Jimena met Leo in early 2023 when he pitched Shinkansen, to a founder's angel fund. Shinkansen seeks to build payment infrastructure in Latin America. Soon after on May 1st, partners and founders agreed on the seed round after a handshake over dinner in a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant in Santiago. Ubaldo drank Japanese whisky. Straight. 

After Julian left Affinity, he decided to take time off to think about his next act. Jimena offered a place to do the thinking, so Julian started coming to Hi Ventures just as the fund started to focus on AI. One thing led to another and Hi Ventures led its pre-seed round to structure data in Latin America.

'For us, it was obvious that Karen should be the CEO, she’s like Messi,' Gianni responded confidently to explain how they divided responsibilities among the co-founders of an exceptional team with a unique captain. Hi Ventures sent a term sheet to lead Atlas seed round two weeks later.

The weather in Rio de Janeiro could not be better for visiting the mom-and-pop shops Clubbi served everyday. Customers were happy and Marcos and João made sure they got all the feedback to make their experience better. Clubbi is on a mission to build a regional grocery B2B marketplace, It was one of the most compelling due diligence trips ever. Soon after, Hi Ventures co-led Clubbi’s series A round with NFX.

‘I don’t know if Yana will transform the Mental Health industry, but Hi Ventures needs to be a part of Andrea’s team,’. Federico’s conviction probably helped seal the deal before the partners voted on the investment opportunity. Since that first flight to Cancun to visit the rest of the team in their startup house, Hi Ventures has been working hard for Yana to achieve a mission that has impacted over 14 million people and counting.

‘I wont get a no for an answer’, Alejandro told Jimena while boarding the Boeing dreamliner to close the follow-on round of their series A. Mendel was expanding fast and needed capital to scale. Its AI-enabled expense management platform for enterprise has a huge potential. It was easy not to say no…

‘I need to build something bigger than just an e-commerce’, said Federico Malek while explaining how he would consolidate Amazon and Mercado Libre merchants in the region with WonderBrands. This vision was too compelling for Hi Ventures to miss out. We teamed up with our friends at Nazca to co-lead the pre-seed and seed round.

Just as a global pandemic started closing the world economies, Hi Ventures co-led Nuvocargo's seed round with NFX. It was Hi Ventures’ first partners’ meeting held virtually on Zoom. Deepak pitched the best nearshoring pure play focused on the US-MEXICO trade corridor. 

A Thursday morning in 2020, Cherry of Accel introduced Sergio and Ricardo to Federico, just as their free stock trading platform was adding hundreds of thousands of users per month. Partners and founders had breakfast that Sunday. Next day, Hi Ventures and Accel sent a joint term sheet to co-lead Flink’s Series A. In 2024, Webull, the Chinese fintech, acquired the company.

Hi Ventures invested in Fintual, the first Chilean YC company ever, when its unique investment product managed only $6M dollars and a multicolor hammock hung outside the office. Since the first check, Fintual has scaled assets under management 100x and added Sequoia as an investor to help Latin Americans create wealth with just a few clicks.

Federico met Victor at a Quona - Hi Ventures dinner and discussed the hot proptech vertical. That casual conversation turned into regular meetings at Hi Ventures and a lead pre-seed TS to help Bernardo and Victor start Flat, the all-in-one real state platform leader in Mexico.

It was the second time Jose pitched Robinfood to Hi Ventures, a Colombian founder who had just IPOed his previous company. That time, his cloud kitchen startup was scaling fast. He not only showed us his tech platform but also let us taste all the delicious dishes designed in Colombia. The second time was the charm.

‘We’re on a mission to change the lives of millions with technology and education’, said Kamran Khan, co-founder of Slang, an EdTech app based in Boston that empowers Latin American workers with English programs. It was a close call at Hi Ventures partners’ meeting. At the peak of the pandemic crisis, we led an extension round to keep Diego and Kamran’s mission alive.

When BNPL was not yet a thing, Fernando presented the vision to finance e-commerce purchases in Spain and Mexico instantly and without a credit card. Two years after Hi Ventures invested, his technology and product finesse caught the eye of Wizink, a Spanish bank, who acquired Aplazame in 2020.

In February 2015, Federico met Oskar at a co-working space in San Francisco when Cornershop was only an idea, a big idea. Oscar’s email was still on buenaonda.com. Hi Ventures invested the first VC check. The rest is history… one of the most successful VC exits in the region.

Of all Latin American countries, Mexico is poised to benefit the most from the adoption of solar energy. In 2015, we spoke to all the teams building on the space. Julian and Manuel have everything to succeed: ambition, business acumen and technical chops.

‘Federico, we have a problem. Folks register, feel proud about Carrot but no one is renting the cars’ said Jimena in may 2012, a few weeks after she and Diego launched the first car-sharing service in Latin America. Product-market fit would eventually come, Carrot would park a hundred cars all around Mexico City with the support of its first fan, Hi Ventures.