Kaszek, Leading Latin American Venture Firm, Makes First DeFi Investment

Latin American venture firm, Kaszek, has recently dipped its feet into the DeFi space. Kaszek, founded in 2011 by Hernan Kazah and Nicolas Szekasy, is a venture capital firm that invests in high-impact technology-based companies. The firm is industry and stage-agnostic, mainly investing in Seed, Series A, and Series B.

In addition to capital, it provides first-hand expertise and insights in strategy, operational execution, team-building, growth, technology, product, networking, fundraising, and more, according to this Crunchbase company profile. This leading venture firm has a local presence in multiple cities across Latin America and has its headquarters in São Paulo.

Related Reading | Does DeFi Make Ethereum Unforkable? Here Are The Facts

Exactly Enters DeFi Space

Founded in June 2021 by Gabriel Gruber and Lucas Lain, Exactly is a new company. “Exactly is building an open-source, non-custodial protocol on Ethereum that will bring fixed-income solutions for lenders and borrowers. While the short-term focus is to bring fixed income solutions to DeFi, the team’s long-term vision is to connect DeFi to the legacy financial world” according to the company’s website. “By connecting the global credit market to DeFi, traditional players could benefit from a liquid and transparent ecosystem which would benefit consumers, companies, and investors at a global scale.”

Kaszek’s $3 Million Investment in Exactly

Kaszek recently made its first decentralized finance (DeFi) investment, leading a $3 million round in Exactly. Co-founder and Managing Partner of Kaszek, Hernán Kazah, said: “We see a gigantic emerging opportunity in DeFi, which will change the financial landscape in unimaginable ways in the years to come.

We feel very lucky for being able to partner with such a great team that has already shown excellent execution and vision in previous ventures, and in what we believe could be a transformational venture”. He also added that the investment is part of their recently raised funds totaling $1 billion.

Related Reading | Biggest Heist In DeFi? How A Hacker Stole $600 Million From Poly Network

This is the venture firm’s second investment in the crypto ecosystem. In December 2020, the firm co-led with QED a $62 million Series B round in Mexican exchange Bitso and joined a $250 million C round in Bitso in May.

Gabriel Gruber, the CEO of Exactly, also explained according to the company’s blog post, “This funding round will help us continue to build a world-class team. Today we are focused on creating a new type of fixed income protocol with the support of outstanding DeFi & VC investors and the overall Ethereum community. The next challenge would be even more demanding, as we want to connect DeFi with the legacy financial system. To succeed, we need to bring fixed rates and a superb experience to the Alices and Bobs of the world. Currently, we can add value to a few hundred thousand of DeFi users but the world has 8 billion people to serve, and we’re eager to tackle this massive opportunity.”

DeFi market cap recovers after flash crash | Source: Crypto Total DeFi Market Cap on TradingView.com

Other Investors in Exactly

Other investors that joined the round that was led by Kaszek include 6th Man Ventures, Baires DAO, 11–11 DG partners, Newtopia VC, NXTP Ventures, and Sur Ventures. Angel investors such as Esteban Ordano (Decentraland), JP Thieriot (Uphold), Ariel Barmat (The Graph), Matias Woloski (Auth0), and Marcos Galperin (MercadoLibre) also joined the round.

Featured image from CoinDesk, chart from TradingView.com