A boom in late-stage and growth funding helped buoy venture funding in Latin America for the first quarter of 2026, Crunchbase data shows. Startups in Latin America raised a combined $1.03 billion across seed- and growth-stage deals in the three-month period ending March 31. That was up 12% year over year and down 6% from the fourth quarter.
For perspective, we charted out total investment, color-coded by stage, for the past 12 quarters below.
Of that total, $761 million went into late-stage and growth deals, up 158% compared to the $295 million that flowed into such deals in the first quarter of 2025. It’s also up 203% compared with the $251 million in late-stage and growth rounds that were raised by LatAm startups in the 2025 fourth quarter.
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Mexico leads
Nearly one-third of the total amount raised in the first quarter went to one startup. Mexico City-based Kavak, an online used car marketplace, secured a $300 million Series F financing led by Andreessen Horowitz and WCM Investment Management in February.
Notably, mostly due to that outsized round, Mexican startups outperformed their Brazilian counterparts in the first quarter, raising a total of $404 million compared to Brazil’s $240 million.
Historically, Brazil has been the powerhouse in Latin America for venture capital funding. But it’s not the first time in recent quarters that Mexico has topped Latin America’s largest country. Mexico also raised more funding in the second quarter of 2025.
Overall, the first quarter marks only the second time since Q2 2012 that Mexican startups raised more venture capital than their Brazilian counterparts in Latin America, our data indicates.
Fewer deals
Round counts and total dollars raised decreased substantially sequentially and year over year across angel, seed and early stages. Of the $1.03 billion raised by Latin America’s startups in the first quarter, less than 9% — or $92 million — was raised across the angel and seed stages.
That compares to $161 million raised across those stages in the fourth quarter of 2025, and $152 million in the same first quarter last year.
Just over 17%, or $179 million, was raised at early stages, significantly lower than the $690 million raised in the fourth quarter and $472 million in the same period last year.
We expect the Q1 deal counts to rise somewhat over time, however, as seed rounds in particular are commonly reported weeks or months after they close.
Some big rounds
While Kavak’s round was the largest financing in Latin America in the first quarter, it was not the only nine-figure raise the region saw in Q1.
Argentinian fintech Ualá raised $195 million at a $3.2 billion valuation in March in a round led by Allianz X.
Other large deals that took place in Q1 include:
Notably, the largest rounds included participation from high-profile global funds, including Andreessen Horowitz, Founders Fund, Sequoia Capital and Insight Partners.
Investor POV
Allen Taylor, managing partner of New York-based Endeavor Catalyst, said his firm has made more than 60 investments in Latin America since 2022 — steadily increasing its investment pace every year from 11 deals in the region in 2023 to 20 in 2025.
In his view, many of the global investors who began putting more funding into Latin America’s startups in recent years are still writing checks there. However, he acknowledges that some “momentum” investors have slowed down.
Still, “almost all of the long-term smart capital investors have remained very active,” he said.
Last year was “all about stablecoins and fintech infrastructure” for the region. We should expect more of that this year, along with increased AI use across all sectors and strong enterprise growth in Brazil, he told Crunchbase News.
Brazil continues to be Endeavor Catalyst’s top market, but it is watching startups across the region, including in countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and even smaller markets such as Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.
Endeavor Catalyst has reason to be bullish on Latin America. Startups it has backed in the region are among the top performers of the firm’s portfolio. More than one-third (34%) of its 2026 Outlier class, which comprise roughly the top 10% best performers in its network, are from Latin America, according to Taylor.
Rodrigo Cartolano, general partner at São Paulo-based seed-stage firm OneVC, told Crunchbase News that his firm’s pace in Latin America has remained constant and “intentionally selective.”
“We’ve always believed that seed in Latin America works best when you’re deeply involved with a small number of exceptional founders and not try to index the market,” he noted.
But like many other investors, OneVC is also investing at an earlier stage.
“One notable shift is that, as founding teams move faster than ever, often reaching product-market signal with leaner teams and AI-native tooling,” Cartolano said, “pre-seed is taking a larger share of our investments, and we expect that to continue being the case for this cycle.”
Like Endeavor Catalyst, Brazil is OneVC’s primary market. It has a home court advantage, but as Cartolano notes, the country also has a lot going for it including being the largest economy in Latin America, one of the world’s most active early-adopter communities for new technology (Pix, WhatsApp-native commerce, AI), and a regulatory environment — particularly in financial services — which in his view “that fosters innovation”
As a secondary focus, interestingly, his firm is tracking an increasing number of strong Latino founders relocating to the United States to build companies.
“We like that,” he said. “They combine deep operational instincts from LatAm with access to the largest addressable market and most liquid exit environment.”
He agrees with Taylor that global interest appears to be renewing in Latin America startups.
“There is no shortage of capital for the best companies in the region, regardless of the state, and we are seeing some large firms investing in LatAm for the first time or coming back after a long period,” he said.
And while fintech has historically dominated when it comes to venture funding in Latin America, Cartolano said that fintech is now unsurprisingly giving way to AI-first companies that sell services, particularly to enterprises.
“The broader market is also shifting from consumer-facing models toward B2B, as enterprise companies are more incentivized than ever to adopt new technologies,” he added. “OneVC is especially focused on GenAI companies that ‘sell work,’ replacing headcount and outsourced services with AI-driven delivery at a fraction of the cost.
Related reading:
Methodology
The data contained in this report comes directly from Crunchbase, and is based on reported data. Data is as of March 31, 2026.
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
