https://medium.com/social-capital/e-a%C3%AD-brazil-capital-as-a-service-is-now-live-for-brazilian-startups-959545a24fc4
Social Capital, the venture capital fund founded by Chamath Palihapitiya, launched their CaaS, or Capital as a Service product in Brazil. Capital as a Service seeks to democratize access to early stage venture capital by making investments based on metrics, not on meetings with entrepreneurs. From the announcement from Ashley Carroll, a Partner at Social Capital:
We kicked off the CaaS pilot a little more than a year ago with the goal of democratizing access to capital globally, through the first truly software-driven, quantitative approach to venture capital. We released our private beta last Fall, and have since committed to investing in more than 70 companies out of the 5,000 we’ve screened, which span about 25 countries and six continents (sorry, Antarctica!). In that time, our product and engineering teams transformed our initial duct-taped together prototype into a beautiful and scalable service that is now available starting today for all startups in Brazil.
If you’re based in Brazil and want to apply for funding via CaaS, please visit http://caas.socialcapital.com. Applying to CaaS is more like signing up for Google Adwords, AWS, or even applying for a credit card than it is the traditional fundraising process. You fill out an online form to tell us about your company and market, then upload engagement and transactional data about your business for us to analyze key metrics. You’ll get a response within just a few days, and regardless of our decision, we’ll share our quantitative analysis. CaaS investments are currently $50,000 — $250,000 USD, and we’re open to applications from early-stage tech companies in Brazil across all industries. If you’re not based in Brazil but are interested in getting access to CaaS, you can request to be added to the waitlist for private beta access.
CaaS is another step forward in innovation for funding for startups. Social Capital is taking an automated approach, while funds like Indie.vc are trying to help companies make their current round their last round of funding they ever take.
It’s also significant that Social Capital launched this in Brazil, as it shows Brazil’s potential for early stage startups and investors.
CaaS is out of beta!! We launched our first market today: Brazil. Now any Brazilian startup can access automated capital and other good stuff from the team @socialcapital 24 hours per day, 365 days per year! Go 🇧🇷!!! https://t.co/BgRMFyQ4R4
— Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath) August 2, 2018
