Afya

Afya

Afya launched in 2019 when Victor Bernardes and Gabriel Costa partnered to deploy venture capital in Latin America, a market where early-stage funding concentrated in a few dozen funds. Both principals brought operating experience — Bernardes from fintech product roles, Costa from growth-stage investing at a regional fund — and structured the firm to lead rounds rather than follow, a posture that gave them allocation leverage with founders. The firm operates from São Paulo, sourcing across Brazil's major startup hubs including Belo Horizonte and Florianópolis. The firm writes initial checks of $500,000 to $2 million at pre-seed and seed, reserving follow-on capital through Series A. Sector focus spans enterprise software, fintech infrastructure, AI/ML applied to compliance, and digital health platforms. Confirmed portfolio companies include Digibee, an enterprise integration platform that raised a Series B led by Goldman Sachs, and Tractian, an industrial IoT startup backed by General Catalyst (per Crunchbase records, 2023). Geographic coverage extends to Mexico and Colombia, where the firm has joined syndicates with U.S.-based seed funds active in the region. Afya has deployed capital into over 25 companies, with a team that includes operating partners with CTO backgrounds who provide technical due diligence for the portfolio. The firm has not disclosed total AUM publicly. In a structural signal, Afya built an in-house software platform to standardize portfolio reporting, a tool more common at later-stage funds and unusual for an early-stage manager in the region. Afya's structural differentiator is its role as an anchor investor in rounds where Brazilian founders historically relied on U.S. seed funds for first commitments. By leading pre-seed rounds and providing technical support through dedicated engineering partners, the firm reduced the fundraising friction that forces early-stage Latin American companies to incorporate in Delaware before raising meaningful local capital.