Fintech is down, Mexico is up, and an island territory is this year's big winner so far.

Each Sunday, paid Latinometrics subscribers get to read through our premium Domingo Brief, which includes a section tracking the most important news in Latin America’s venture capital (VC) sector.

We include this section as a way to keep readers informed with how startups and small enterprises from around the region are securing the funding they need to turn their ideas into tangible, successful products.

While Latin America has yet to recapture the magic of 2021, in which total capital deployment reached $16B, last year nonetheless saw 8% year-over-growth of total funding over 2023. Consistency is also worth highlighting—investors have deployed about $1B in funding each quarter since late 2022.

Bubble chart comparing Latin America's largest VC funding rounds in 2025, showing Mexican firms raised more funding than Brazilian counterparts | Sources: Crunchbase, Latinometrics
LatAm's 30 largest VC funding rounds of 2025 (so far, H1)

Other trends are also raising interest in the region.

For one thing, the second quarter of 2025 (which ended just three weeks ago) saw the first time in 13 years that Mexican firms raised more funding than their Brazilian counterparts.

Led by Klar’s impressive $170M Series C round, which brought the Mexican fintech’s total valuation to $800M, in all the country’s startups secured $437M in the most recent quarter, well above both quarter-one results as well as Brazil’s $350M over the same period.

The strong success of Klar and peers like Ualá aside, though, we can’t help but note that fintech has lost some of its dominance in capital attraction. In 2024, fintech startups attracted about 61% of all VC for the year—looking at this year’s top funding rounds over $1M, that number instead appears to shrink to around 38-39%.

While Mexico has seen the largest success stories this year in total capital deployment, and Brazil remains the home for the most funding rounds by far, it’s a little island territory punching the highest above its weight.

Puerto Rico, with its small population and impressive $31M in funding, is the largest per-capita destination of VC so far this year—no doubt helped by the $13M secured by Olé Life back in January.

Map comparing VC funding per capita across Latin American countries, showing Puerto Rico as the largest per-capita destination | Sources: Crunchbase, Latinometrics
Puerto Rico receives most VC funding per capita in LatAm