The VC Firm That Helped Build Latin America’s Startup Scene Is Crossing Into Silicon Valley
figure — monashees, one of Latin America’s oldest and most influential VC firms, believes the next phase of the region’s startup ecosystem requires a permanent Silicon Valley presence. The firm, which was founded more than two decades ago in São Paulo, last year opened a San Francisco office to connect LatAm’s startup entrepreneurs with the money and AI research coursing through the Bay Area.
Fabiola Quinzaños, a partner in Monashees Silicon Valley office. (Courtesy photo) We spoke with Fabiola Quinzaños to talk through the firm’s evolution and how it is meeting this AI moment. She is a partner at the firm who relocated to Silicon Valley from Mexico City. When the firm was founded in 2005, Brazil didn’t yet have a startup ecosystem — there was no network of founders, no LPs backing VC firms based there, and no follow-on investors. That has changed drastically in the couple of decades since, with the country emerging as LatAm’s startup powerhouse and a place where U.S. investors and tech giants are increasingly courting business. Brazil is an exceptionally digitally savvy market. It is the highest-volume market for Uber and the third-largest by visitor share for ChatGPT. Its real-time payment rail Pix, created by the Central Bank of Brazil, was rolled out in 2020 and is used by more than 90% of adults in the country. Latin America has also become an important market for U.S. AI labs and technology companies. Monashees recently announced a partnership with Google called the Gama Fund in which the two companies co-invest up to $2 million in AI-native and deep tech pre-seed or seed-stage startups in Brazil. Its first summit is planned for later this year in San Francisco, where it will gather Latin American startup founders building businesses with AI. Monashees makes around eight to 10 new investments per year and is finalizing the deployment of its $370 million fund into roughly 35 companies. The firm opened an office in Mexico City in 2022 and in September 2025 set up an office in San Francisco.
