Unicorn Rainmaker Amasses $1 Billion for Latin America Startups

As lockdowns started to sweep across the globe last year, venture capitalist Hernan Kazah sent an ominous message to his portfolio of Latin America tech startups: cut costs and preserve cash in what Kazah thought would be an all-out effort to survive the pandemic.

Now just over a year later, Kazah is less concerned about the survival of the region’s burgeoning tech scene than he is with how to spend the $1 billion of cash his firm just raised. Because rather than decimate startups, the lockdowns boosted sales for tech companies as customers tapped into their phones to do everything from order food to bank online as the spread of Covid-19 kept people at home while taking its tragic toll.