Lima's ADN.vc closes $2.5M first fund, betting on pre-seed fintech and proptech across Latin America

For a founder in Lima or Bogotá trying to turn a payments idea into a company, the hardest check to cash is the first one. Pre-seed money in Latin America has long been the province of friends, family, and a handful of angel investors who ask for the moon. That is precisely the gap ADN.vc, a Peruvian fund led by Alberto Arrieta and Diego Alfageme, has decided to attack — and it just closed its first fund at US$2.5 million, overshooting its initial US$2 million target.

The fund, backed by more than 60 limited partners spread across Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, the United States, and Europe, plans to deploy that capital into 21 to 24 startups, with an initial ticket of US$50,000 per company. From that pool, ADN will select seven or eight ventures to double down on with up to an additional US$120,000. The focus is narrow by design: fintech and proptech, two sectors where Latin America's structural inefficiencies — from unstable currencies to opaque real estate markets — create outsized opportunities for founders who can build trust and infrastructure from scratch.

ADN's team brings over 15 years of experience in finance, real estate, and investment, and it shows in the portfolio already assembled. Eleven companies across the region make up the current roster, including Kira, Konvex, Finnecto, Yuun AI, Neat Pagos, Lebané, Nufi, Creditrust, Skyblue Analytics, UIN, and Wisecricket. These are not flashy consumer apps; they are plumbing. Stablecoin payments, AI-driven identity verification, ERP and CRM data connectors, and rent-linked loyalty systems all address the kind of back-office pain that quietly strangles small businesses from Mexico to Chile.

The fund reports that its existing portfolio companies have seen an average 65% increase in revenue after receiving ADN's support — a figure that, while self-reported, suggests the hands-on approach is working. This is not a team that parachutes in with a term sheet and disappears. Arrieta and Alfageme have built their careers inside these industries, and they are now embedding themselves deeper into the ecosystem's institutional fabric. Arrieta was recently appointed to the board of the Peruvian Venture Capital Association (PECAP) for the 2026-2028 term, while Alfageme will lead the organization of Peru Tech Week 2026, scheduled for October in Lima, in partnership with PECAP, COFIDE, and Endeavor.

For international observers, the significance here goes beyond a modest fund size. Latin America's venture capital story has been dominated by Mexico and Brazil, the region's two giants, where mega-rounds and unicorns grab headlines. But the real action for wealth creation is increasingly happening in the middle — in countries like Peru, Colombia, Chile, and now Argentina, Ecuador, and Central America, where pre-seed funding remains scarce and founders often die on the vine despite having solid ideas. ADN's willingness to write small checks and then concentrate follow-on capital into a handful of winners is a model that echoes how successful micro-VCs operate in more mature markets, and it signals a maturation of the region's risk appetite.

There is also a geopolitical undertone. With 60 LPs from five countries, ADN is effectively pooling capital from across the hemisphere into a single thesis about Latin America's digital future. That is a bet on regional integration at a time when political turbulence in places like Argentina and Peru might give outsiders pause. The fund's expansion into new geographies, including Ecuador and Central America, suggests that savvy investors see opportunity precisely where others see risk.

As Peru Tech Week approaches and ADN reviews applications from startups eager to join its second cohort, the message is clear: the pre-seed gap in Latin America is closing, but not because of government programs or corporate venture arms. It is closing because operators-turned-investors like Arrieta and Alfageme are willing to put their own reputations — and their LPs' capital — behind founders who are building the region's financial and real estate infrastructure one API at a time. For anyone tracking where South American wealth is heading next, the answer is increasingly in the portfolios of funds like this one, betting on the unglamorous but essential layers of the digital economy.