Snapshot: Latin America's potential new unicorns

The pandemic years of 2020-22 led to a surge in startups in Latin America, which prompted a funding boom.

Several companies took advantage of that frenzy to launch IPOs on local and US stock exchanges, such as the Nasdaq. And some saw their market value skyrocket to over US$1bn, becoming unicorns.

Since then, however, this easy money scenario has gone into reverse. The IPO window closed and investments have settled at more rational and less speculative levels.

Despite this, rounds of capital contributions continue to come and new unicorns may soon emerge in Latin America with companies developing solutions with AI and financial services, among others.

The Distrito Platform, which specializes in AI and innovation in Latin America, tracked 12 startups that are closest to reaching a valuation of over US$1bn, which could happen in the coming months.

According to the 'Unicorn Race' report, Brazil leads the list with nine such startups.

The full survey includes 78 startups that have the potential to reach unicorn status in the coming years.

According to Distrito, the region currently has 46 unicorns.

The candidates

Among the 12 startups that are closest to unicorn status, those from the fintech sector dominate.

Among these are Brazil's Stark Bank and Omie and Argentina's Pomelo and RecargaPay.

Next on Distrito's list are two martechs, or startups focused on marketing solutions and applications – Brazil's Blip and CRM&Bonus.

Artificial intelligence has already become a vector for attracting investment. According to Distrito, Brazilian startups related to AI received US$868mn in 120 rounds last year.

Name	Country	Sector	Last round	Equity raised (in US$)
Stark Bank	Brazil	fintech	Series B	60,325,497
Pomelo	Argentina	fintech	Series B	110,000,000
RecargaPay	Argentina	fintech	Series C	108,600,000
Omie	Brazil	fintech	Series C	136,743,255
Celcoin	Brazil	fintech	Series D	162,407,991
Kueski	Mexico	fintech	Series D	137,800,000
Flash	Brazil	HRtech	Series C	132,254,832
Tractian	Brazil	IoT in industry	Series B	65,732,064
Blip	Brazil	martech	Series B	170,570,175
CRM&Bonus	Brazil	martech	Series B	135,141,528
Mottu	Brazil	mobility	Series C	110,411,704
Petlove	Brazil	pets	Series C	221,989,716

The path ahead

The 12 startups with the greatest potential to become unicorns received US$1.3bn in 55 rounds between 2014 and 2024, according to Distrito. About half of that amount was in 2021.

In the broader list of 78 candidates, the investments were US$7.6bn in 295 deals in the period ranging from 2017 to January 2025.

The report points out that it is much harder for a startup to become a unicorn today. 

Since 2022, Distrito says, there has been a drastic drop in investments due to an adverse macroeconomic scenario, with higher interest rates worldwide to contain inflation. As a result, investors have become more selective. 

“Accelerated growth at any cost left the scene to give room to adopting models that allow for the financial and operational sustainability of businesses,” Gustavo Gierun, CEO and co-founder of Distrito, said in a statement.

In the case of Brazil, the weakening of the real against the dollar is another factor that weighs on reaching a valuation of US$1bn, since a good part of the startups' revenues are in local currency.

The full study can be seen here.