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The rise of retail investors in secondaries, and why delayed IPOs will become the norm
Retail investors are increasingly shaping the secondary market. In Q4 2024, platforms like EquityZenreportedthat 86% of total transaction volume came from retail participants—an eye-catching shift as tools like Forge and EquityZen promise broader access to private shares. But does more access mean more opportunity, or more risk? Today onEquity, Rebecca Bellan is joined byJared Carmelof Manhattan Venture Partners to dig into what he calls a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” in secondaries, why he’s not crazy about the increase of retail investors, and how secondaries provide a “pressure relief valve” that could keep startups private well past their startup years. Listen to the full episode to hear more about: How MVP has worked to “institutionalize” secondaries out of the Wild West of investing.Why “informational asymmetry” makes some secondary offerings a raw deal for retail investors.How a sluggish IPO market is catalyzing a robust secondaries market that creates a liquidity flywheel for VC.And Jared’s prediction that in a few years, the secondaries feedback loop will delay IPOs up to 20 years. How MVP has worked to “institutionalize” secondaries out of the Wild West of investing. Why “informational asymmetry” makes some secondary offerings a raw deal for retail investors. How a sluggish IPO market is catalyzing a robust secondaries market that creates a liquidity flywheel for VC. And Jared’s prediction that in a few years, the secondaries feedback loop will delay IPOs up to 20 years. Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. You also can follow Equity onXandThreads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodeshere.
Exclusive: Insurtech Startup Inclined Raises $8M For Offering That Was ‘Historically Reserved For The Wealthy’
Inclined Technologies, a fintech startup that lends against whole life insurance policies, has raised $8 million in a Series B funding round, the company told Crunchbase News exclusively. HSCM Ventures led the financing, which also included participation from Northwestern Mutual and other new and existing backers. The raise brings San Francisco-based Inclined’s total funding to $31 million. The company did not disclose its valuation, saying only that the Series B was raised “at a premium” to its $16.5 million Series A. In 2020, Strava co-founder Mark Shaw teamed up with Josh Wyss and Graham Gerlach to start Inclined, his third company. He’d previously founded insurance software startup Guidewire Software, which ended up going public in 2012. Shaw joined activity and fitness tracking platform Strava as a co-founder in 2009 to lead engineering as CTO. The goal with Inclined, he said, is to digitize many of the traditional time-intensive operations involved in the process of lending against whole life insurance policies. Shaw concedes that insurance may not be considered among the sexiest of industries, particularly in the age of AI. But in his view, Inclined is able to do something that has historically been reserved for the wealthy: open up the option to borrow against whole life insurance policies to more people. Whole life insurance policies differ from term life in that they accumulate value that is available permanently, rather than just paying for coverage. Shaw, who serves as Inclined’s CTO, likens it to buying versus renting a home. And when whole life policyholders want to access their cash value, they often choose to do so via a loan, rather than withdrawing the money directly, which is less efficient, he explains. This gives banks a way to better participate in the market at scale, according to Shaw. And because banks often have “much lower rates than insurance companies,” he explained, that means borrowers get to borrow at lower interest rates. Plus, their money can be compounded over decades. Inclined’s flagship product is called “iLOC” and is a revolving line of credit collateralized by the cash value accumulated within a whole life insurance policy. It’s offered through advisers of insurance carriers such as Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual and Guardian Life. No recurring interest payments are required, there are no late-payment penalties, and no fees are charged to borrowers, according to Wyss, who serves as the company’s CEO. People “are essentially borrowing from themselves,” he said. Many people access the money they have built up in these policies to do things like make investments, pay for education or fund other large purchases such as real estate. “They can access this liquidity during their lifetime,” Wyss told Crunchbase News. “It’s not just something used after a person dies.” Insurtech funding sees choppy funding Inclined’s funding follows several years of declining venture investment in insurance and insurtech startups but a more recent uptick, Crunchbase data shows. Last year, such startups raised some $4.5 billion globally, down from $6.3 billion in 2023 and $9.5 billion in 2022. In 2021 — the peak year for global venture funding — insurance-related startups raised close to $19 billion worldwide, per Crunchbase data. But through the first half of 2025, those startups have raised nearly $4.3 billion, putting them on pace to top last year and 2023. Inclined’s rapid growth Since Inclined’s founding, more than $1 billion of credit has originated on its platform, its co-founders said. While they declined to reveal hard revenue figures, they told Crunchbase News that the company’s annual recurring revenue is “up more than 50x” since it last raised in September 2022, for a compound annual growth rate of 318%. Because of its B2B2C model, Inclined has a few different types of customers. Over 2,000 insurance professionals recommend and sell its iLOC product to their policyowner customers who want to access the cash they have built up in their policies. It has about 3,500 whole life policyowners who are using the iLOC product. The company makes money primarily through fees paid by its banking partners. When asked why the startup opted to raise less money in its Series B than it did in its Series A, Wyss said the company was “just being judicious” about the amount of capital it needed. “We felt like this was the right amount of capital to get to the next milestones of the company,” he said. “And, partnering with Northwestern Mutual and getting them on the cap table was a big part of this, too.” Inclined plans to use its new capital mostly to “invest in sales,” and grow its engineering team, according to Shaw. Craig Schedler, vice president of venture and corporate development at Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, told Crunchbase News via email that Inclined’s technology platform will help enable its policyowners “to understand and optimize the value of their whole life insurance policies, helping them manage their financial lives and have greater access to the living benefits of their Northwestern Mutual policy.” Related Crunchbase query: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Why More Startups Are Buying Other Startups In 2025
Despite a pickup in IPOs, startup exits and funding are still harder to come by than in years past. Add to that an increasingly competitive landscape for AI startups, and it’s no surprise that we’ve seen an upturn in startups buying other startups this year. The reasons for the rise in startups buying their brethren are varied. In many cases, consolidation is driven by market forces, including a more challenging fundraising environment and more affordable valuations for buyers. For other startups, it’s simply faster to buy another company than try to build out certain technologies themselves. By the numbers In the first half of 2025, there were 427 reported M&A deals globally in which startups bought other startups, according to Crunchbase data. That compares to 362 in the same period last year, representing an 18% increase. For comparison’s sake, in the full years 2021 and 2022, there were more than 1,000 deals in which startups bought other startups, per Crunchbase data. Buyer’s market Michael Mufson, managing partner of investment banking firm Mufson Howe Hunter, believes that we’re seeing more early-stage startups combining forces because the fundraising environment “has become so challenging.” “Venture capital is still tight, and without enough liquidity events to cycle capital back to LPs, VCs are being far more selective,” he told Crunchbase News. “For founders, it’s survival of the fittest — and that means getting creative to build a very tight investment thesis.” In many cases, a merger between two early-stage companies can create a stronger, more compelling narrative for investors, in Mufson’s view. “It may broaden the customer base, consolidate IP, or, increasingly, bring in critical capabilities like AI,” he added. “For startups lacking in AI expertise, acquiring or merging with a team that has that technical depth can help accelerate product development and improve funding prospects in a highly competitive market.” Startup adviser Itay Sagie, owner of Israel-based Sagie Capital Advisors, agrees that the most significant driver of the startup-to-startup M&A uptick is the tightening of venture funding — despite a modest bump in venture funding globally in Q2. “Small scale, startups which are far from being profitable have a hard time raising capital as VCs become more conservative, so they see M&A as the most logical option,” he told Crunchbase News in an email interview. Another driver, Sagie believes, is that valuations appear to be “stabilizing at reasonable ARR multiplier ranges.” This allows for larger startups that raised large rounds in 2021 at 40x-70x ARR valuations to use cash reserves to acquire smaller startups at reasonable valuations. “So rather than facing a down round, they’re deploying that capital toward acquiring startups, especially ones that offer one of the three “Ts: complementary tech, traction, or talent,” Sagie added. On the other side of the spectrum, the larger startups who are more financially sustainable with impressive unit economics and growth KPIs are even more attractive as startup buyers, in Sagie’s view, “as their equity is a more valid asset versus an overpriced, cash burning unicorn.” Purchases include larger deals Some of the deals this year have also been high-dollar transactions. And unsurprisingly, some of the larger deals involved AI companies. Not all large M&A deals involved AI companies. Other notable startup purchases of peers this year include: Also, many of the major acquirers raised large rounds before making their buys — with OpenAI in early April announcing a staggering $40 billion investment led by SoftBank. That deal marked the biggest venture investment ever. Last December, Databricks raised $10 billion at a $62 billion valuation, marking one of the largest venture capital raises of 2024 and one of the largest on record. Asset purchases and acquihires Lindsey S. Mignano, co-founder of SSM Law, notes an interesting trend she’s seeing: more asset acquisitions plus acquihires. This is where larger technology companies are buying the assets (think IP portfolio) of an early-stage company and taking one to three people from the founding team to integrate the technology and transition customer relationships. SSM Law generally represents tech startups being acquired by larger, more established startups who have received more venture capital financing. An example of this would be an AI company that received a seed or Series A funding being acquired by a Series C or D company. “The seller’s motivation to sell is often economic or market related — i.e., this company could not raise another round of venture capital or simply saw the writing on the wall that a big tech company was going to surpass them on ‘go-to-market’ due to strategic acquisitions or consolidations,” she told Crunchbase News in an interview. The buyer’s motivation to buy is likewise economic, Mignano notes. It’s typically cheaper to buy the technology than build it, and cheaper “to buy the team with a six-month golden handcuff earnout than recruiting.” But it’s also based on a rush to market, most particularly in the extremely competitive AI field. “For AI companies, the buyer has immediate access to proprietary model architectures, inference platforms or edge-device integrations without the spend associated with AI training,” she said. “The buyer gets to immediately procure specialized datasets or fine-tuned models from a seller that effectively block out the competition in verticals with especially clunky sales cycles such as law, government or hospitals.” In general, Mignano believes that “buyers are in a really good place right now.” Related Crunchbase query: Related Reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Analysis: Venture-Backed IPOs Of 2025 Have Done Well Post-Debut; Now It’s Figma’s Turn
The U.S. tech IPO scene hasn’t exactly been busy this year. But for those who have made their debuts, the market reception has been exceptionally positive overall. That could be a helpful tailwind for Figma, which priced its IPO late Wednesday at $33 per share, slightly above the projected range. Shares of the design software provider will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol FIG. If Figma follows in the footsteps of other big IPOs this year, we can expect shares to go up from there. That, at least, was the pattern we found in a Crunchbase review of venture-backed companies that went public on U.S. exchanges this year. Among the nine largest offerings, all were up from where they priced their IPOs. Circle leads Circle Internet Group is the top performer by a long shot. The New York-based stablecoin provider, currently valued above $40 billion, has seen the value of its shares rise more than 5x following its early June IPO. The stupendous performance has helped spur a raft of other newcomers looking to test their luck on public markets. In the past few weeks, BitGo, a provider of secure wallets for digital assets, and Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, both submitted confidential draft registrations to go public. Also this month, digital asset platform Bullish filed publicly for its IPO. It also likely helped that Circle’s debut coincided with a sharp rise in crypto values, with Bitcoin recently near its all-time high at more than $118,000. CoreWeave, Chime and others still up While Circle is the biggest gainer, AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave is still the most valuable venture-backed company to go public this year, with a recent market cap around $52 billion. Shares of the New Jersey company have also more than doubled since its April IPO. Digital banking provider Chime, the next-largest offering, is also up a bit, albeit not so dramatically. And while a market cap over $12 billion certainly sounds like a lot, it’s still far below the $25 billion peak valuation Chime garnered several years ago. Several mid-sized IPOs have also posted big gains. Metsera, a developer of therapies for obesity and metabolic diseases, is trading at roughly double the level it priced shares for its January IPO. And shares of MNTN, a targeted TV advertising platform, are also up sharply from the initial offering price in May. Up next: More huge offerings Even with some large offerings in the mix, the pace of venture-backed IPOs so far this year has been on the slow side. Granted, it’s a pickup from the latter part of 2024, which was even slower. But to really be able to declare the IPO market is back in a big way, we’ll need to see more large, successful offerings. Fortunately, those are likely on tap. Most anticipated of all is probably design software developer Figma, which recently boosted the proposed price range for its upcoming IPO, raising its expected initial valuation to up to $18.8 billion. Another smaller but nonetheless successful debut came to fruition on Wednesday as Ambiq Micro, a maker of low-power chips for AI computing, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares closed up 61% in first-day trading. Given that preparing for an IPO is a notoriously demanding process, it remains to be seen how many of today’s eligible unicorns will add themselves to the public offering pipeline. If things continue in the current fashion, though, many of those who opted to stay private may be regretting their decision. Related Crunchbase query: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Ultra-Unicorn Investors: These Firms Have Amassed The Largest Portfolios Of $5B+ Startups
Editor’s note: This article is part of a series looking at how the venture and startup landscape has evolved over the past 10 years. Read more articles about ultra-unicorns, seed funding, Series B trends, the rise of megafunds and the unicorn backlog over the decade. Ultra-unicorns — private companies valued at $5 billion or more — are a growing cohort, with 17 companies joining this elite 211-member club so far in 2025. A further analysis of Crunchbase data finds that alongside active venture firms, private equity investors have played a significant role in funding this group of highly valued private companies, which make up 13% of the overall Unicorn Board but represent the majority of value, accounting for $3.5 trillion of the total $6 trillion collective value. Among the most active by investment count in $5 billion-plus unicorns, private equity firms represent half of the firms listed, Crunchbase data shows. We analyzed the investors who amassed the largest count of portfolio companies and those who invested at the highest values. Let’s dive in. Andreessen leads Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Accel have the highest investment counts in $5 billion-plus unicorns, our data shows. Tiger Global ranked third despite its pulling back massively from investing in private companies since the second half of 2022 and reportedly selling off investment stakes in individual companies. The New York-based firm has invested in ultra-unicorns including Databricks, Scale AI and Shein. It is worth noting that across this list of leading investors, half are venture capital and half are private equity investors — an indication of how much private equity has invested in this asset class of highly valued private companies. Private equity investors dominated the list by portfolio counts as they rack up later-stage investments across a wider pool of companies compared to venture capital firms that invest earlier and keep investing in their winning companies. Portfolio counts were led by Tiger (19% of companies), Coatue (18%), then SoftBank Vision Fund, GIC and venture investor Andreessen Horowitz. Early investors Andreessen, Accel and Sequoia Capital hold the top three slots for investment counts in Series A and B rounds, Crunchbase data shows. Those firms have invested in ultra-unicorns including Scale AI, Databricks, Stripe and Klarna. Andreessen invested in 16 unique companies at early-stage, while Accel and Sequoia each invested in 14 companies. The list of early investors was dominated by U.S. firms. Active investors in China — the second-largest market for $5 billion-plus unicorns — were Beijing’s IDG Capital, Hong Kong-based HSG (formerly Sequoia Capital China), and Shenzhen-based Tencent. Few private equity investors are listed as active at this funding stage. Andreessen, Accel and Index Ventures — which invested in ultra-unicorns including Figma, Discord and Revolut — led the most rounds from seed through Series B. Y Combinator leads for seed At the seed level, portfolio counts are led by Y Combinator by a large margin, with the startup accelerator representing 10% of the seed investments in the $5 billion-dollar-plus club. It was an early investor in Rippling, Scale AI and Deel. SV Angel 1, which typically invests with smaller checks, ranks second. The San Francisco-based firm was an early investor in Harvey and Notion. Other seed investors in this cohort in the top five are Initialized Capital — which invests heavily in YC companies — Soma Capital and Homebrew. Private equity dominates for dollars SoftBank and Softbank Vision Fund led the largest rounds by amounts in this asset class. (Note: This does not indicate the amount an investor invested in a round, but the overall size of the rounds they led.) This list was dominated by private equity as well as some Big Tech companies including Meta and Microsoft, which backed Scale AI and OpenAI, respectively. Andressen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital also make the list of leading investments above $8 billion. Will exits pick up? To date, six companies valued at or above $5 billion have exited in 2025, compared to nine companies in 2024. A number of ultra-unicorns have also moved toward IPOs. They include Figma (valued at $12.5 billion), Navan ($9.2 billion) and Klarna ($6.7 billion), which have all filed confidentially with the SEC. With $482 billion in investor capital placed into these 211 private high-value companies since the early 2000s, a few more listings in 2025 would certainly help alleviate the venture capital liquidity crunch. Related Crunchbase unicorn lists Related reading: Methodology The Crunchbase Unicorn Board is a curated list that includes private unicorn companies with post-money valuations of $1 billion or more and is based on Crunchbase data. New companies are added to the Unicorn Board as they reach the $1 billion valuation mark as part of a funding round. For this article, we examined a subset of these companies which are still private and have a current value of $5 billion or more. Investment analysis is based on disclosed rounds in Crunchbase. The unicorn board does not reflect internal company valuations — such as those set via a 409a process for employee stock options — as these differ from, and are more likely to be lower than, a priced funding round. We also do not adjust valuations based on investor writedowns, which change quarterly, as different investors will not value the same company consistently within the same quarter. Illustration: Dom Guzman
Crypto Custody Startup BitGo Files Confidentially To Go Public
Crypto custody startup BitGo filed confidentially to go public on Tuesday, the company said. It is not yet clear on which exchange Bitgo plans to offer its shares, or what its price range will be. Founded in 2013, Palo Alto, California-based BitGo has raised a known $170 million in funding, per Crunchbase data. The company aims to securely store and manage cryptocurrency and other digital assets In August 2023, BitGo raised a $100 million Series C round at a $1.75 billion valuation. It was a step up in valuation from what BitGo would have been valued at had it been acquired by digital asset investment firm Galaxy Digital in a proposed $1.2 billion acquisition that was called off in 2022. The company went on to raise another corporate round of funding in January 2024 for an undisclosed amount, according to Crunchbase data. Bitcoin prices soared to over $100,000 in 2024, and currently trades at nearly $119,000 with projections it could go even higher in 2025. And after many headlines about regulation in the industry, the U.S. passed what is being described as the country’s “first major national cryptocurrency legislation.” The legislation is expected to be signed into law later this week. A thawing IPO pipeline? After an IPO drought, we’re seeing a flurry of filings in 2025, with more potentially planned in the coming year. Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is expected to go public via an initial public offering sometime in early 2026. San Francisco-based collaborative design platform Figma on Monday outlined the plans of its IPO, revealing it intends to raise nearly $1 billion. But other fintech and crypto-related companies have already gone public so far in 2025. In early June, shares of Circle closed up 168% at $83.29 in their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, minting the stablecoin issuer with a market cap of around $16.7 billion and renewing hopes for an IPO market rebound. As of July 22, the stock had more than doubled from its first-day closing — trading at over $194 per share. Digital bank Chime went public on June 12, and came out swinging. Chime’s shares shot up 37% in first-day trading on Nasdaq, closing at $37. As of July 22, the stock was trading at just over $33. Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
Startup M&A Crests Higher In First Half Of 2025
So far, this has been a pretty good year for startup acquisitions. Acquirers made just over $100 billion worth of disclosed-price startup purchases 1 in the first half of 2025, per Crunchbase data. That’s a whopping 155% increase from the same period last year, showing buyers are increasingly willing to write big checks for sought-after companies. Notably, roughly a third of this year’s total comes from a single deal: Google’s planned purchase of cybersecurity unicorn Wiz for a record-setting $32 billion. But there were other startups selling in multibillion-dollar acquisitions as well, including device designer Io and automation software provider Moveworks. Dealmaking gets more frenetic Deal count, meanwhile, has held steadier, with the number of announced acquisitions hovering in the mid-400s for the past three quarters. The number of M&A deals tends to be less influenced by market conditions, since buyers are inclined to go bargain hunting during down cycles and compete aggressively for hot companies during bullish ones. Lately, the ambience leans more frenetic, particularly as pertains to AI. This was evidenced this past week, with the drama around AI coding provider Windsurf. The startup was about to sell to OpenAI for $3 billion until Google made a deal to hire its CEO and co-founder, Varun Mohan, and pay $2.4 billion for compensation and licensing.Then on Monday, AI startup Cognition announced it would acquire Windsurf. AI was also the draw for the largest Q2 deal, OpenAI’s $6.5 billion acquisition of Io, a design startup co-founded by Jony Ive and focused on AI-powered devices. Even with all the excitement around AI, however, the majority of M&A spending this year hasn’t gone to the space. Per Crunchbase data, only around $15 million of disclosed-price acquisitions were for AI startups in the first half of this year. (However, that excludes Wiz, which isn’t classified as an artificial intelligence company but does list AI security as one of its focus areas.) Biggest H1 M&A deals So where is M&A spending concentrating? To get a sense, we used Crunchbase data to aggregate a list of 13 of the largest acquisitions in the first half of this year. As shown above, besides AI, enterprise software fared well. Top deals in the space include Moveworks’ $2.85 billion acquisition by ServiceNow, as well as accounts payable platform Melio’s $2.5 billion sale to Xero. In the healthcare space, electronic health record software provider Modernizing Medicine delivered one of the biggest outcomes, selling a majority stake to private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group at a reported $5.3 billion valuation. Smaller and stealthier deals add up The vast majority of startup acquisitions don’t have a disclosed price. But they can add up. Oftentimes, these deals involve large-cap acquirers and well-funded startups. Examples from 2025 include Stripe’s acquisition of crypto wallet startup Privy, Snap’s purchase of school scheduling app Saturn Technologies, and Zscaler’s acquisition of cloud security startup Red Canary, It helps acquirers that, four years after the venture funding peak in 2021, there’s still a large pipeline of funded companies taking a serious look at exit options. If current trends continue, we should see a growing number of them accomplishing that goal through M&A. Related Crunchbase queries: Related reading: Illustration: Dom Guzman
In Q2, Mexico Surpasses Brazil In Venture Dollars For First Time In Over A Decade
Historically, Brazil has been the powerhouse in Latin America when it comes to venture capital funding. But in the second quarter of 2025, Mexico emerged as the leader in terms of dollars raised in the region, per Crunchbase data. It’s the first time since the second quarter of 2012 that Mexico startups brought in more venture dollars than their Brazilian counterparts in Latin America, our data indicates. Mexico-based startups raised $437 million in the second quarter, up 85% year over year and 81% quarter over quarter. Brazil-headquartered startups brought in $350 million, down 23% year over year and a 14% dip quarter over quarter. The largest raise in Mexico — and Latin America as a whole — was announced on June 30, the last day of the quarter. That was a $170 million Series C round for Mexico City-based fintech startup Klar — believed to be Mexico’s largest digital bank —- that valued the company at $800 million. In general, a boom in late-stage and growth funding helped buoy the region for the period, Crunchbase data shows. Startups in Latin America raised a combined $961 million across seed- through growth-stage deals in the second quarter, up 16% year over year and 13% compared to the first quarter. Of that total, $547 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 102% year over year. That’s nearly exactly double the $273 million in late-stage and growth financings the region saw in the first quarter of this year. For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 10 quarters below. Round counts declined sequentially and year over year across angel, seed and early stages. We expect the Q2 deal counts to rise somewhat over time, however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close. Table of contents Late-stage boom While Klar’s venture round was the largest financing in Latin America, it was not the only nine-figure raise the region saw in the second quarter. Other large deals included Chilean fintech Toku raising $48 million in a Series A round and Mexican e-commerce aggregator Merama’s $45 million raise. Investor POV Funding in Latin America is certainly down compared to 2020-2022. However, there are some investors who remain loyal to the region. Miguel Armaza, co-founder and general partner at New York-based Gilgamesh Ventures, believes that investors who’ve exited LatAm were often tourists, and not truly committed to the region. Armaza blames the reduced appetite on LP preferences for investing in the U.S. and the lack of IPO activity in Latin America, something he predicts will improve “notably in the next 12-18 months.” For its part, Gilgamesh is still investing in the region, he said, but acknowledges that it’s seeing “a bit more activity in the U.S.” The firm backs startups focused exclusively on Brazil or Mexico because, in his words, “these markets have the scale to deliver VC-sized outcomes.” “However, over the past couple of years, we’ve increasingly invested in a newer category: startups designed from day one to operate regionally or globally,” he told Crunchbase News. “Unsurprisingly, many of these newer ventures are AI-first, and we’ve already backed a number of AI-centric startups in the region.” Armaza also argues that the investment pace in LatAm is roughly aligned with 2019-2020 thanks mostly to regional investors. “The pullback of certain international and U.S.-based investors has been partially offset by new local funds stepping up,” he said. “Today, most strong founders in Brazil can raise their seed rounds entirely locally, often within just two to three neighborhoods in São Paulo. This local ecosystem strength is a significant positive.” Mike Packer, partner at Alexandria, Virginia-based QED Investors, said his firm still sees “incredible opportunity” in the region, especially in Brazil and Mexico, but also in countries like Argentina. “Because of the liquidity cycle and the general lack of exits in the ecosystem, companies are trying to figure out how to think bigger earlier,” he told Crunchbase News. As such, companies are increasingly learning from other geographies. For example payment companies such as Ebanx and dLocal are expanding to Africa and Asia. For its part, in the first half of 2025 QED focused on seed and Series A financings but it has also expanded its focus to include more Series B companies. “The best companies here look really healthy, they’re growing fast, they’re close to profitable, if not already profitable and they’ve proven a level of scale that gives us lots of comfort about execution abilities and market size,” he said. Nicolas Szekasy, co-founder and managing partner at São Paulo-based Kaszek, said his firm’s investment pace has accelerated in 2025 compared to the previous two years. “The evolution of the Latin American tech ecosystem over the past 25 years has been extraordinary — from almost nothing to a vibrant, robust environment,” he told Crunchbase News. “Yet, when you look at the data, the region is still massively underpenetrated.” And, despite Mexico’ s unusually good quarter, Szekasy still believes that Brazil remains Latin America’s largest and most mature ecosystem, and that São Paulo “is arguably Latin America’s tech capital.” However, Kaszek invests across the region — half of its investments are in Brazil, followed by Mexico, then Argentina, Colombia, Chile and the rest of the region. Szekasy also believes that investors have not necessarily backed off from LatAm. “Some firms have been consistently active in Latin America for years,” he said. “Others came and left, and new ones are arriving now.” Still, Szekasy acknowledged that 2021 was “a global VC bubble” with some investors participating during that time indeed being more “tourists.” Looking ahead, in his view, the resilience of Latin American founders is part of what makes the region so attractive. “They’ve been building through volatility for decades — navigating recessions, inflation, currency devaluations and regulatory swings,” he said, citing MercadoLibre and Nubank as prime examples. “Both were born in adversity and are now worth a combined $200 billion in market cap,” he said. “Their opportunity ‘signal’ was far stronger than any surrounding ‘noise.’ ” Going in earlier Brian Requarth, general partner at early-stage-focused Latitud, said his firm continues to maintain its investment pace, closing 25 deals since it started deploying in Q4 2023. “What has changed is that we’re going even earlier,” he said. “Some of our investments are at the pre-inception stage, where we back exceptional founders before they’ve even landed on a thesis.” While Latitud remains sector agnostic, Requarth acknowledges that nearly every investment the firm has made in 2025 “has some AI angle.” Like Gigalmesh and QED, Latitud has invested heavily in Brazil, but also in companies based in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. One recent shift in the firm’s strategy is to allocate more capital to Latin American founders who are building companies in the U.S. “We’re seeing world-class talent from the region moving to San Francisco and launching globally ambitious startups,” Requarth said. “That’s a wave we’re leaning into.” Overall, he believes “this is a moment of recalibration” in Latin America, “not retreat.” He added: “For those who are close to founders and understand the dynamics of the region, there’s still an enormous opportunity.” Methodology The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Provisional data reported is as of July 3, 2025. Note that data lags are most pronounced at the earliest stages of venture activity, with seed funding amounts increasing significantly after the end of a quarter/year. Please note that all funding values are given in U.S. dollars unless otherwise noted. Crunchbase converts foreign currencies to U.S. dollars at the prevailing spot rate from the date funding rounds, acquisitions, IPOs and other financial events are reported. Even if those events were added to Crunchbase long after the event was announced, foreign currency transactions are converted at the historic spot price. Glossary of funding terms Seed and angel consists of seed, pre-seed and angel rounds. Crunchbase also includes venture rounds of unknown series, equity crowdfunding and convertible notes at $3 million (USD or as-converted USD equivalent) or less. Early-stage consists of Series A and Series B rounds, as well as other round types. Crunchbase includes venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $3 million, and those less than or equal to $15 million. Late-stage consists of Series C, Series D, Series E and later-lettered venture rounds following the “Series [Letter]” naming convention. Also included are venture rounds of unknown series, corporate venture and other rounds above $15 million. Corporate rounds are only included if a company has raised an equity funding at seed through a venture series funding round. Technology growth is a private-equity round raised by a company that has previously raised a “venture” round. (So basically, any round from the previously defined stages.) Illustration: Dom Guzman