LatAm List – Animo Ventures is a Miami-based venture capital firm that debuted by investing $60M in US startups when it launched in July 2018.
The firm was founded by Nicolas Berardi, an Argentine that began his career working at Techo Argentina, a non-profit organization that seeks to overcome poverty in slums.
Eventually, he was transferred to Miami to operate as the CEO of Techo’s US operations for over six years. Since then, he has launched an angel investor group called Miami Angels, worked in San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm Resolute Ventures, and now operates as Founder and General Partner of Animo Ventures.
Berardi explained that the firm’s funding “mostly comes from Latin America and Europe,” as well as its anchor investor Techint, an Argentine-Italian manufacturer of seamless steel tubes for the oil industry.
Animo has closed 12 deals, most of which are in the US and a few in Canada. The firm does not plan to invest in Latin American companies but it has invested in Latin American founders in the US.
“I think every investor has their own set of biases. Our diversity numbers point in that way, but it hasn’t been a conscious effort. That’s just who we are,” said Berardi.
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