Bicycle Capital, a new growth equity firm focused on Latin America, launched its first fund, Bicycle I, with initial commitments of approximately US$440M, targeting a total fund size of US$500M.
Anchor commitments came from Claure Group, Marcelo Claure’s Family Office, and Mubadala Investment Company. Led by Marcelo Claure as Executive Chairman and Managing Partner alongside Mwashuma (“Shu”) Nyatta as Managing Partner, Bicycle aims to partner very selectively with the best founders in the region, in particular Brazil and Mexico, helping them scale their startups into valuable companies. Beyond capital, the firm will seek to work hand-in-hand with founders, sharing extensive experience gained from operating, scaling, transforming and exiting companies across geographies and industries. In addition, Bicycle will provide access to a global network of mentors, talent and commercial partners. Although Bicycle is focused primarily on founders in Latin America, the fund may also invest opportunistically in leading global growth-stage companies with meaningful business in Latin America.Marcelo Claure is the Founder & CEO of Claure Group, a multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. He has made a commitment to focus his time, capital, and expertise to Latin America over the next several years. As part of this commitment, in January 2023, Claure invested US$100M in SHEIN, a global on-demand fashion company, where he now serves as Chairman of Latin America. He is known in Latin America generally and to founders in the region, having built Brightstar from a small distributor to the world’s largest global wireless distribution and services company. In addition, Claure led the turnaround of US wireless telecommunications company Sprint and helped orchestrate its US$195 billion merger with T-Mobile, creating what is now the most valuable telecommunications company in the world, with a market cap of nearly US$200 billion. He is also the former CEO of SoftBank Group International where he launched SoftBank’s $8B Latin America Funds. Shu Nyatta is a former Managing Partner at SoftBank Group International where he, under the leadership of Claure, was a co-founder of SoftBank’s Latin America Funds as well as the SB Opportunity Fund for under-represented founders in the US. Prior to that, Nyatta was a Partner at SoftBank’s Vision Fund and a founding member of SoftBank’s growth investment team in San Francisco, starting in 2015. While at SoftBank, Shu invested in a broad range of industries and geographies, from semiconductors, AI and genomics in the US and Europe to marketplaces and fintechs in China, Indiaand Latin America. Shu was previously an investment banker with JPMorgan and a consultant with McKinsey & Company.14/06/2023
