Angel investing, sector by sector
What angels should evaluate changes by sector — a fintech deal and an agtech deal require genuinely different diligence. Here is what to know before investing in each of the region’s major startup categories.
11 sectors
Fintech
The largest category by deal flow — regulatory status, unit economics, and rail partnerships.
AI
Wrapper versus moat, compute burn, and data rights as foundation models commoditize.
Healthtech
Regulatory approval pathways, payer logic, and physician adoption.
Deep tech
IP ownership, how much technical risk is retired, and capital fit for the stage.
Agtech
Distribution to a fragmented farmer base, seasonality, and capital intensity.
Edtech
Real engagement rates, who actually pays, and accreditation status.
E-commerce
Logistics-adjusted unit economics and competing in MercadoLibre’s shadow.
SaaS
Selling regionally versus selling to the US at a LATAM cost base, across 10 sub-verticals.
Climate tech
Capital intensity, subsidy dependency, and utility-scale sales cycles.
Infrastructure
Capital intensity and customer concentration in the "picks and shovels" layer.
Hardware
Bill of materials, production readiness, and supply-chain exposure.
Cross-cutting: business & revenue models
Before you dig into any single sector, it helps to separate how a company is structured (marketplace, platform, D2C) from how it actually makes money (subscription, freemium, take-rate, ads) — the two are independent choices, and mixing them up leads to comparing apples to oranges across deals.
Read business & revenue models explained →