{"id":19288,"date":"2016-09-28T16:19:34","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T16:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavca.org\/why-have-some-of-silicon-valleys-top-investors-started-investing-in-latin-america\/"},"modified":"2016-09-28T16:19:34","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T16:19:34","slug":"why-have-some-of-silicon-valleys-top-investors-started-investing-in-latin-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavca.org\/why-have-some-of-silicon-valleys-top-investors-started-investing-in-latin-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Have Some of Silicon Valley\u2019s Top Investors Started Investing in Latin America?"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAVCA Director of Venture Strategy, Julie Ruvolo<\/a>, lays out the venture capital opportunity for local and international investors in Latin America.<\/em><\/p>\n

(TechCrunch<\/a>) Latin America just might be the most overlooked emerging market on the planet.<\/p>\n

The venture dollars in Latin America can\u2019t hold a candle to India<\/a> or China (compare China\u2019s US$11.8b in new VC funds for the first half of 2016, down 14 percent according the WSJ, to Latin America\u2019s US$218m)<\/a>, and the region\u2019s 600 million inhabitants get overlooked by investors who think that you need to reach a billion users to be a \u201creal startup.\u201d<\/p>\n

But with debut investments from Andreessen Horowitz (Colombia), Founders Fund and Sequoia Capital (Brazil) and QED (Mexico and Brazil), that appears to be changing.<\/p>\n

I spent the last couple of years writing<\/a> about Latin American investments for TechCrunch, covering rounds in startups like VivaReal<\/a>,\u00a0PSafe<\/a>, ComparaOnline<\/a> and\u00a0Descomplica<\/a>, and interviewing some of the leading local investors\u00a0in the region, like KaszeK Ventures, founded by the wildly successful MercadoLibre team, and Redpoint e.Ventures, a joint venture between Redpoint and e.Ventures, obviously.<\/p>\n

Let me lay out the opportunity as local investors see it:<\/h2>\n