Top 5 Marketplace VC Funds &amp; Investors in Costa Rica (October 2026)

Carao was founded in 2012 in San José, Costa Rica and is led by Allan Boruchowicz. It is a pioneering and leading VC firm in Central America, with active investments in startups in the software, biotech, healthtech, fintech, artificial intelligence (AI), construction tech, and other industries. Carao has a distinctive business model specially designed to invest in early-stage venture opportunities in small- and medium-sized countries in LatAm, a market with significant potential but underdeveloped financial resources for high-potential emerging companies. Its differentiated investment approach combines best practices from early-stage VC firms, venture-building, and startup accelerator programs into a value proposition for both promising startups and sophisticated investors with an interest in frontier markets. Carao managed one of the largest and most active angel investor networks in LatAm, the Carao Ventures Investor Club, which was comprised of 40+ members by the end of 2020, predominantly business owners, high-level corporate executives, high net-worth individuals, and family offices from Central America, Colombia, the U.S., Switzerland, and Italy. As of June 2021, Carao launched Carao Ventures Fund I, a $35 million VC vehicle focused on Latin America (the "Fund"). The Fund’s intended geographic focus consists of: (i) primarily, Central America (including Panama), North Andean region (Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador), and the Dominican Republic; (ii) secondarily, investment opportunities in Argentina, Chile, and other small- and medium-sized LatAm countries (except for Brazil); and (iii) lastly, investment opportunities in Mexico or led by founders from the Target Markets in the U.S. shall be considered as Opportunistic Investments.

Investment focus

Industry: Financial Services, FinTech, Software
Stage:Seed, Pre-Seed, Venture - Series Unknown
Geography: United States, Costa Rica, Mexico

Investor stats

Total investments: 89
Round size: Seed $500k–$5.5M; Pre-Seed $30k–$1.5M; Venture - Series Unknown $160k–$10M
Lead/follow: 40% lead, 60% follow
Last fund: May invest from a new fund soon — raised $35M in 2021

Portfolio highlights

Braven — Braven turns every submission into a pre-analyzed, traceable decision, and every book into a live, provable view. Built for MGAs and reinsurers that do their own underwriting.
aviva — Aviva is building an AI-powered digital bank for Latin America’s underserved communities. While determined to fuel Latin America’s ongoing emergence of a new middle class with a fully-fledged portfolio of inclusive financial services, Aviva’s initial go-to-market concentrates on unsecured credit products for individuals and nano-businesses inMexico.As most of the underbanked 40+ million Mexicans live in small and medium-sized towns, Aviva builds a bridge to those living in remote communities with its physical onboarding kiosks. These nano-branches provide a documentless 3-minute video onboarding for everyone in need of liquidity. Novel AI-based technology, including natural language processing, allows Aviva to match customers’ spoken word to the fields of a comprehensive real-time credit application. Transforming speech to text and inferring emotions and personality from the visual layer of the application video gives Aviva an edge in scoring thin-file customers. Leveraging these novel risk models, Aviva aims to provide the lowest interest rates available to today’s underserved.
Crabi — Full stack, digital car insurance

Show all investments...

CARICACO is a startup powerhouse. We support the best entrepreneurs in Central America with capital, mentors and connections. We seek to be the bridge that connects early stage startups with new markets and the best investment funds/accelerators.

Investment focus

Industry: Software, FinTech, Financial Services
Stage:Pre-Seed, Seed
Geography: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Argentina

Investor stats

Total investments: 15
Round size: Seed $2M–$3.4M; Pre-Seed $50k–$7M
Lead/follow: 27% lead, 73% follow

Portfolio highlights

Tumoni — Tumoni is a fintech company that offers digital banking services through free remittances.
Paggo — Providing access to mobile payments for SME's through an app and mPOS that accepts debit and credit cards, create link payments for e-commerce, will come with a historical sales dashboard and financial ratios
Ábaco — Ábaco is a fintech company that offers financial services with capital, payments & platform solutions.

Show all investments...

Founded in 2011, NXTP was one of the early investors in B2B unicorns in Latin America, such as Nuvemshop, Mural, Auth0, Frete.com, and Betterfly. Based across offices in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, and Argentina, NXTP invests checks ranging from $500,000 to $5 million in startups at pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages. NXTP principally supports founders in four B2B verticals: Cloud & SaaS, FinTech, E-Commerce Enablers, and B2B Marketplaces. The fund has backed more than 130 startups, raising over $2 billion in additional capital, and has co-invested alongside funds such as a16z, Greylock, Tiger Global, and Greenoaks. It boasts a portfolio of 6 unicorns and 32 exits. NXTP has a Latin American network not only to identify the region’s best entrepreneurs but also to help them expand their operations to other countries. NXTP's main goal is to help companies move to the next level, demonstrate a viable and scalable business, and be part of that growth process. NXTP has over 400 experts to assist companies in addressing operational challenges in different segments.

Investment focus

Industry: E-Commerce, Software, Information Technology
Stage:Seed, Series A, Venture - Series Unknown
Geography: United States, Argentina, Brazil

Investor stats

Total investments: 200
Round size: Seed $25k–$3.9M; Series A $988k–$20M; Venture - Series Unknown $25k–$23M
Lead/follow: 11% lead, 89% follow
Last fund: Likely still investing — raised $98M in 2023

Portfolio highlights

Sharpi — Sharpi offers an AI solution that automates B2B order entry by converting customer messages into structured ERP orders.
Properati — Properati is an online and mobile property platform for the real estate market. The company offers buyers, users, agile, free of ads, banners website, and tenants or real estate investors with a quick, designed for them to be able to communicate effectively with the offeror who has what they are looking for.Properati has an office in Sao Paulo,Brazil, and was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Distrito Federal, Argentina.
Nuvia — Nuvia is an artificial Intelligence automation platform that helps with sales process, lead generation and hyper-personalized conversions

Show all investments...

We fund mission-driven startups to boost their potential for success in both venture markets and broader societal impact.

Investment focus

Industry: Pet, Education, Health Care
Stage:Seed, Pre-Seed, Venture - Series Unknown
Geography: United States, United Kingdom, Canada

Investor stats

Total investments: 69
Round size: Seed $100k–$3M; Pre-Seed $100k–$700k; Venture - Series Unknown $200k–$6M
Lead/follow: 1% lead, 99% follow

Portfolio highlights

Folio.works — Hire the most creative, digitally native generation from top best universities - hourly or per project. Pitch decks, promo videos, financial models & more.Your extended team of emerging professionals delivering what you need, when you need it most.
VetVerifi — VetVerifi | Verified Vaccination Records for Pet Care
BorrowMyDoggy — Connecting dog owners & local dog borrowers for walks, weekends and holidays.

Show all investments...