Magma Partners

Investment decisions are led by Managing Partners Nathan Lustig and Diego Philippi, who co-founded the firm in 2014. Both partners are actively involved in sourcing, due diligence, and portfolio support across the firm's Latin American and US-facing vehicles.

Magma relies on a network of in-country operators, accelerators, and prior founders across Chile, Mexico, and Colombia. The firm's US bridge fund also serves as a sourcing mechanism — startups expanding into Latin America often become aware of Magma through the US ecosystem, and the firm's regional presence gives it early visibility into companies bootstrapping outside of major tech hubs.

Magma focuses on pre-seed and seed stages, typically writing initial checks between $50,000 and $1 million. The firm reserves significant capital for follow-on investments through subsequent rounds, maintaining pro-rata in breakout portfolio companies (per public record).

Magma operates at least two distinct vehicles: a core Latin America-focused seed fund targeting Spanish-speaking markets, and a separate US bridge fund that invests in American companies selling into Latin America. This dual structure is central to its cross-border thesis and deal-sourcing advantage.

The firm favors sectors where Latin American economies have structural demand and where US technology models transfer with adaptation: enterprise software, fintech, insurtech, proptech, and agritech. Rather than backing consumer-marketplace plays, Magma gravitates toward B2B companies solving distribution, payments, and logistics inefficiencies across the region.

Unlike US firms making opportunistic Latin American bets, Magma maintains its primary office in Santiago and its investment team lives in-region. This local presence informs underwriting of regulatory, currency, and go-to-market risks that remote investors often miss — a structural advantage the firm highlights when competing for allocations from the best local founders.

Magma reserves follow-on capital for its portfolio and has a track record of maintaining pro-rata positions into Series A and B rounds, based on its own public communications. The firm does not publicly disclose a fixed reserve ratio, but its guidance to founders emphasizes long-term partnership rather than one-off seed checks (per public record).