One of the most iconic characters in Greek mythology is Daedalus (Dédalo in Castilian), son of Eupálamo and Alcipe, a skilled architect and craftsman, and known for having designed the labyrinth of Crete, a sophisticated construction to hide the minotaur, a monster -half man, half bull- that devoured humans in the city of Knossos. Product of all his creations, Daedalus represents three fundamental elements for ancient Greece: wisdom, knowledge and power.
Precisely these three elements caught the attention of Christopher Pinera Morel, UDP psychologist and youngest son of former President Sebastián Piñera, to open his new venture capital office. He named it Daedalus Ventures, it officially began operating in July and is focused on investing in technology companies that contribute to the development of Latin America.
However, the origins of the office go back before: Daedalus Ventures GP, LLC, was incorporated in Delaware on March 15 of this year. Last week they did the registration procedures for their first fund (Daedalus I Fund) before the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In said document, it is established that the fund is approximately US$ 20 million and that it already has six investors. However, a knowledgeable source says that they already have 10 contributors between entrepreneurs, family offices and institutions.
Your only partner in this new project is Juan Turner, Lawyer and personal friend of the son of the exmandatario and who today acts as managing partner of the fund.
Turner -former partner of the law firm Grasty, Quintana, Majlis & Compañía- was, for example, the one who accompanied Cristóbal Piñera on the questionable presidential tour in Asia, in 2019, along with his brother Sebastián, where they participated as listeners in a series of conferences regarding technology and business. A close affirms that Turner would have left his job at the law firm in April of this year to dedicate himself to this business.
Daedalus also has a number of external advisors, including Federico Müller, a partner at Eleusis, a Chilean cryptocurrency investment company. They also receive advice from other entrepreneurs and professionals from different industries.
The backdrop for Daedalus Ventures is Ancient Greece. On the website are Athenian ruins that complement the name of the company, and a manifesto with its corporate philosophy: “We are looking for extraordinary teams of entrepreneurs with a global vision and a burning passion.”
Cristóbal Piñera’s new venture capital fund It will be focused on betting on Latin American startups that want to internationalize their businesses. But neither are they closed to the possibility of betting on global companies that have specific expansion projects for the region.
The top industries they watch closely are fintech, software as a service, e-commerce, marketplace, and enterprise software.
Daedalus also offers three types of tickets: they will participate in the Seed rounds (with investments between US$100,000 and US$1 million), Series A (US$1 million and US$3 million) and Series B (US$1 million and US$5 million).
They also have alliances with a series of venture capital offices to carry out co-investments. That is the case of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most prestigious VCs in the world, and F2, an Israeli venture capital office that has invested in companies such as eToro, PrimeSense and Monday.com.
So far, according to its website, Daedalus Ventures has invested in two companies: Justt and AnyRoad.
With Justt, an Israeli fintech that cares regarding returning payments in an automated way, they participated in its recent capital increase of US$70 million.
In the case of AnyRoad -a software originally from California that allows global brands to properly measure, scale and implement their offline and online experiences- they were part of their Series B, a round in which they raised US$47 million from funds such as BlackRock, Andreessen Horowitz, Precursor Ventures and Runa Capital.
They launched their website in July, and they already have a box enabled so that startups can contact them: they ask them regarding the stage they are in, and ask for a brief description and details regarding the team. They can also upload their “deck”, a presentation that summarizes the company’s business model.
Cristóbal Piñera also has his agenda open so that entrepreneurs can schedule a 30 or 60-minute Zoom meeting to publicize their business.
Although the idea materialized this month, Piñera and Turner’s project has been brewing for some time. Both were concerned with studying the international venture capital market, generating alliances and speaking with potential investors before officially launching the fund.
One source says that Piñera will be concerned with assessing the viability of business models, while Turner will focus on M&A and financing processes.
Yes ok they have raised $20 milliona close source affirms that it is still “an open process” and that they will continue “raising until December of this year or until reaching the target size of US$ 35 million”.
Apart from Justt and AnyRoad, Daedalus Ventures has already invested in two other companies, which they have not disclosed yet. The idea is to close the fund with 14 or 16 startups in the portfolio.
This fund, someone knowledgeable clarifies, is an independent project from Inversiones Odisea. In other words, it is not a venture capital subsidiary of the Piñera-Morel family office. However, according to the same Daedalus Ventures website, it is specified that they will make co-investments with the family investment office.
“Inversiones Odisea establishes long-term relationships of trust with the best managers in each category. This allows us to have access to opportunities from the best VCs in the world. We leverage these relationships with a detailed due diligence process to select the best opportunities, always with Latam on the horizon”, they specify.
Cristóbal Piñera Morel -tech fanatic and MBA from MIT- has extensive experience in the world of the startups. He worked in the innovation departments of Fundación Chile and País Digital, in addition to being, for just over a year, head of Innovation at Cencosud.
In addition, he was in charge of the venture capital operations of Inversiones Odisea for three years, where he acquired much of the knowledge regarding the venture capital industry. According to his LinkedIn, he left that role in June 2022 to dedicate himself to Daedalus. In parallel, he is also part of the F2 advisory board.
He was also an entrepreneur: in 2011, together with José Tomás Daire and Andrés Godoy, he founded the technological solutions company Hop.in, which completed a series of deals with public organizations, such as the Labor Department, SII, Servel, Junaeb and Sernac. This information was made public in 2019 while his father was in office, forcing him to sell his shareholding. However, Piñera had not been actively involved in the company since 2015.
Are Piñera and Turner worried that the recession in the United States and the political uncertainty in Chile might negatively affect their new business? It seems not.
“We went out to raise capital in the midst of this new context, (but) our thesis continues to be that there is a lot of potential for innovation in Latin America and the world and that beyond the economic cycles of the moment, there will continue to be startups that build tremendous social and economic value”, says Cristóbal Piñera to DF MAS.
Daedalus Ventures is not the only new project being prepared by a member of the second generation of the Piñera-Morel family. At the end of June, DF MAS reported that Sebastián Jr. broke into the startup world with Skyland, a proptech with artificial intelligence that promises to be six times more efficient than a traditional broker. In addition, this same medium published that the daughters of the former president (Magdalena and Cecilia) prepare a new foundation (FPM) that seeks to help and support children in vulnerable situations and with educational challenges.