The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has provided seed financing for Costa Rican venture capital firm, Carao Ventures in delivering on its mission is to foster innovative startups in the Andean region.

The IDB is providing US$35 million to Carao Ventures, which will use the cash on hand to go hunting for prospective young enterprises in Costa Rica and its neighbouring South American countries of Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has also contributed to the funds going to Carao.

In a press release announcing the funding from both the IDB and the IFC, co-founder of Carao Ventures, Allan Boruchowicz says the company will “amplify our ability to channel capital and other valuable resources to a region that has outstanding startup potential but that has been historically neglected by venture capital.” 

 “Our mission is to provide the most talented and committed entrepreneurs in the small and medium markets in Latin America, access to the necessary resources and opportunities to create valuable companies from and for the region,” Boruchowicz continued.

Boruchowicz had just left his job at Mesoamérica Investments when he teamed up with his colleague Adrián García to launch Carao in 2012. It made headlines in 2018 when it picked up a majority stake in a Costa Rican startup GoPato, a mobile app that helps users to find out their lost keys as well as their favorite food and supermarkets nearby.

Among the start-ups, that the venture capital firm has made its investments include cloud software developers Slidebean and Junar. Other start-ups it sunk money into are Leaf, AerialRobotics, GoPass, Klap, Quenti Technologies and Artificial Intelligence firm, Singularities.