Dealflow | August 23, 2021

Brazil’s Nuvemshop scores $500 million to support digitization of small businesses

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, August 23 – The pandemic has drawn investors to e-commerce platforms accelerating the shift to online business. Sao Paulo-based Nuvemshop’s nine-figure funding round signals the opportunity: Less than 6% of business sales are transacted online in Brazil and Mexico, Latin America’s most populous countries, in spite of high internet adoption rates in both countries.

Nuvemshop helps businesses set up branded webshops and handle logistics and digital payments. Like Shopify, it is an e-commerce platform rather than an online marketplace like Amazon. The company has enabled 90,000 businesses in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico to set up and transact through online shops; 70,000 have joined the platform since early 2020, TechCrunch reports.

Insight Partners and Tiger Global Management led the company’s $500 million funding round. The round follows Nuvemshop’s $90 million Series D in March.

Impact investor Elevar Equity backed the company in its 2017 Series B round.

LatAm venture boom

Startups in the region raised $9.3 billion in the first half of 2021, nearly double last year’s pace, according to CB Insights. Separately, Pitchbookestimates venture capital investors have deployed $8.8 billion into Latin America this year, more than total VC financing for 2019 and 2020 combined.

“VCs are clamoring for Latin American digital transformation opportunities at an unprecedented pace,” Pitchbook reports