Softbank announced it will spin out a fund for early-stage startups in Latin America.
This fund is called Upload Ventures, and unlike previous Latin American funds that Softbank created, it will focus on early-stage startups, rather than growth-stage startups. This decision was made because the firm received over a thousand proposals from early-stage startups in Latin America in less than a year.
Their previous funds, Fund I and Fund II, financed some of Latin America’s unicorns such as Nubank, Merama and Rappi.
Upload Ventures is led by Rodrigo Baer, Norberto Giangrande and Marco Camhaji. While the average ticket will range from $1M to $10M, the fund will consist of $300M in total, with an initial investment of $100M annually. Fund I and Fund II committed, in comparison, $5B and $3B respectively.
Some of the more early-stage startups that participated in the first two funds will be transferred to the new Upload Ventures. Some of these startups are Digibee, Neivor, Abstra, and BotCity.