Metrics & Success Stories

Two 2024 LATAM deep tech funding totals circulate, US$138m and US$536m, a 4× gap with no reconciliation. Build a KPI framework with agreed definitions so the region can be priced like for like.

The rationale

Investor skepticism about the region rests on missing performance data, and the gap is measurable. McKinsey put deep tech funds at 17% average net IRR against 10% for traditional tech, drawn from 115 deep tech funds and 1,572 traditional funds across 2003 to 2020 vintages. No LATAM equivalent exists. Worse, the region’s headline numbers disagree with each other: this report carries US$138m from Dealroom and US$536m from Sling Hub for the same year, and Brazil’s share of regional deep tech companies reads 40.8% in one mapping and 72.3% in another.

A two-tier framework fixes definitions before it collects anything. A standardized cross-vertical core tracks graduation rates from one round to the next, internal rate of return over defined horizons, and the depth of corporate venture capital participation; the report’s own summary card adds exit multiples and time to market. Sector annexes capture what the core misses: clinical and regulatory milestones in biotech, certification and qualification cycles in hardware, approvals and interconnection timelines in climate and energy. The machinery is governance, working groups of investors, founders and technical experts that agree sources and set collection cadences.

The objection worth taking seriously is that a framework nobody populates is a document. The report demonstrates the failure mode itself: its funnel shows 9% of companies at Series B while the same page says 22 startups, or 10%, and 22 of 2,566 is 0.86%. Three numbers, one metric, one page. The answer is to publish the definitions first, then a small set of fields collected on a fixed cadence by a named owner, and to publish gaps as gaps rather than filling them with the nearest available figure.

The evidence

First moves

1. 0–6 months

   Publish the definitions before the data

   Release a one-page taxonomy note fixing what counts as deep tech, which instruments count as funding (equity only, or equity plus debt and grants), and the company universe, then restate the region’s 2024 total under each definition so the US$138m and US$536m figures become comparable.

   LADP coalition secretariat + LAVCA + Dealroom and Sling Hub as data partners
2. 6–18 months

   Constitute the working groups and fix a cadence

   Stand up three working groups, biotech, hardware, and climate and energy, each of investors, founders and technical experts, each publishing an annex of 6 to 10 fields and committing to two collection dates a year set in advance.

   LADP coalition secretariat + IDB Lab + university research offices
3. 18–36 months

   Publish the first LATAM graduation and IRR series

   Release graduation rates by stage and a LATAM deep tech net IRR series by vintage, with fund counts and coverage disclosed, printed alongside the McKinsey basis so the comparison is explicit rather than implied.

   IDB Lab + LAVCA + national development banks

How we would know it worked

• Funds reporting net IRR by vintage into the regional series, published annually with fund counts, reaching 25 within three years.
• Divergence between the two largest published LATAM deep tech funding totals for the same year, falling below 25% once the taxonomy note is applied.
• Share of the framework’s core fields populated across the mapped company universe, tracked semi-annually, above 70%.
• Days from each collection cut-off to publication, reported per release, under 90.

What could go wrong

Who acts

Rests on

The data behind it