Despite the crisis, this year the investment received by entrepreneurs quintupled

09/15/2021 10:32 AM

• Clarín.com

• Economy

Updated 09/15/2021 10:32 AM

A year and a half after the start of the pandemic, the levels of digital adoption have led the ecosystem of startups dedicated to offering technological solutions to register -

despite the recessive scenario -

significant levels of investment.

During the first semester of the year,

45 entrepreneurial capital and seed transactions

were made 

, for 

US $ 210.7 million

.

That is,

five times more

than what was invested in the same period of the previous year.

The data comes from a study carried out by the Argentine Association of Private Capital, Entrepreneurs and Seeds (ARCAP) and the Microsoft company. 

According to the survey of these data, the items that grew the most in recent months were 

BioTech, FinTech and Enterprise Software

.

They are the ones that lead the ranking of the amount of transactions at the local level.

But in addition,

EdTech and HealthTech

are consolidated with increasing force

as new business trends. 

“The ecosystem continues to grow and, at every step, there are challenges. When the entrepreneur scales, we seek to help him in other challenges:

access to clients and technical specialists

. The objective is to work together with startups, taking advantage of our advantages: global scale, relationships with the investment ecosystem and contributing all the technology, ”explained

Mariano Amartino

, director of Microsoft for Startups Americas.

Meanwhile

Diego González Bravo

, Vice President Venture Capital of ARCAP pointed out that “both in Argentina and in Latin America we are observing

a record in the number of transactions and investment levels in technology startups.

For these entrepreneurs, their regional projection, if not global, is often only possible in the hands of strategic partners such as Microsoft ".

Seed capital

transactions

are operations that generally vary between US $ 25,000 and US $ 1 million

.

It is a round of financing that allows the venture to go on the market and test the response of the clients and, in some cases, expand nationally.

During the first six months of the year, US $ 9.8 million was invested in seed capital,

34% more than the first half of 2020

.

In contrast, venture capital transactions are generally investments

of more than $ 1 million

.

In the first semester, 18 transactions were registered in this segment.

That is, a

63.6% increase compared to the same period of the previous year

and the semester with the most transactions surveyed so far.

Regarding the amounts, since 2016 there has been a trend of sustained growth in the number of entrepreneurial capital transactions (even during 2020, with the outbreak and worsening of the pandemic). However, in these first six months of 2021, US $ 210 million were invested. This shows that it has been

the best first semester to date, 

not only in terms of the number of transactions, but also the amounts invested.

Finally, the Arcap and Microsoft study revealed that, geographically,

66.9% of invested startups are located in CABA

, 12.1% in Córdoba, 6.1% in Santa Fe, 6.1% in Mendoza and 6.1% in the Province of Buenos Aires.

Of the total number of companies, 72.7% offer B2B (corporate) products or services and 27.3% B2C (towards consumers).

NE

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