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. 

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.

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.

‘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.

‘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.

Federico flew to São Paulo and met Bruno, both GSB alums. Over coffee, Bruno said that after building Isaac, he’d finally found what to solve next: “Everyone thinks it’s boring. I think it’s insanely hot.” Menlo—using AI to rethink how franchises run, from cash flow and suppliers to daily decisions—helping brands like Domino’s, Burger King, and Subway Brazil operate smarter and more profitably.

Andrés reached out to Federico looking for mentorship. After a PhD and years in academia, he’d jumped into a startup to build real product, but he felt the shift coming. Before joining another company as Head of AI, he called him. It only took one conversation to realize the answer wasn’t a job—it was building with Ronny, his former product partner. A personal tax nightmare close to home sparked the insight: everyone had the same problem. Cenit is building an AI-native platform for SMBs across Latin America to understand and pay their taxes.

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.

'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.

When Federico landed in Buenos Aires, his first stop was the hacker house on Melián Street in Belgrano. There, he met Santiago, and they spoke not only about their vision for the future of technology and artificial intelligence, but also about Santiago’s upbringing, shaped by idols who followed the Silicon Valley playbook. A few hours later, in front of the pirate crew and over a printed copy of Paul Graham’s essay “Mean People Fail,” Federico signed them a term sheet.

“You’ve got to see this. I am delighted by its beauty,” Jimena told Federico after testing the Perhaps Beta. Gonzalo, Ignacio, and Joaquin were Fintual alumni, the referrals showed an exceptional team. Hi Ventures led the pre-seed round along with Bessemer to build the workspace of the future.

‘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.

Roger and Roger booked a spot on Hi Ventures’ office hours site. No warm intro, not a cold email—just the start of a four-year conversation between R2 and Hi. The stars aligned in late 2024, when Hi finally invested and joined the R2 team.

‘You mean Verve Market has the potential of Cornershop making it effortless to get the foods that make you feel your best? ’ - we did not need to wait for Andres' response to that question. At that moment, we knew we needed to be part of this team…

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