By Rafael Escalera Montoto<\/p>\n
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Capital raised for startups in Latin America grew 26% in 2024 from 2023, more than in Europe, which was up 7%, and Southeast Asia, which shrank 34%, according to a study published on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Funding for Latin American startups is also expected to increase in 2025 thanks to a young population, accelerated digitalization and increasingly sophisticated capital, said the report from Mexican entrepreneurship network Endeavor and private equity firm Glisco Partners.<\/p>\n
Still, the industry faces challenges from low participation of local investment funds in later-stage investments and global volatility, the study said.<\/p>\n
“2024 was a year for redefinition. Startups that managed to adapt to changes in the market now have more solid and sustainable models,” said Alfredo Castellanos, managing partner at Glisco Partners.<\/p>\n
The report noted domestic investors tended to invest early, while foreign ones did so after companies were more established and scalable.<\/p>\n
Capital injections in mature companies, rather than brand new ones, are increasingly dominant. Such investments made up 65% of all capital raised in 2024, compared to 46% in 2023.<\/p>\n
“There are fewer rounds, but more capital,” the report said.<\/p>\n
Through 2025, the report identified three main trends, including the use of venture debt and mixed rounds, which combine risk capital and debt, as alternative ways of investing.<\/p>\n
Additionally, annual growth in secondary markets – where investors can buy and sell shares from each other rather than directly from the company – was projected to rise 60%, as a way for early-stage investors to secure liquidity.<\/p>\n
Finally, it found employee stock ownership plans were an increasingly relevant way of attracting and retaining talent, though less than 20% of Latin American startups offered them to employees due to uncertainty surrounding the financial implications.<\/p>\n
Financial technology firms remained the sector with the highest volume of investment in Mexico, with property technology startups and software companies growing at the fastest rates, according to the report.<\/p>\n
Mexico and Argentina were two of the big winners in the recovery of venture capital in Latin America in 2024, the study found.<\/p>\n
Mexico boasted large financing rounds with startups Clip and Justo, which have maintained a “solid flow of investments,” according to the study.<\/p>\n
Uala, an Argentine financial services company, raised $330 million, which amounts to 73% of all capital raised in Argentina, the report said.<\/p>\n
“The region is advancing toward a more solid ecosystem, but must strengthen its local financing in later stages,” it added.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Rafael Escalera Montoto; Editing by Jamie Freed)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Rafael Escalera Montoto MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Capital raised for startups in Latin America grew 26% in 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3094],"tags":[51,3134,53155,3274,15848,3322,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-118782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-glisco-partners","11":"tag-latin-america","12":"tag-southeast-asia","13":"tag-startups","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114543765949957622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}