Canary is the first institutional investor in leading technology companies in Latin America
Alice is a technology healthcare company reinventing the health insurance industry in Brazil.
“Canary actually co-founded Alice with us. They have always believed in my capabilities as a founder, even before I had the idea. They also introduced me to Gui, my co-founder.”
B2C bus charter marketplace focused on intercity travel in Brazil.
“Canary invested in Buser as something less than a PowerPoint. And all along the way, Canary has been extremely helpful.”
Clara is an end-to-end corporate spend management solution for companies in Latin America
“We’re extremely happy with Canary, who has been instrumental, from helping us actively with our go to market to recruiting key leaders in Brazil.”
Cobre is a workplace bank solving the problem of financial products distribution in Latam
“Canary always puts the founders and the companies first. Unparalleled knowledge of going from 0 to 1.”
Gupy is a B2B enterprise software that allows companies to manage their employee's lifecycle end-to-end
“I couldn't believe it when Florian called me to make the proposal. If we hadn't closed the deal with Canary at that time, most likely we would have gone bankrupt.”
Hashdex democratizes access to crypto investments by creating innovative products for the traditional financial market players
“ It's amazing to see the state of this market today compared to what it was 5 years ago, and the role Canary played in raising this bar.”
Consumer centric, next generation digital insurance company, focused on smartphones and cars
“Canary is probusiness, easygoing, supportive in critical matters and it has a great founders community to help our journey.”
Sallve is a beauty & cosmetics Digitally Native Vertical Brand (DNVB)
“There's nothing more rewarding than seeing the Brazilian ecosystem so developed. Thank you for trusting us from the beginning. Nothing better than a chance encounter at WeWork…”
Trybe is a modern school focused on digital skills for people who want to build a career in technology.
“We have made a point of always doing business with people we admire. We chose Canary as our investor because of the people that are part of the firm”
SPECIALIZED IN THE FIRST ROUND, ALIGNED WITH YOU FOR THE ENTIRE JOURNEY
We are your partner
from seed to IPO & beyond
We will help you build
your founding team
We will always negotiate your
subsequent rounds with you
(not against you)
focused on just
three things
5k founding teams analyzed and more than 40k people in our talent database
More than 100 subsequent rounds within the portfolio. We have data to bridge the asymmetry between founders and VCs (from Series As to Ds)
Best in class co-investors - we partner with the top VC funds globally
Strongest tech network in the region - more than 500 engaged operators - also, our NPS and perception of founders are the best in the region
Right fund for the right time: we believe there is the right investor for the right stage of your company - we are the right partners for your first round
Companies invested by Canary have 3x higher chance to raise a Series B
Nice to meet you! In case you want to learn more about us, we wrote down some FAQs for you. If you want to learn even more, you can go to the dedicated page
ExploreThere are three concrete aspects we like to see in a startup:
Great founding teams: venture capital is a people business. Our main job as investors (at least the way we see it at Canary) is not to be the smartest ones in the room, but to know a talented entrepreneur when we see one. What makes a great founding team? Just check the next FAQ.
BIG markets (and potential to scale fast!): we look for startups that can grow at least 50-100x within the 8-10 years fund lifetime. If your market opportunity (or future vision) is not big enough to accommodate that, it might be an issue for us.
Healthy cap table: founders should keep ownership of their companies and avoid excessive dilution at an early stage. Ideally, the founding team should have at least a 50% stake after the series A. Too much dilution might be an issue for us.
If you wish to learn more about what makes a healthy cap table, check this Q&A with our partner Florian Hagenbuch (in Portuguese).
Published originally on June 27th, 2019.
Updated on April 24th, 2020.
These are the most important things we learned over our years as investors and entrepreneurs when it comes to founding teams:
1. Founder-market-fit: if you are going to spend the next years fighting for your business to succeed, you need to line up extremely well with the upcoming market challenges. A great founder will choose wisely what ideas to pursue, taking into consideration his/her knowledge and passion about the business model, clients and sector. This matters a lot, more than the business idea itself, and should be as important to the founders as it is to investors. A founder with a good market fit will feel more empathetic towards customers, more thoughtful about the market dynamics and will probably be more resilient throughout the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey.
2. Execution: we need to see grit. We need to see hustle. The best founders we know won’t let it go and strongly believe they are the best people to solve the problems they are tackling. They understand early in their journey this path comes with a lot of sacrifices and they are prepared to trade the short term for the long term. We are looking for obsessed founders who are willing to go as far as it takes, rather than great ideas that are in fashion.
3. Selling the dream: as a startup founder, you are selling your dream to a lot of different people, all the time. Whether recruiting and motivating your team, pitching and updating investors or giving interviews to the press you will have to listen well and, at the same time, inspire them that your product is all they have ever wanted.
We are not talking about inventing stories. You won’t conquer people’s hearts by lying. What we are talking about is: (a) putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Listen carefully to understand what is best for their business (b) the ability to deliver a well-constructed, genuine and compelling narrative and c) being trustworthy. When people trust and respect you they will listen to what you are selling.
Published originally on June 27th, 2019.
Updated on May 27th, 2021.
We partner with founders at the first venture capital round, from pre-Power Point to Series A. We’ve invested in rounds as small as USD 250K and as large as USD 15M+. We prefer and typically lead the first round, investing the largest amount of capital and defining the legal terms.
Updated on August 12th, 2021.
No. We are currently looking for the best founders in Latam.
Updated on July 14th, 2021.
We are sector and model agnostic, but we invest in companies that can scale exponentially and take a huge market fast. Technology (not necessarily pure tech!) is what allows such an exponential growth.
Updated on February 14th, 2020.
