa: Jefa is the first mobile platform led by women that offers fair, affordable, and secure financial services to women in Latin America. Their goal is to empower unbanked and traditionally underserved women in Latin America using gender-disaggregated data to inform their product and distribution channels to reach women in places of trust.
- Quinio: Quinio, powered by technology, acquires and builds standout e-commerce brands with quality products.
- Aplazo: Aplazo is a payment method that allows you to split a purchase and pay it over five fortnights.
- Aptuno: Aptuno uses technology to make renting homes more accessible and more efficient, both for tenants and owners, with end-to-end service.
- Cubo: Cubo is a Salvadoran startup that aims to help entrepreneurs and SMEs in the region accept card and Bitcoin payments through their phones.
- Elenas: Elenas is the leading social commerce platform in Latin America. Their platform has empowered thousands of women across Colombia to launch online businesses and earn additional income by selling products on WhatsApp, Facebook, and other social media sites.
- Mendel: Mendel is a startup that simplifies and optimizes financial management for large companies in Mexico and Latin America through flexible and secure technological solutions.
- Castia: Allows homeowners in Latin America to move to a new house quickly and easily, leveraging the current value of their home.
- Treinta: Treinta is a mobile application that replaces the physical transaction book for the 50 million businesses in Latin America that are still disconnected from the digital world, saving them 30 minutes daily.
Fund 2
- Auba: Auba’s premise is that supply chain professionals need tools that help them automatically detect and proactively prevent delays and disruptions before they have a financial impact.
- Hackmetrix: Hackmetrix aims to be the complete cybersecurity and compliance suite for SMEs in Latin America, being the first SaaS platform in the regional market.
- Dinerama: Dinerama is building a new way for large brands to know and engage with their consumers in Latin America. Through loyalty programs, starting with cashback, Dinerama can provide high-quality consumer insights in physical retail and measure the performance of their campaigns.
- Aravita: Aravita is an intelligent fresh food ordering system as a service (OaaS) for mid-market supermarkets in Brazil.
- Finanex: Finanex is a startup dedicated to financing and managing exports from the Latin American agricultural sector to the rest of the world. This helps bridge two gaps, the global food gap and the financing gap in Latin America.
- Plenna: Plenna is a health technology company focused on providing its customers the best comprehensive health experience: women.
- Koywe: Koywe is an on/off-ramp solution for cryptocurrencies and local currencies in Latin America. They support businesses and users with their crypto FX operations through an extremely user-friendly web application.
- Quaddro: Quaddro is creating a software-as-a-service for Brazilian independent workers.
- EFEX: EFEX is creating an alternative solution for cross-border payments for small and medium-sized enterprises. With EFEX, payments arrive in minutes instead of days, and the company offers some of the lowest fees in the market.
- Cucuru: Cucuru is building a payment platform and network for merchants to receive payments from sellers as easily as possible, including short-term credit for the best-paying merchants.
- Duppla: Duppla’s mission is to democratize access to first-time home ownership in Latin America for middle-income families. They combine a rent-to-own model with fractional ownership.
- Sima: SIMA is building a platform for complete hectare tracking, from bug and pest identification to full yield projections for farmers in intensive agriculture areas.
- Mox: MOX is a payroll connectivity API for the LATAM financial sector. They are the infrastructure that connects financial institutions with payroll information.
- Refurbi: Refurbi gives a second life to used electronic tech devices, making them widely available and affordable to people and businesses to accelerate the transition to sustainable consumption.
- Lang: Lang is an AI-based startup focused on creating amazing customer support experiences for their client’s customers.
- Kukun: Kukun is a new hotel that combines the best of boutique hotels with the convenience of short-term rentals, offering its users a fully immersive cultural experience.
- Ozon: Ozon is a mobility-oriented platform that enables gig workers to access second-hand motorcycles through financing.
