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PRIMUS FUND
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.
CURRENT PORTFOLIO
ASAAS
FOUNDERS
Piero Contezini
Diego Contezini
Technology platform that provides an automated customer engagement and payment solution for small and medium businesses. Asaas provides a B2BC solution for issuing invoices and controlling payments via bank slip, credit or debit card, in addition to enabling the prepayment of receivables, invoices issued by the government (NFe), bill payments and prepaid credit card.
EXITS
HIPER
FOUNDERS
Thiago Vailati
Marcos Fischer
Marinho Silva
Technology company that provides a point of sale information system for medium and small retail solutions. Founded in 2012, the company develops a sales and POS system that allows for high productivity, compliance, product inventory monitoring and financial control. Company sold to the Linx Group in 2019.
CATARINA VENTURES II
Catarina Ventures II was born with the premise of engaging and stimulating the potential of the ecosystem in the southern region of the country, based on a Venture Capital investment strategy. The vehicle is managed by Catarina Capital, which is headquartered in Florianópolis/SC.
The fund has a dedicated team, with years of working together, successful results, emblematic cases for the region and Latin America, with a transversal and hands-on operation. Our investment thesis is focused on the ecosystems of the three states – Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul – with some target sectors, namely Adtech and Retail Tech, Healthtech, Fintech, Smart Infra and SaaS.
Catarina Ventures is driven by the generation of value that is present in all stages of fund management, from origination to divestments. The DNA of the house is rooted in the local ecosystem, which allows us to have an organic relationship with entrepreneurs and startups. The vehicle also reflects the entire tech expertise of the house, with a proprietary multisectoral analysis methodology in various asset classes.