How Latin America became tech’s next big frontier

Start-ups created to tackle problems like these are propelling the region to the forefront of the emerging market tech boom. Last year $4.1bn of venture capital investment flowed into Latin America, exceeding south-east Asia’s $3.3bn and beating Africa, the Middle East and central and eastern Europe combined, according to the Global Private Capital Association. In the first half of this year, Latin America pulled in $6.5bn of venture capital, not far short of India’s $8.3bn. “We started in this industry in 1999 when there was hardly any internet, almost all the connections were dial-up and internet penetration was 3 per cent,” said Hernán Kazah, co-founder of Kaszek Ventures, Latin America’s largest early-stage fund with more than $2bn of capital raised to date. “Today, Latin America finally has critical mass in almost every market.”

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