Leading Latin American Venture Firm Kaszek Makes First DeFi Investment

The fund led a $3 million investment in Exactly, a startup building a decentralized credit protocol.

By Andrés Engler

Aug 12, 2021 at 9:04 p.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 1:39 p.m. UTC

Hernán Kazak and Nicolas Szekasy, co-founders and managing partners of Kaszek.

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Kaszek, a leading Latin American venture capital fund, made its first decentralized finance (DeFi) investment, leading a $3 million round in Exactly, a startup that is building an open-source, non-custodial credit protocol on the Ethereum platform.

“We see a gigantic emerging opportunity in DeFi, which will change the financial landscape in unimaginable ways in the years to come,” Hernán Kazah, Kaszek’s co-founder and managing partner, said in a statement, adding that the investment is part of two recently raised funds totaling $1 billion.
This is Kaszek's second investment in the crypto ecosystem. In December 2020, the firm co-led with QED a $62 million Series B round in Mexican exchange Bitso and joined a $250 million C round in Bitso in May.
Exactly CEO Gabriel Gruber told CoinDesk the firm will use the funds to build the protocol and team, which includes hiring smart contract engineers.
Exactly's platform will enable lenders and borrowers to access fixed income solutions as a first step, and longer term, help connect DeFi to traditional financial institutions, according to Gruber.
In addition to Kaszek, the round also included 6th Man Ventures, Maker Growth, Baires DAO, 11–11 DG Partners, Newtopia VC, NXTP Ventures and Sur Ventures.
Marcos Galperin, the founder of Latin America’s largest online marketplace, Mercado Libre, participated as an angel investor along with Uphold CEO JP Thieriot and Auth0 CTO and co-founder Matias Woloski, among others.

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