Just like in the venture capital industry, a large portion of corporate venture capital (CVC) funds are still experiencing a hangover after the wave of funding rounds and investments seen during the pandemic. But there are those who are bucking this trend and increasing their investment in this area.
Vivo Ventures is following this path. Vivo 's CVC (Credit, Value, and Investment) announced this Monday, December 15th, the expansion of its fund with an investment of R$ 150 million, bringing the total allocated to this area to R$ 470 million.
Vivo accounted for 98% of the new check, while the remaining 2% was contributed by Telefónica Open Innovation, the innovation and startup networking arm of the Spanish company Telefónica, which controls the Brazilian operator.
“We’ve already allocated a good portion of our original capital,” Rodrigo Gruner, vice president of innovation and new business at Vivo, tells NeoFeed . “And today, the market may not have the volume of opportunities it had before, but when they appear, we need to have the resources to enter.”
At this point, he emphasizes that, in a less active market with low liquidity, Vivo Ventures has been able to close good deals precisely because CVC has capital available to take advantage of these opportunities.
Operating since 2022, Vivo Ventures has already allocated R$ 230 million of the R$ 320 million initially earmarked for the fund. The remaining balance includes areas such as operating costs and a reserve of 20% to 30% for follow-on offerings in portfolio investments.
Today, this range includes 12 startups. Among them are names like Agrolend , a fintech focused on agribusiness; Asaas , which offers financial products and services for small and medium-sized enterprises; Klubi , which offers digital consortia; Klavi , which focuses on open finance; the healthtech company Conexa ; and Digibee , a technology startup.
One issue, in particular, underpins the thesis behind this portfolio: the connection and synergies of these startups with the digital services ecosystem – from B2C to B2B – that Vivo began building a few years ago, as part of its search for new businesses and revenues beyond its core telecommunications business.
In this context, unlike Wayra, Vivo's fund focused on early-stage companies, Vivo Ventures invests in companies that already have more traction, with investments that, on average, range from R$ 5 million to R$ 25 million. And in segments such as financial services, health, education, and entertainment.
Now, with the R$150 million invested, Vivo's CVC is also expanding the boundaries of this thesis to accommodate a new pillar, which, in turn, has been the guiding principle for a large part of the investments in startups today, both in Brazil and on a global scale.
“A portion of these resources will be reserved for emerging artificial intelligence theses,” says Gruner. As a reflection of this new component, he notes that a portion of the checks to be signed may come in below the amount that CVC usually invests.
“Many artificial intelligence companies are emerging. So, we need to make a greater number of bets, because it’s still too early to know which ones will move forward,” he says. “We’re going to look at this topic at the application level and, naturally, at what might be related to Vivo.”
In this regard, Gruner points out that these artificial intelligence applications can be related both to offers at the consumer end and to resources to be used internally by the operator.
Working together, indoors.
This approach is already being adopted in connections between CVC's invested startups and Vivo. In many of these cases, the operator builds offers jointly with these companies. At the same time, the group has already been adopting some of the products and services developed by them in-house.
“We are having great success in connecting these companies with the Vivo ecosystem,” says Gruner. “And, to our surprise, not only in line with our initial thesis, but also with the group's core business.”
One of the startups navigating these two approaches is Conexa. The healthtech company offers telemedicine services through Vale Saúde, Vivo's health benefits platform. And, recently, it became the name behind an internal initiative launched by the operator: Hospital Púrpura.
With the goal of complementing the health plan and wellness programs offered by Vivo, the project is a primary healthcare platform available to Vivo's more than 33,000 employees, as well as their 50,000 dependents, with 24/7 service.
From this perspective, Vivo already has more than 100 contracts with startups, whether or not they are investments of Vivo Ventures and Wayra. And there are also plenty of examples of products and services already on the market or being developed with companies in the CVC portfolio.
With Klubi, Vivo offers cell phone and even motorcycle consortiums. And it is already evaluating the expansion to new categories. The same approach applies to CRMBonus , whose partnership is already strong in bonus vouchers. As well as to 180 Seguros, which will have its portfolio expanded at the beginning of 2026.
Gruner also highlights another issue separate from these two perspectives. "It's still very early, but we've already proven that it's possible for a corporation to build a portfolio through a CVC that will, indeed, bring financial returns," he states.
He cites several cases to reinforce this view. Among them is CRMBonus, a startup in which the fund began investing in June 2024. And which, in July of this year, had a 20% stake in its operation acquired by iFood .
Meanwhile, the amounts of money moved by CVCs remain more modest. From January to September of this year, investments with participation from at least one of these funds totaled R$ 1 billion, compared to R$ 1.3 billion in the same period of 2024, according to the Brazilian Association of Private Equity and Venture Capital (ABVCAP).
However, if it depends on Vivo Ventures, these numbers will be reinforced soon. "We have just approved a new investment, which we will announce shortly," says Gruner. "And we already have some opportunities in the pipeline in artificial intelligence and fintechs."
