Monashees, Brazil’s Biggest VC, Raises $150M For Fund VIII

Today, monashees (which the firm stylizes with a lower-case “m”) announced it has raised its eighth fund. The $150 million pool of capital is the largest yet raised by the São Paulo-based VC firm, which is the most active startup investor in Latin America (LatAm).

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The firm says it’s focusing attention on companies working in transportation and logistics, financial services, and the healthcare sector. That’s reflective of some of its most successful portfolio companies, which include Colombian food delivery startup Rappi, ride-hailing firm 99, and logistics business Loggi, which recently snagged $111 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund.

Monashees has raised over $430 million across its funds since its inception, according to the firm. The chart below plots the size of monashees’s recent funds.

Although Fund VIII is the firm’s largest to date, it’s by a fairly narrow margin. Prior to Fund VII, initially filed in late 2014, monashees’s funds were denominated in Brazilian Reals.1

The firm says Fund VIII’s capital was sourced from limited partners including Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger (who originally hails from Brazil), S-Cubed Capital (the family investment office of former Sequoia Capital managing partner Mark Stevens), Temasek, IDG, The University of Minnesota, Horsley Bridge Partners, and fifteen high net worth families from around Brazil, among others.

There’s no serious shift in strategy for the firm. According to a statement provided by monashees, it “will continue to identify and invest in visionary founders who are

capitalizing on global trends and using technology to solve important problems and address large market opportunities in LatAm.”

In prior reporting, Crunchbase News has covered the growing ecosystem of venture-backed companies in Latin America. According to numbers provided by the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (LAVCA) back in June, Brazilian startups lead the continent in venture fundraising.

It’s clear that there’s momentum in the region, but whether the market accelerates or slows down is to be determined. At the top of the ranks for early-stage deal-making in Latin America, monashees will have an interesting perspective on the market as it continues to evolve.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias