News | Grow, the world’s 3rd largest micro mobility player, restructures Brazilian business

por | postado em: News | 0

News summary Grow, the world’s third largest micro mobility company, reviewed its Brazilian operations and announced that it will suspend services in Brazil excepting three major cities. The company has stated that the purpose of the restructuring is “to continue to provide services in a stable, efficient and secure manner.” Restructuring Grow’s business while the sharing electric scooter business is growing in the Latin American and Brazilian markets made us surprised. In this blog, we would like to discuss what this implicates.   Four essences to note in this news 1) A major competitor, Lime, also announced the restructure of its Brazilian business last month. 2) The sharing electric scooter … Conteúdo

News | Wildlife, Brazilian Gaming Startup Becomes Unicorn

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Brazil has one more unicorn, or startup valued at over a billion dollars – this time from a sector quite different from the usual fintech or mobility players. Mobile game company Wildlife Studios received a US$60M and its valuation reached US$1.3B. Team of Wildlife Corporate background The game multinational was born in 2011, created by entrepreneurs, engineers and brothers Victor Lazarte and Arthur Lazarte. The mobile gaming company has grown by an average of 80% over the past six years. Wildlife Studios expects to reach the 2 billion mark by the end of this year. Some of its 70 titles are Sniper 3D and Tennis Clash. The company operates on a … Conteúdo

Forum Review vol.6 | Eisuke Tokiwa, Amegumi

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-Notice- The 3rd Brazil Japan Startup Forum will be on 14-Feb in Tokyo！ Check the detail (in Japanese) The forum newsletter vol.1 features the whole picture of the forum and Opening Remarks by Brazilian venture capital. From vol.2 onwards, we will provide a series of 18 sessions. This is a Japanese startup session by Eisuke Tokiwa, Amegumi (Startup of US$35 smartphone with original OS)! Session presented by Eisuke Tokiwa, CEO of Amegumi About Amegumi | “Blaze Your Destiny – Helping the social vulnerable through digital services” Amegumi was founded in 2016. CEO Tokiwa specializes in marketing and data analysis, and has experience with three startups. Based on his experience of … Conteúdo

Forum Review vol.5 | Eduardo Goerl, ARPAC

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The forum newsletter vol.1 featured the whole picture of the forum and Opening Remarks by Brazilian venture capital. From vol.2 onwards, we will provide a series of 18 sessions. This is a session of Agritech in Brazil by ARPAC (startup of agricultural drone) Eduardo Goerl! Agritech session by Mr. Eduardo Goerl of ARPAC   Company profile “Optimizing agriculture with drones” ARPAC was founded in 2016 to solve pain points such as the inefficiency of pesticide spraying. The company owns the hardware (drone) as well as the software (drone flight control system) and the framework (software core code). They provide services to global companies such as BASF, Coopercitrus, Raízen, and Syngenta … Conteúdo

Forum Review vol.4 | Yasuyuki Hamada, Agri Info Desigh

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The forum newsletter vol.1 features the whole picture of the forum and Opening Remarks by Brazilian venture capital. From vol.2 onwards, we will provide a series of 18 sessions. This time is for the Agritech’s session by Mr. Hamada, Agri Info Design! Agritech session by Mr. Hamada, Founder/CEO of Agri Info Design, Ltd.   Company overview “Supporting the Agricultural Field with IT” Agri Info Design (AID) was founded in April 2014. In addition to developing and consulting software related to computerization and automation of agricultural machinery for companies and organizations, we also provide farmers with IT systems useful for agricultural work. The headquarters is located in Obihiro city in Tokachi … Conteúdo

Forum Review vol.2 | Soki Ohmae, Drone Fund

por | postado em: Brazil Venture Capital, Forum | 0

In the Forum Review vol.1, we covered the whole picture of the forum and Opening Remarks session by us, Brazilian Venture Capital. From vol.2 onwards, we will deliver series of 18 sessions by guest speakers. This time, we would like to pick up “Envisioning a Drone-Enabled Future Society” by Soki Ohmae, Drone Fund! “Envisioning a Drone-Enabled Future Society” by Mr. Ohmae   Corporate profile “Aim for Altitude” The Drone Fund, a Japanese venture capital specialized in drone industry, was established with the philosophy of contributing to the development of drones and air mobility technologies in the world. Large Japanese companies and investors participate through LP investment. Drone Fund I raised US$15M … Conteúdo

“CASE 2019” | Exhibition Report

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Event summary We visited the “CASE”, a South American startup exhibition held in Sao Paulo for two days from November 28th to 29th. This year, the 6th meeting collected +150 companies and discussions and networking on the startup ecosystem in Latam. Exhibition features It should be a sense of scale. There was a wide variety of contents that did not bothered visitors, such as panel discussions at large venues, subcommittees at small venues, and exhibitions at individual booths (coworking office companies, incubators, ventures mainly on fintech, etc.). In the panel discussion, for example, “What will be the works that AI will replace?” was  also topic, as a globally common concern. … Conteúdo

Breaking News | Softbank Led US$150M Investment in Argentina

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News summary Softbank accelerates in Latam. Ualá, an Argentine startup of personal finance management app, has raised a US$150M for Series-C led by SoftBank’s Latin America-focused Innovation Fund and Tencent. (Reference: Tech Crunch’s article on 25 Nov. 2019)   Who is Ualá? Ualá is the startup that provides a mobile banking app and lending platform with services similar to those of Revolut, Monzo and Nubank. However Ualá has no orientation to actually become a bank itself. Founder and CEO Pierpaolo Barbieri, a Buenos Aires native and Harvard University graduate, says his ambition was to create a platform that would bring all financial services into one app linked to one card. As it exists … Conteúdo

Forum Review vol.1 | Thanks for Joining us!

por | postado em: Brazil Venture Capital, Forum | 0

The 2nd “Brazil Japan Startup Forum 2019” was on November 22nd. We sincerely appreciate all of guest speakers, participants and supporters. Thanks for joining us! Japanese guest speakers and Mitsuru Nakayama / Brazil Venture Capital (left)   In this blog, we will review each session by 18 speakers in the series. In this first installment, we describe the overview of forum and the session by Brazil Venture Capital.   1. Forum overview Held at Innovabra Habitat in the city of Sao Paulo, it was a beneficial meeting with a total of 70 people from Brazil and Japan. As shown in the program below, we invited 18 guests from Brazilian/Japanese startups … Conteúdo

Breaking News: Softbank Led US$140M Investment in Brazilian Startup

por | postado em: Brazil Venture Capital, News | 0

News Summary Softbank led a US$140M investment in VTEX, Brazilian startup, which provides an e-commerce platform (NEOFEED’s article on November 22, 2019). This is the 10th investment in Brazilian startups for Softbank, which announced the establishment of a US$5B Latin American fund this May.   Softbank, Gávea Investimentos (represented by Armínio Fraga, former central bank president) and Constellation Asset Management led this investment, which will be utilized mainly in overseas expansion and R&D.   Outline of VTEX Sales in 2018 were US$179M with a CAGR of 40% over the past five years. This year’s sales forecast is US$250M. VTEX has 15 overseas offices (US, UK, Italy, Spain, Romania, and Latin … Conteúdo