Life After SoftBank: Claure, Passoni, Nyatta Plan to Team Up In a New Fund

Bloomberg Línea — SoftBank’s three former chief executives in Latin America, the Japanese conglomerate’s former COO Marcelo Claure and the fund’s former managing partners for the region, Paulo Passoni and Shu Nyatta, are to join together in a new venture capital investment company, Bicycle Capital, according to people familiar with the matter heard by Bloomberg Línea on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

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Former SoftBank Execs Claure, Passoni Visit Brazil’s Central Bank Chief

Bloomberg Línea has learned that Marcelo Claure and former SoftBank executives in Latin America have teamed up in a new fund to invest in startups

Bicycle Capital and Paulo Passoni were not available for comment. The Claure Group, family office of Marcelo Claure, did not respond to contacts as of publication.

Claure, Passoni and Nyatta are some of the most experienced venture capital executives in the region and have been directly involved in some of the largest venture capital transactions in Latin America in recent years.

Nyatta and Passoni left SoftBank in early 2022 in the wake of Marcelo Claure’s departure. They were replaced by Alex Szapiro and Juan Franck, SoftBank’s new Latin America leads, who are now under the umbrella of Alex Clavel.

Miami-based Bicycle Capital was established in April 2022 by Shu Nyatta.

Passoni is still in a non-compete period with SoftBank until May, since he left the conglomerate about a year ago. Bolivian billionaire Marcelo Claure also has the non-compete agreement with SoftBank, even though he has already made investments in the region through his family office, Claure Group, such as in fintech Credix.

The three are expected to meet at Bicycle after the non-compete agreements expire.

Claure and Passoni met with the president of the Central Bank, Roberto Campos Neto, on Wednesday (15) in Brasilia. The meeting took place at a time when the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) generated concerns about the liquidity of startups and raised fears about possible contagion in the banking sector. According to the Cenbank, the meeting took place “to deal with institutional matters”.

-- Updated to correct CEO to COO

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