Brazil-based Guppy, which uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees, has recently raised approximately $93 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood. This marks a new milestone for the startup as they look to expand their services and improve their AI solutions.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the details of the funding round and the potential implications of this development.
Brazil-based Gupy, which uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees, raises ~$93M led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood
Brazil-based Guppy is a technology company which uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help around 1,500 companies in the country select, hire, and train employees. Founded in 2014 by Rodrigo Mattos, Guppy has seen impressive growth since then and recently raised nearly US$93 million led by the SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood.
Guppy specialises in recruitment automation. It helps its clients reduce time-to-hire, optimise their talent networks and employer brand, as well as helping screen potential candidates with automated psychometric tests. The private AI platform also offers recommendations for changing jobs within a company’s existing staff. Additionally, it provides detailed performance data so that teams can better assess candidate fitment and compare employee tenure results against current internal performance metrics. The company recently announced its expansion plans into Mexico and other Latin American countries starting from 2021.
Guppy’s AI-driven solution could potentially revolutionise how companies select, hire, retain and develop talent for their organisations on a larger scale across various industries beyond its Brazilian market base. This could be huge news for countries struggling with difficult labor markets due to global economic conditions or technological advances associated with Automation & Artificial Intelligence.
SoftBank Latin America Fund
Softbank Latin America Fund is a major investor in Brazil-based Guppy, a company that uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees. The company recently raised $93 million led by Softbank Latin America Fund and Riverwood capital.
This fund has been instrumental in helping Guppy expand its reach and capabilities, making it one of the most prominent companies in its field.
Background on SoftBank Latin America Fund
SoftBank Latin America Fund is a venture capital fund backed by the SoftBank Group and managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers. It is focused on investments in Latin American technology companies and the fund was established in May 2020 specifically to invest in Latin American startups with a focus on Brazil. The SoftBank Latin America Fund team has extensive experience in technology investing, private equity, venture capital and M&A transactions in various sectors.
The primary investment focus of SoftBank Latin America Fund is to provide financial resources to innovative tech companies with potential for long-term growth and global reach. These investments are usually structured as minority interests or follow-on financings of existing venture-backed companies. This type of fund provides entrepreneurs access to capital from leading investors and business partners and SoftBank’s global network of expertise and resources, which can be immensely beneficial for companies looking for international expansion or scaling opportunities.
The most recent example of SoftBank’s investment activity relates to its participation in a $93M investment round into Guppy, an AI-powered company based in Brazil that helps companies select, hire and train employees using machine learning algorithms. The combination of capital provided by Softbank’s Latin America Fund and Riverwood also signals an increased interest from more institutional investors into engaging in the Brazilian market through direct investments into local tech startups seen through this recent round closed by Guppy.
SoftBank Latin America Fund’s investment in Guppy
SoftBank Latin America Fund, a leading investor in Latin American technology startups, and Riverwood Capital have recently invested in Brazil-based Guppy which uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire and train employees. The investment round totals approximately 93 million dollars. This is one of many investments that the two firms have made together in the past.
The funding will accelerate the company’s current expansion plans into new markets such as Europe and Asia and attract top talent from across the world. Other plans include further developing its rich data analytics capabilities making it easier for customers to get accurate insights in their hiring processes.
Guppy has been lauded for its ability to sort out qualifications through algorithms that are free of bias or discrimination, giving companies a fair opportunity to select recruits. Moreover, its innovative “learning as you go” system means companies can better identify every step a potential candidate makes, enabling them to monitor progress and eventually decide on selection based on objective data points like commitment and dedication.
The investors, despite being relatively nascent, hope that their involvement will help propel Guppy into taking a leading role within the ever-growing recruitment tech space, helping businesses worldwide make smarter hiring decisions with little effort from HR teams.

Riverwood
Riverwood is a major investor in Guppy, a Brazil-based company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees.
Riverwood participated in Guppy’s $93 million round of funding, which SoftBank Latin America Fund led. This round of funding will help Guppy continue to develop its AI-based system that streamlines the hiring process for companies across Latin America.
Background on Riverwood
Riverwood Capital is a leading global private equity firm investing in growth-stage technology and technology-enabled businesses globally. Founded in 2006, Riverwood has offices in Menlo Park and London and has investments mainly in communications, software, hardware/components, digital media and consumer services.
Riverwood takes a team-based approach to investing, focusing on partnering with entrepreneurs and company management teams globally. Riverwood Capital strives to provide a unique insight into market trends enabling its team to assess the quality of companies and their respective technologies. Through its active involvement with portfolio companies, Riverwood provides strategic direction across multiple aspects including capital structure optimization, business unit growth plans, go-to-market strategies, financing activities and corporate development initiatives.
Their latest investment was Brazil-based Guppy which uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees, raising ~$93M led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood. The investment is expected to help Guppy expand their services more broadly throughout Latin America by scaling up their operations within Brazil where they already have a notable reputation for helping organisations meet top talent needs among challenging recruitment market trends.
Riverwood’s investment in Guppy
Riverwood Capital is a global venture capital firm focused on technology-enabled businesses. Founded in 2006, Riverwood has offices in Menlo Park, CA. and San Francisco, CA. Riverwood has invested in more than 75 companies worldwide, particularly in the software and SaaS sectors.

Riverwood’s investment in Brazilian-based Guppy is a prime example of what they look for when investing: an innovative product offering with disruptive potential. Guppy is an AI-driven talent management platform that uses artificial intelligence to help around 1,500 companies select, hire and train employees more efficiently. The company’s $93M growth funding round was led by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood Capital, which saw the potential of this game-changing technology for the global HR industry.
Through this investment, Guppy aims to expand its service offering worldwide and become a leader in improving how companies manage their talent acquisition process. With Riverwood’s support from experienced management professionals as well as financial resources drawn from their dedicated portfolio of investments in HR tech companies like Greenhouse Software and Zenefits, this revolutionary platform has achieved new heights.
Impact of Investments
The latest round of financial investments in Brazil-based Guppy, which uses AI to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees, showcases SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood’s incredible contribution to the organisation’s success. This increased financial capital would help the organisation to expand its reach and improve its services even further.
Now, let’s analyse the impact of these investments.
Benefits of the investments for Guppy
The investments from SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood are a major boost for Brazil-based Guppy which leverages AI technology to help around 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees. In addition, the investments would enable Guppy to implement its revolutionary AI platform across more businesses in different parts of the world. This would provide immense benefits to the firms using this technology such as reduced time needed for recruitment processes, improved accuracy in job matching, development of a diverse and inclusive workforce, advanced analysis rates of employee engagement and other such analytics.
Additionally, with the funds raised from investors being used to strengthen the technical infrastructure of Guppy’s platform, it is helping them revolutionise their business operations by computerising many manual tasks, leading to gaining efficiencies. Further use of these funds will enable scalability and expansion which could generate more revenue opportunities. As the reach and scope of AI-based technologies expands with investments, they get closer to becoming an indispensable part of any company’s strategy due to its cost-efficiency and effectiveness in streamlining systems with data-driven decisions over previous human decision structures.

Consequently, SoftBank Latin America Fund’s investment into Brazil-based startup Guppy enables better global expansion and growth within its internal infrastructure through optimization that is singularly provided by AI technology.
Implications of the investments for the Brazilian market
The investments made by SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood into the Brazil-based AI startup Guppy will likely have significant implications for the Brazilian market, particularly regarding job creation and talent management. The company hopes to use its technological capabilities to help over 1,500 companies select, hire, and train employees across Latin America and beyond. This would simultaneously increase employment opportunities to budding professionals and improve operational efficiency in companies.
By helping to accelerate recruitment processes, Guppy’s AI could save time, money, and energy while allowing quality candidates to be selected faster. This could be a major stride towards improving human capital management in the Brazilian market which will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications for businesses of all sizes across sectors. Moreover, with more efficient recruiting processes enabled by AI technology, companies may recognize greater access to local talent pools. Since Brazil is already a hub for highly-skilled professionals with deep technical knowledge of regional issues, firms can leverage these strengths to transform how they deliver exceptional customer service at scale.
In short, Guppy’s investments from SoftBank Latin America Fund and Riverwood represent a potential game changer for hiring practices in the Brazilian market that could strengthen competitiveness of local businesses on the global stage while facilitating job growth opportunities for ambitious professionals aiming to innovate industries through their respective skillsets.