Venture Capital in Argentina

Introduction

Venture-capital Venture capital in Argentina, particularly at an early stage, requires an active participation in the running of portfolio companies. One can argue that VCs practically play the role of entrepreneurs. In other words, there is no room for “dumb money”. Venture capital, for various reasons outside the scope of this piece, has to be “smart” i.e. has to be complemented with experienced management and has to have a wide network of contacts.

Modena’s investment

Modena Technologies Capital Partners is an early stage venture capital fund based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This case study describes Modena’s investment in a software factory called Patagonia Technologies. Starting from scratch, the Modena fund grew the factory from a 100 square foot office with a 5 person team to a 1500 square foot office filled with 300 software engineers in merely three years.

Keys to success

This exponential growth was fueled by two factors.

The first one being Modena’s active networking. This resulted in big local clients such as -Telecom Argentina, Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Metrogas contracting with Patagonia.

The second reason for growth can be found in the strategy that Modena applied to enhance the company’s development. Said strategy consisted in promoting synergy between Patagonia and other portfolio companies. For that purpose Modena obtained the representation of the CIO magazine and invested in Agentis Software.

As mentioned previously, the fund brought the CIO magazine to Latin America. This magazine was a direct way to reach the 1500 plus Chief Information Officers operating in Argentina and Chile. Needless to say the magazine brought in a lot of business to Patagonia Technologies.

After U.S. based multinational Agentis Software awarded a contract for software development to Patagonia, Modena’s CEO, Omar Arab, convinced the American company to open a subsidiary in Buenos Aires. This subsidiary started its operations in 2005 and served the Latin and Central American markets. It grew from 10 to 100 employees in just a couple of years. To the outside world, Patagonia and Agentis were two different companies but from the inside they were intrinsically linked, the former selling its business solutions to the latter.

Modena TCP successfully exited these investments in 2007. Patagonia was sold to a local investor for USD3 million and Modena’s stake in Agentis was bought by some minority shareholders of the company.

This case study shows the need for a hybrid nature in venture capitalists in Argent.....




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