According to a report published by the Private Equity Investment Association in Latin America (LAVCA, for its acronym in English) the risk capital in companies of the crypto sector and blockchain in LATAM, it obtained almost ten times more than what was invested in 2020, reaching USD 653 million in 2021.
According to the information collected, the investments were specifically concentrated in assets of consumer-oriented exchanges (exchanges crypto) and retail trading platforms (trading platforms), which together managed to raise some $607 million.
In addition, venture capital (VC) investments in the Latin American region reached $15.7 billion in 2021, up from $4.1 billion invested in 2020, according to LAVCA.
As a result of that, Argentina is the country in the region that stands out with the most crypto companies, which have carried out the most risk investment (VC). In 2021, three Argentine exchanges raised venture capital. Ripio raised USD 50 million in a series B in September, while Lemon Cash raised USD 16 million and Buenbit raised USD 11 million in August, respectively.
Also, on the same date (August), the Latin American venture capital company, Kaszek, made its first investment DeFi, by leading a round of USD 3 million in a startup (Exactly), which is building an open source, non-custodial credit protocol on ethereum.
However, the Mexican cryptocurrency exchange with operations in Argentina and Colombia, bitso became the first crypto unicorn of Latin America, by managing to capture USD 250 million in May 2021, while the Brazilian exchange, Mercado Bitcoin, raised a total of USD 290 million in three rounds throughout 2021, achieving an appreciation of USD 220 million.
According to the report “2021 State of Blockchain” published by CB Insights, reflects that globally, venture capital investments in blockchain companies reached USD 25.2 billion in 2021, which represents an increase of 713% more than the USD 3.1 billion of 2020.
This crypto investment trend in Latin America It continues to grow this 2022, since it is expected that this trend that began in 2020 will be consolidated this year.