Carao Ventures led a US$2m follow-on investment in Speratum, a Costa Rican biotech focused on microRNA-directed oncology therapies primarily for pancreatic and ovarian cancers. Carao previously invested US$800k when Speratum…

KaszeK Ventures and SOS Ventures made a US$3m investment in NotCo, a Chilean foodtech startup accelerated at IndieBio. NotCo uses plant-based proteins to replicate mayonnaise, milk and other animal-based products without any animal-derived ingredients. 

Austral Capital is raising a third fund, the Latin America Growth Tech Fund, with a US$80m target. Fund 1 (2008) was a US$40m tech/biotech-focused fund whose portfolio includes Andes Biotechnologies and Scanntech. Fund II (2012) was a US$20m renewable energy-focused fund.

Brazil’s BNDES selected DOMO Invest to manage its angel co-investment fund, which will invest up to R$100m over the next ten years across sectors, with initial tickets up to R$500k.

Y Combinator’s Winter 2018 cohort includes Runa HR, an automated payroll platform in Mexico, Ropeo, a Colombian on-demand fashion service, Flint, a mobile wallet operating in Mexico, Qulture.rocks, a Brazilian…

SP Ventures exited Bug Agentes Biológicos, a Brazilian biotech firm, though a sale to Dutch biochemical company Koppert Biological Systems. (Valor Econômico) A holandesa Koppert fechou a aquisição, por meio…

Fondo Alerce made a US$1.4m investment in GeneproDX SPA, a Chilean biomedical startup working on thyroid cancer detection. (LexLatin) La empresa chilena de biomedicina GeneproDX SPA recibió un aporte de…

Tim Draper and Cygnus capital have partnered to launch the Draper Cygnus VC Fund to invest in Argentinian startups. (La Nacion) Tim Draper, que invirtió en 30 proyectos que se…

OneSkin is a biotech startup in Silicon Valley with ambitious plans to discover anti-aging molecules. In LAVCA’s interview with Brazilian founder and CEO Carolina Reis, and Colombian CTO Andrés Ochoa, we learn: How they translated their academic roots in biochemistry and genomics in Brazil into startup technology…