The recent Venture company goals to prove that the most successful ideas for a startup do not have to be born or scale in the Silicon Valley.
Liquid venturesThe global fund at an early stage supports the founders replicates proven business models from Western markets in FinTech, digital health and trade on emerging markets. More cynical can describe this as a clone factory, but the founder and managing partner Alexandre Lazarow He calls the strategy of the “Alfa Geographical” company.
The assumption of Fluent is that many of the most respected startups in the world are not completely recent concepts that have not been tried before, but simply, local adaptations of models that have already been successful elsewhere.
The company based in San Francisco, founded in 2023, implements $ 40 million in a fund, incubator and a structured co -investment vehicle with limited partners. He writes initial checks in the amount of USD 250,000 to 2 million, from pre-seed to series A, and plans to make 22-25 investments, with consequences.
“We are counterattacks in our hearts,” said Lazarov, who previously invested in Omidar Network and Cathay Innovation. “We think that the world’s best innovations are not the sole range of the Silicon Valley.”
The expert does not work exactly in the bubble: in the last decade mass decentralization has been reported in the technology industry. In 2013, only 4 cities produced a unicorn. Today, this number exceeds 150.
And it was on the reverse of rinsing and repetition, and many of the best technological players in emerging markets reflect successful startups that were built elsewhere, akin to Amazon Clones in e-commerce, Stripe clones in payments and Ne-Banking applications in FinTech. Tinkoff from Russia was the first breakthrough Neo-Bank. “This movement scaled globally and [it] He was one of the observations that motivated my investments in the US and Neon Banco in Brazil – said Lazarov.
Lazarow insists not only to repeat easily.
“In our opinion, it rarely works. Local adaptation is crucial,” he said.
The company indicates, for example, driving. Uber could have been a pioneer of the category, but in Indonesia Go-Jek positioned it, including motorcycle taxis and a super application function just like Chinese Wechat. Lazarov claims that now Uber Eats is principally chasing this evolution.
Until this point, the liquid ventures, in addition to finding adapted models, screens for the local product matching of the product market and the alignment of the founder-rose.
While the company has gone globally several construction markets, it supported BRKZ in Saudi Arabia, a positioned approach to Infra. Lazarov noticed that the founder, former director Tsarerem, was a strong operator of the region with a growing demand for infrastructure.
Despite the undeniable fact that he is called a global fund, Lazarov claims that Fluent does not strive for equal allocation in every geography. Instead, he goes deeper in the regions where he sees the biggest potential. At the moment, this implies focusing on Latin America, Mena, Africa, Southeast Asia and selective US markets.
The current portfolio includes MIU, a Mexican employees of employees; Sabi, Nigerian business startup B2B; Prima, industrial market from Brazil; And a bar, an American fusion and acquisition platform for small and medium.
The company claims that these corporations have raised many subsequent rounds since an early Fluenta check. In total, startups from earlier and current Lazarov portfolios generated over $ 30 billion in the value of the enterprise, and seven reached the status of unicorn.
Skeptics still query the starting landscape in emerging markets, perhaps especially since valuations increased in these markets, with more unicorns than ten years ago. However, he sees the shoot building easily. IPO startups, akin to Nubank, Uipath, Swiggy and Talabate Prove that global results may appear outside the USA and Europe – and then, as in the case of Nubank and Uipath, these corporations can proceed to make public in the USA.
“Output markets also ripen in these regions,” notes Lazarow. “New secondary companies are growing. Stock market markets want to build local auction capabilities. Yes, the USA has much more developed IPO markets and mergers and acquisitions. But under the hood some of the largest and most profitable exits are already going outside.”
Fluent also built a different variety of network around the sorts of founders in which it is investing. Over 75 founders of Unicorn and VC back the fund, including David Vélez (Nubank), Nick Nash (SEA Group), Akshay Garg (Kredivo) and Sean Harper (relatives), next to institutional and family LPS from around the world. According to Lazarów, many are lively colleagues, helping portfolio corporations in talents, collecting funds and expansion.
The company is also based on a small group of partners of projects from Zenbusiness, Terminal, Cinemas and Dell, bringing each the depth of the sector and the geographical range.
In a world where Venture capital can think about excessive exposure in the USA and China, Fluent believes that its approach offers LPS something that few corporations can: diversification.
“We think that the best ideas come from any place and scaling everywhere,” says the partner, whose company claims that there is a place in the Kauffman highest shortcut index, due to his previous personal rates in Chime, Zenbusiness and Sidecar Health.
Other global VC about emerging markets focus on ACion Venture Lab, Alter Global, Endeavor Catalyst, Commerish Ventures, Global Ventures, Quona Capital and Speedinvest.