South Ventures

South Ventures is a Florida-based online investment platform founded in January 2013 by Federico Tessore and Sebastian Ortega that enables Latin American investors to participate in early- and growth-stage global startups, with a particular focus on Argentina and Spanish-speaking Latin America. Operating out of Key Biscayne and Miami, the platform serves clients in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, and the United States, and claims more than 7,000 active investors. Tessore, an Argentine entrepreneur educated at NYU and IAE Business School, also founded Inversor Global; Ortega serves as CEO and co-founded Club Inversores Angeles IG. Since 2014 South Ventures has launched three venture capital vehicles and reports average annual returns of approximately 25%, with roughly a quarter of its portfolio scaling from $3 million to $100 million in valuation within five years. Deployment splits into a seed fund writing approximately $50,000 tickets and an early-stage fund writing $200,000 to $300,000 tickets, with aggregate deployed capital of approximately $8 million across about 30 startups. The disclosed portfolio comprises 24 companies including one unicorn, with coverage across consumer, retail, enterprise SaaS, blockchain and fintech, and media. A notable holding is Ripio, the Argentine crypto payments pioneer founded in 2013. The most recent disclosed investment is into Bublish, a B2B media and information services company, in June 2023. South Ventures' distinctive value is its community model: by aggregating thousands of LatAm retail investors alongside institutional capital, the platform provides early-stage founders with access to a commercially engaged investor base that can open doors in the Spanish-speaking markets where most established US VCs lack authentic relationships.