Bicycle Capital – a new growth equity firm focused on Latin America – has announced the launch of its first fund Bicycle I with initial commitments of approximately US$440 million, targeting a total fund size of US$500 million. The firm will be led by Marcelo Claure as Executive Chairman and Managing Partner alongside Mwashuma (Shu) Nyatta as Managing Partner.
Marcelo Claure is the Founder & CEO of Claure Group, which is a multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. And he has made a commitment to focus his time, capital, and expertise on Latin America over the next several years.
As part of the commitment, in January 2023 Claure invested US$100 million in SHEIN, a leading, global on-demand fashion company, where he now serves as Chairman of Latin America. And he is well known in Latin America generally and to founders in the region, having built Brightstar from a small distributor to the world’s largest global wireless distribution and services company. Plus Claure led the turnaround of US wireless telecommunications company Sprint and helped orchestrate its US$195 billion merger with T-Mobile, creating what is now the most valuable telecommunications company in the world with a market cap of nearly US$200 billion. Claure is also the former CEO of SoftBank Group International where he launched SoftBank’s $8 billion Latin America Funds.
Shu Nyatta was a Managing Partner at SoftBank Group International where he (under the leadership of Claure) was a co-founder of SoftBank’s Latin America Funds as well as the SB Opportunity Fund for under-represented founders in the US. Before that, Nyatta was a Partner at SoftBank’s Vision Fund and a founding member of SoftBank’s growth investment team in San Francisco, starting in 2015. While working at SoftBank, Shu invested in a broad range of industries and geographies, from semiconductors, AI, and genomics in the US and Europe to marketplaces and fintechs in China, India, and Latin America. Shu was previously an investment banker with JPMorgan and a consultant with McKinsey & Company.
Bicycle I is being anchored by Mubadala Investment Company, an Abu Dhabi-based sovereign investor, and Claure Group, Marcelo Claure’s family office. And additional capital commitments for the initial closing come from prominent global tech investors and founders.
Bicycle’s goal is to partner very selectively with the best founders in the region, helping them scale their startups into resilient and valuable companies. And beyond the capital, Bicycle will seek to work hand-in-hand with founders, sharing extensive experience gained from operating, scaling, transforming, and exiting companies across geographies and industries. Plus Bicycle will provide access to a global network of mentors, talent, and commercial partners. Although Bicycle is focused primarily on founders in Latin America, the fund may also invest opportunistically in leading global growth-stage companies with meaningful business in Latin America.
Bicycle Capital is representing a significant bet on Latin America, in particular Brazil and Mexico. And the new firm is founded on the conviction that Latin America is home to exceptional founders who are addressing large and attractive markets yet lack the reliable capital needed to achieve durable scale. This thesis was reinforced by the team’s 4 years of experience working with startups across the region, during which time annual venture capital invested in Latin America initially increased from $3 billion in 2018 to a high of $16 billion in 2021, but then collapsed back down to less than $1 billion per quarter in 2023.
This spike in capital attracted global talent and sparked bold new ideas, thus resulting in more early-stage companies being created in Latin America than ever before. But even in booming 2021, venture capital funding was only 0.3% of GDP in Latin America, compared to 0.7% in China, 1.1% in India and 1.5% in the United States5. As capital has been drying up after the 2021 peak, many startups have been left stranded, especially at Series B and beyond. Bicycle’s strategy is to partner with a select number of these growth-stage companies, at fair prices, and help them scale into resilient, world-class businesses.
KEY QUOTES:
“This fund will be the cornerstone of my commitment to and focus on Latin America. Latin America has a unique combination of excellent founders, a digitally savvy population, and more opportunities than capital. Through Bicycle Capital, I am looking forward to deploying not only capital but also my experience and connections to positively alter the trajectory of exceptional companies in the region.”
— Marcelo Claure
“The combination of talented founders and committed capital is a proven recipe for building great companies, but capital tends to be unevenly distributed. We get particularly energized when we find exceptional founders solving big problems in places that have been largely ignored by big pools of global capital, like Latin America. We believe these rare situations create the potential for outsized returns.”
— Shu Nyatta
“We are excited to anchor Bicycle Capital’s first Latin America-focused fund. The startup ecosystem in Latin America is rapidly evolving, and we believe that there is significant potential to create value by supporting exceptional companies and founders in scaling their businesses. Mubadala has been investing in Brazil for more than a decade, and we look forward to broadening our exposure across the region through this partnership.”
— Faris Sohail Al Mazrui, Head of Ventures and Growth at Mubadala
