Colombia begins 2022 with an investment of 206 million dollars in the startup sector. UBITS, an online corporate training company, raised a Series B financing round for $ 25 million.
This is the second investment in the week between startups in the South American country, after Tül, who is dedicated to digitization of the supply chain of the construction industry, received 181 million dollars.
The UBITS B series was led by the Riverwood Capital fund, which has in its portfolio other companies in the education technology sector (edtech), such as Degreed and Digital House.
Tulle also received a series B from Avenir Growth Capital and 8VC; In addition to having investors such as Monashees, Lightrock, Coatue, Tiger Global, SoftBank, Foundamental, Vine, Marathon Labs and H20, who have led the company to be valued at 800 million dollars.
The Colombian market for startups starts 2022 with these investments after it had also set lifting records in 2021, with more than 1.3 billion dollars raised through August, which places it after the Brazilian and Mexican markets in Latin America, according to information from the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America (LAVCA).
Both Tül and UBITS have a strong presence in Mexico: 40% of UBITS workers are Mexican and Tül has two distribution centers, one of which, located in Tlalnepantla, State of Mexico, is the largest in Latin America. with 12,000 square meters. In 2022, Tül plans to allocate 23 million dollars to expand its presence in the country, which currently covers the Valley of Mexico and the Guadalajara metropolitan area to reach Puebla and Toluca; in addition to opening a second logistics center in Iztapalapa.
In the case of UBITSIn addition to expanding its offer of online courses from 750 to more than 2,000, the platform plans to use the resources obtained from the investment to open operations in Spain, thereby expanding the number of countries in which it operates, which currently includes Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala and Panama.
Among the companies that have seen these startups Colombian as allies within their productive chains are Cemex, Mexalit, Arcelormittal Sicartsa, Urrea and Santul, in the case of Tül, and Adecco, Alsea, Grupo Bal, Grupo Uifin, Linio, Free market and Sodexo, in the case of UBITS. Even both companies also have a business relationship. The almost 10,000 hardware stores that Tül serves are trained online through the UBITS platform.
“I believe that whatever is investment for these companies in the region contributes to the development of the same countries,” said Martha Forero, operational director and co-founder of UBITS.
