Wollef and YC led a USD12m seed round for Riogrande, a Mexican e-commerce brand incubator, with participation from angels Justin Mateen (Tinder) and Arielle Zuckerberg (Long Journey Ventures). Wollef invested in 2021.

(TechCrunch) – Tono Mandly doesn’t consider his company, Riogrande, an e-commerce aggregator, but instead as one whose mission is to build local brands, through acquisition and incubation, for the emerging middle class of Latin American consumers.

Latin America continues to be one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in the world, with $100 billion in total addressable market, he pointed out. However, it remains a highly fragmented market where only the wealthiest consumers have the ability to purchase goods from the U.S., while half a billion people in the middle and lower classes have to turn to China for cheaper, often lower-quality products, Mandly added.

Read more at TechCrunch.