MAYA Capital reached a US$15m second close for early stage startups in Latin America from unnamed family offices in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

(LABS) MAYA Capital, a fund that invests in early-stage startups in Latin America, announced a new fundraising of $15 million, from family offices from the United States, Europe, and Latin America, especially Brazil and Mexico. The new amount complements MAYA’s first fund of nearly $26 million (received in 2018), totaling $41 million available for Latin American startups.

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MAYA will use the new resources to support solutions and opportunities that have emerged or were boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic. To LABS, the co-founders of MAYA Capital, Lara Lemann and Mônica Saggioro, said that, as happened after the 2008 crisis, which helped boost companies like Uber and Airbnb, the coronavirus pandemic “helped make some problems more evident and, consequently, the potential of their solutions.”

Our way of commuting, work, feed, interact with other people has changed and many new needs – and, consequently, business opportunities – have emerged from that ”, said the two in a joint interview by e-mail.

There is no deadline for applying the new resources. “This will depend a lot on the teams and solutions with which we will have contact. But we are happy to remain well capitalized to invest in the region over the next few years because we are seeing many good opportunities,” they said.

To date, MAYA participated in more than 30 rounds of 25 startups, from sectors such as health, real estate, finance, mobility, and logistics. Among the startups backed by MAYA Capital are the Chilean foodtech NotCo, the construtech Oico, the fintech Belvo, and the health tech Nilo. With the new resources, the fund intends to increase its portfolio to up to 35 startups.