H20 Capital Innovation (or H Twenty) announced its second investment fund: US$50 million. This will be used to inject seed and pre-seed stage capital to companies that focus on fintech, e-commerce, marketplaces and software.
The venture capital firm, founded in 2019, said the fund could expand up to US$65 million in the following months.
“We expect to invest in 25 companies with the new fund,” Daniel Lloreda, co-founder and General Partner at H20 Capital, told Contxto. He also said that 80% of the capital would go to Latin American companies and 20% to the United States.
He mentioned that the capital would focus mainly on Spanish-speaking companies in Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil. In the U.S., on the other hand, the focus is on Spanish-speaking ventures with Latinx founders or cross-border opportunities.
H20 Capital Aims to Boost Spanish-speaking Talent
H20 Capital’s new capital focused on Latin America makes one thing clear: this region continues to be attractive to investors. Remember that just a few weeks ago we announced the arrival of two new VC firms: Nido Ventures and Gilgamesh Ventures.
Is 2022 shaping up to break the record of US$15.3 billion injected into LatAm last year? Everything seems to indicate that there is a high possibility.
For its part, the venture capital fund founded by Daniel Lloreda and Mauricio Porras sees a “blue ocean” in the region. “We visualize that in LatAm there are infrastructural pain points to be solved. A lot of entrepreneurial spirit and talent has been born from companies like Rappi, Nubank and Kavak, where they have obtained knowledge and tools from those who have already been successful,” said Lloreda.
The co-founder also said that H20 sees several opportunities in verticals such as e-commerce and marketplaces, as they can facilitate the online transformation of offline industries by offering tools that facilitate the sale, connection, and optimization of fintech payments, as well as logistics.
In the case of fintech, the fund sees opportunities to optimize check-out and lending. There is also room to digitize merchants focused on B2B and crypto infrastructure.
He pointed out that the verticals in which they invest are areas that them and their network of advisors know very well.
Behind H20 Capital’s Second Fund
Among the investors backing the new fund are Scott Shleifer, co-founder and partner of Tiger Global Management; Sebastián Mejía, co-founder and president of Rappi; Fabián Gómez, co-founder and CEO of Frubana; Roger Laughlin, co-founder of Kavak; and the founders of iFood and Mercê do Bairro.
In addition, its board of directors and advisory group includes Roger Laughlin, co-founder of Kavak; Javier Villamizar, operating partner of SoftBank Vision Fund; and Ricardo Martínez Finger, co-founder of Jüsto.
As of today, H20 Capital has operations in three key markets for its development: Miami, Mexico and Colombia.
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