Kanastra has raised $13 million in Seed funding, said to be one of the largest seed rounds in Latin America of all time.
The funding was led by Valor Capital and Quona Capital. Prominent Fintech VC QED Investors participated as did Actyus, Collaborative, Crestone, Grão, Endeavor, Clocktower, Latitud, and Norte. Kanastra noted that the founders of multiple Latin American companies, such as Creditas, OpenCo, CERC, Guiabolso, Conta Simples and Hasdex, also participated in the round.
Kanastra, launched last year, aims to simplify debt facilities for both originators and investors. The platform is said to streamline services needed to set up, run and invest in debt facilities removing manual processes.
Gustavo Mapeli, co-founder of Kanastra, said the funding will allow them to push into services to operate private credit funds and securitizations on a single platform.
Mapeli previously worked at SoftBank and the Boston Consulting Group.
Co-founder Manuel Netto is formerly of ZX Ventures, and Kardinal, an asset management firm in Brazil where he experienced the challenges that led him to launch Kanastara.
“We encountered all sorts of issues in the industry, from low-quality service with poor communication to non-existent technology, which results in daily errors and limited visibility into fund data. In addition, setting up a debt facility in Brazil involves seeking various mandatory service providers – such as the fund administrator, the custodian, the bookkeeper, the securitization company – in a process that generally takes months,” said Mapeli.
Kanastra encompasses regulatory licenses, along with technology, and extensive data analysis.
Nettos said that the private asset market has seen very fast growth and they aim to provide the product of choice for private assets funds.
