1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hernan Fernandez of Angel Ventures Mexico (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: A lot of these B2C trends are big in India as well. We cover India extensively. The Indian B2C market is more advanced than Latin America. A lot of these trends are very active trends in India as well.

The commonality across all this is that the consumer logistics part is very broken in most of the emerging markets. There’s a lot of logistics-oriented stuff that needs to get built. Venture is a perfect way to build that. A lot of FinTech doesn’t exist. The financial services sector is very immature.

The healthcare sector is very immature. Even organized retail is very immature and fragmented. All of these are trends. The emerging markets have certain commonalities. The question that I would put to you is, have you studied what is different?

Hernan Fernandez: We did our second trip to Bangalore a couple of months ago. It feels like a playground. The energy there is amazing. You have many of the things that we see prevalent in Latin America. These hacks that Indians have been able to make are something that we are keen on seeing how that develops in Latin America.

You have social commerce companies like Avon Cosmetics. It’s very prevalent in Latin America as well. Indians have adapted towards technology. Cash on delivery is also very common. I like these local hacks that happen in developing economies. India is a very interesting model for Latin America.

Southeast Asia also has some interesting companies. We have seen some amazing companies in Vietnam. We have seen great things also in Indonesia.

Sramana Mitra: I think the difference between India and Latin America is that India has this very deep technology industry because it has served as the back-office of American technology companies and IT of large companies for so long. It developed a huge mass of very tech-savvy people.

That is one of the reasons why the B2B and deep tech of India is also quite well-developed. It’s developing even more. That, I don’t think is true of Latin America. Latin American market is more B2C. There are B2B opportunities, but it’s not as much deep tech. It’s more business models and inefficiencies that are being addressed through venture.

Hernan Fernandez: You’re spot on. Unfortunately, I don’t think Latin America is in deep tech. We don’t have that longstanding tradition that India has had. I would say there are some pockets that we find very promising like Guadalajara in Mexico. Intel and Microsoft is there. I would be very bullish on Guadalajara.

The other thing that I really like is the whole financing thing. When you come to think about it, the top-tiered US VC funds has very few Latin funds. There’re very few Mexicans.

Sramana Mitra: The India-Silicon Valley bridge has been very powerful and it helps a lot. I don’t think the Silicon Valley-Latin America has been as strong. 

Hernan Fernandez: The US proximity is a blessing in disguise. If you’re a Mexican scientist doing deep tech, $350 and 2,000 slides per day and you’re in the US. There are probably 35 daily flights from Silicon Valley to anywhere in Mexico. The connectivity is enormous. It’s just stays there and matures there.

This segment is part 4 in the series : 1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Hernan Fernandez of Angel Ventures Mexico
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