CVENTURES PRIMUS
Primus fund started its investment activities in 2013, as a Venture Capital Squad initiative essentially directed for tech based companies in the South region of Brazil. The fund was initially managed by a consortium of two Venture Capital firms: CRP, a traditional Growth/Private Equity player based in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul State), and CVentures, the Venture Capital arm from CERTI Foundation, based in Florianopolis (Santa Catarina State).
Founded in 1984, CERTI Foundation is one of the most referenced R&D institutions in Latin America. With more than 300 employees, most of them highly technified, CERTI offers innovation & entrepreneurial knowledge through consulting projects directed to big corporations, most of them globally recognized. Over the past decades, the Foundation developed a whole set of businesses and facilities regarding the enhancement of an innovative ecosystem in Florianopolis. Indispensable examples comprehend the first Brazilian Incubator (CELTA), the biggest Pre-seed Mentoring Program for Startups in Brazil (Sinapse), the awarded Multi Corporate Accelerator (Darwin Startups), and finally the biggest Technological Park in Latin America (Sapiens Park).
After a partnership agreement with CERTI, CVentures’ team started a new professional journey as executives for Catarina Ventures Squad, inside of Catarina Capital structure. The team remains responsible for all major Primus activities, reporting to high-profile LPs, that include IFC, IDB, CAF, FINEP, FIEP and referenced private investors. Primus has 15 investees, most of them based on SaaS B2B business models, with a bit smaller exposure to Life Sciences and pure-B2C deals. The fund ends its disinvestment period in 2023.