(peHUB) March 5, 2012 – Redpoint and eVentures, two leading Silicon Valley venture capital firms, announced today they are joining forces to build a premier Venture Capital Firm in Brazil. With more than $3B under management and deep experience as early stage investors in Internet market leaders including Groupon, Angie’s List, HomeAway, Responsys, Netflix and many others, their joint venture will be the first of its kind, bringing Silicon Valley best practices to Latin American technology entrepreneurs.
Headquartered in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Redpoint eVentures will be led by founding partners Yann de Vries and Anderson Thees. Through Redpoint eVentures, Redpoint and eVentures’ combined global expertise in Consumer Internet, e-commerce, mobile, media and cloud services will be made available to local entrepreneurs. The firm will support promising start-ups by sharing international best practices as well as providing access to financing, talent and strategic partnerships.
The development of Redpoint eVentures was three years in the making, following dozens of flights back and forth from Silicon Valley to Brazil as well as three promising local investments (Viajanet, Grupo Xango and Shoes4you). Co-founder of Redpoint, Jeff Brody, is convinced that having an established local presence is critical to long-term success, explaining, “We’ve learned in China that to be truly effective finding opportunities and supporting entrepreneurs, one needs to be established on the ground, rather than flying back and forth every couple of weeks – focus and access are critical to success. Now that we have assembled a great local team in Sao Paulo, we are ready to continue our efforts to scale across the region.”
Mathias Schilling, co-founder of eVentures, who has built a successful global platform with presence in Silicon Valley, Europe, Russia, China and Japan, explained, “Whether it is working with a brand like Groupon in their Latin American expansion or helping Russian open source leader NGINX enter the US market, we know first-hand how to put our unique understanding of the global Internet market to work for local entrepreneurs. The Brazilian market represents a very exciting opportunity and we can’t wait to do more work with its growing tech community.”
Already active and investing in Brazil, Redpoint eVentures will be co-hosting the Founders Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, beginning of March, a unique networking event for the top 100 Internet entrepreneurs in Brazil.
About Redpoint eVentures
A joint venture between Redpoint and eVentures, Redpoint eVentures is a new venture capital firm based in Sao Paulo, serving the growing Brazilian Internet market. Redpoint eVentures brings funding, Silicon Valley access and global best practices to promising local entrepreneurs. The firm was established with a dedicated local team and will leverage its Silicon Valley and global networks to help develop the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in Brazil.
About Redpoint
Founded in 1999, Redpoint Ventures is a leading technology focused venture capital and growth equity investment firm with over $3B in capital under management. Redpoint focuses on investing globally in technology ventures across the Internet, digital media, mobile, and enterprise sectors to accelerate growth and build industry defining companies. Its partners have been involved in 41 IPOs and 66 upside acquisitions. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA with offices in Los Angeles and Shanghai, China. For more information visit our website at www.redpoint.com.
About eVentures
Founded in 1998 and built on a strong, shared culture of entrepreneurship, eVentures is a venture capital firm with global scale. The firm Invests out of five dedicated funds in five geographies, namely BV Capital eVentures (US), eVentures Europe, eVentures Russia, Infinity eVentures (China and Japan) and Redpoint eVentures (Brazil and Latin America). The eVentures team has been investing in Internet companies for more than 15 years and operates as one team globally by combining a global investment strategy and philosophy with local presence and insights. Focused exclusively at the intersection of consumer Internet, media and mobile, eVentures leverages cross-sector and cross-continent synergies and the team’s deep operational expertise to help entrepreneurs build transformative early stage companies. To learn more about this global venture firm, visit www.bvcapital.com.