Atlantico

Atlantico Research

Investment Thesis

Atlantico is an early-stage venture capital firm founded in 2019 and based in São Paulo, Brazil, that backs "bold founders seeking to define a better future in Latin America and beyond." The firm partners with pre-scale companies that already show early signs of product-market fit, rather than pure pre-product bets. Atlantico's public identity is built around the widely cited "Latin America Digital Transformation Report," an annual data-driven synthesis the firm publishes that frames the region as structurally advantaged for building global technology companies rather than simply catching up to US or European markets. The firm's core belief, reflected in commentary from founder Julio Vasconcellos, is that navigating Brazil's genuinely difficult regulatory, credit, and macro environment builds deeper moats for founders who succeed there, and that those moats translate into stronger relative returns than comparable US benchmarks once a company breaks through.

Sector Focus

Atlantico's portfolio spans several sectors, with the heaviest concentration in Enterprise Applications and FinTech, plus a growing cluster of AI-native companies:

• Enterprise software and vertical SaaS (Trybe)
• FinTech and financial infrastructure (Kanastra, Onze, Robbin)
• InsurTech (180 Seguros)
• HR/payroll tech (Worky)
• Digital health (Pipo Saúde, Genial Care)
• AI-native legal tech (Enter, Latin America's first AI unicorn)
• AI-native conversational commerce (Vambe)
• Aquaculture/agtech (XpertSea)

The firm has clearly leaned into AI-native infrastructure and applied-AI companies in its most recent investments (Enter, Vambe), consistent with its broader thesis that LatAm-built AI companies can compete globally.

Stage Focus

Atlantico primarily invests at Series A, per third-party trackers (roughly half of tracked portfolio rounds), with a meaningful minority at Seed and a smaller number of Series B follow-ons. The firm typically appears as a participant or co-investor alongside larger regional and global funds (Kaszek, Founders Fund, Sequoia, Monashees, Ribbit Capital, Canary) rather than as the sole or primary lead, though it has co-led at least one seed round (Robbin, alongside Canary and Caravela).

Check Size

Exact check sizes are not publicly disclosed. Round sizes the firm has participated in range from roughly $8M (Robbin seed) to over $100M (Enter Series B), with typical Series A rounds in the $14M-$21M range (Vambe, Kanastra) and Series B rounds around $20M-$100M+ (Onze, Enter).

Lead Tendency

Mixed. Atlantico co-led Robbin's $8M seed round alongside Canary and Caravela, but in most of its recent, larger deals (Enter, Vambe, Kanastra, Onze) it appears as a participating investor behind a larger lead (Founders Fund, Monashees, Kaszek, Ribbit Capital respectively).

Recent Activity

Atlantico has been active through 2025 and into 2026:

• May 2026: Participated in Enter's $100M+ Series B (led by Founders Fund), which valued the AI legal-tech company at approximately $1.2B and made it Latin America's first AI unicorn.
• May 2026: Co-led (with Canary and Caravela) an $8M seed round for Robbin, a Brazilian B2B supply-chain finance and BNPL platform.
• December 2025: Participated in Vambe's $14M Series A (led by Monashees), an AI-powered conversational commerce platform expanding from Chile into Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.
• December 2024: Participated in Onze's $20M Series A (led by Ribbit Capital), a corporate pension and financial-wellness platform.
• June 2024: Participated in Kanastra's $21M Series A (led by Kaszek), back-office infrastructure for private credit funds and securitizations.

Portfolio Highlights

Atlantico's most notable portfolio company is Enter, which became Latin America's first AI-native unicorn in 2026 after a Founders Fund-led Series B at a $1.2B valuation, serving enterprise clients including Airbnb, Nubank, Mercado Libre, and LATAM Airlines. Other portfolio companies span fintech infrastructure (Kanastra, Onze), supply-chain finance (Robbin), insurance (180 Seguros), HR tech (Worky), digital health (Pipo Saúde, Genial Care), and agtech (XpertSea). Publicly available sources place the portfolio at roughly a dozen companies, consistent with a concentrated, high-conviction early-stage strategy rather than a spray-and-pray model.

Team

• Julio Vasconcellos - Founder & Partner. Former CEO and founder of Peixe Urbano (scaled to 1,000+ employees, acquired by Baidu); Facebook's inaugural Latin America employee; former EIR at Benchmark; co-founder of Canary and Graph Ventures.
• Ana Martins - Partner. Prior investment banking experience at BTG Pactual; previously invested at Pear VC and Invus Opportunities.
• Victor Ramos - Investor. Former management consultant at Bain & Company; logistics and operations background at Stone; founded a university endowment fund at UFRJ.
• Henrique Baruselli - Investor. Previously an investor at Global Founders Capital; launched country operations and led growth/strategy at Lemon Cash.
• Guilherme Ziegler - Finance & Operations. 15+ years managing fund operations across Signal Capital, Hamilton Lane, and Capital Dynamics.
• Rafael Dahis - Venture Partner (San Francisco).
• Mate Pencz - Venture Partner (São Paulo).
• Hugo Barra - Venture Partner (Palo Alto). Former VP of VR at Facebook/Meta and VP of Android at Google.
• Gui Telles - Venture Partner (São Paulo).
• Marcos Voltolini - Venture Partner (São Paulo).

Decision Process

Atlantico operates as a partnership, led by founder Julio Vasconcellos alongside partner Ana Martins, supported by a broader deal team of investors and a large network of venture partners who contribute sector and operating expertise. This venture-partner model suggests a partnership-style decision process with input from domain specialists rather than a solo-GP or formal investment-committee structure.

Founder Preferences

Given Julio Vasconcellos's own background as an operator who scaled a marketplace business through Brazil's difficult macro and regulatory environment, and the firm's emphasis on "pre-scale companies that show early signs of product-market fit," Atlantico appears to favor technical and operator-founders who have already demonstrated traction and can execute in structurally harder markets, rather than purely idea-stage teams.

Geographic Focus

Primarily Brazil and broader Latin America, with the firm's own language ("Latin America and beyond") signaling openness to founders building for global markets from a LatAm base. The team itself is distributed across São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, and Palo Alto, reflecting a bridge posture between LatAm and Silicon Valley.