May 18, 2020
DILA Capital during the COVID shutdown
I had been very unenthusiastic about publishing anything since the outbreak of the corona-virus back in February. I don’t know if it was a fear of being disrespectful or an insecurity of publishing something that just wouldn’t be of interest to any reader in these tough times.
However, I have decided to break my publishing silence in order to let people know what we have been doing in DILA Capital these past few months and how our portfolio companies have been reacting to this unprecedented crisis. As always, when I’m insecure, I turn to by business partner, Eduardo Clave, and have therefore co-written this post with him.
We would like to start by saying how extremely proud and impressed we are of the founders we have invested in; it is beyond obvious the hard times that these companies are going through and the very difficult decisions they have taken regarding their business models but most importantly with their teams. These leaders have shown how agile and flexible they are, how quickly they can adapt and how they can work with their teams to create, in record times, new products and services and find revenue in complicated places.
Companies have now seen a full month’s effect of dramatic revenue decrease, and deals have been delayed or canceled. With a very few exceptions, companies have cut most grease, in some cases even muscle and might be forced to cut bone. They are ready and working on weekly and even daily plans to react to this everchanging context.
We are excited on how tight the DILA community is, we continue to receive calls from most LPs asking how they can support our companies and the DILA team. Amongst the portfolio companies, the communication, ideas and best practice sharing is at its peak. They are selling services and products and supporting each other like we have never seen before.
The founders have also understood the importance of supporting the different communities and ecosystems and have created products and services to help different vulnerable players.
With regards to DILA, we have dedicated 100% of our time to supporting our portfolio companies. Specifically, we have spoken to experts in a lot of different industries across the globe to understand their perspectives and expectations, we interviewed hundreds of companies of different sizes to understand what each of them has been doing in their different verticals, and have spoken to fund managers across the globe to better comprehend what their portfolio companies are doing to mitigate risks in these unparalleled circumstances. We have also organized webinars with thought leaders in the financial and healthcare industries. All of this with the idea of sharing best practices and sharing them with our companies.
We are, now more than ever, convinced of the importance of venture capital and the need to support the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our region. We have therefore created (with a group of our colleagues) the Mexican Pledge https://ecosystempledge.com/, where we plan to honor our commitments, not taking advantage of the situation, knowing the importance of venture capital and innovation in these tough environments. While we put our fundraising efforts of DILA IV at rest for a couple of months, in the last couple of weeks, we have received tremendous support from our current and new LPs and have thus decided to reactivate those efforts in order to capitalize the enormous investment opportunities that are coming our way and being able to keep supporting the best founders in the Latin American region.
If you want to be part of this extraordinary opportunity, please contact us alejandro@dilacapital.com.
