Monashees San Francisco office ties Latin American founders to AI push

Monashees’ San Francisco office, opened in September 2025, gives the São Paulo-founded venture firm a permanent base in Silicon Valley. For investors following Latin American technology, the move shows how Monashees is positioning its early-stage portfolio around its stated goal of helping Latin American founders build companies for global markets.

Fabiola Quinzaños, a Monashees partner who moved from Mexico City to Silicon Valley, leads the firm’s presence in San Francisco, according to the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association. She said the office is intended to connect founders from the region with Bay Area capital and AI research.

The firm’s rationale is closely tied to artificial intelligence. Quinzaños told Crunchbase News that San Francisco is a densely concentrated center of AI activity in her assessment, with access to labs, talent and fast-moving tools. She said that proximity matters for investors and founders trying to follow changes at the AI frontier.

Why did Monashees open a San Francisco office?

Monashees says the office is a bridge between Latin America and Silicon Valley, rather than a shift away from the region. Quinzaños said the firm wants Latin American founders to see how leading AI companies operate and bring that understanding to businesses they build in Latin America or elsewhere.

Her view is that founders were initially the main force behind the flow toward Silicon Valley. Venture firms and founders are now reinforcing one another, she said. That is an assessment from a Monashees partner, not an independently established industrywide measure of relocation or investment flows.

From Brazil to “Global LatAm”

Monashees was founded in São Paulo in 2005 by Eric Acher and Fabio Igel, according to Crunchbase News. Its strategy has changed over time: first focusing on Brazil, then expanding its work across Latin America, and now pursuing what it calls “Global LatAm.”

Under that approach, the firm says it backs Latin American founders building global businesses, whether those companies are based in the region or abroad. Monashees opened its Mexico City office in 2022, before establishing the San Francisco location three years later.

Quinzaños said Monashees invests from pre-seed through Series A, with seed and Series A as its main focus. Venture capital is funding provided to young private companies in exchange for ownership stakes; pre-seed and seed rounds generally finance the earliest stages of building a product and finding customers. The firm generally leads investments and does not limit itself to one sector, she said.

Crunchbase News reported that Monashees makes roughly eight to 10 new investments annually and was completing deployment of a $370 million fund across about 35 companies.

What is the Gama Fund?

The San Francisco base also fits with Monashees’ AI-related work in Brazil. The firm recently announced the Gama Fund with Google, according to Crunchbase News. The initiative is designed to co-invest up to $2 million in Brazil-based, AI-native and deep-tech startups at the pre-seed or seed stage.

A first Gama Fund summit was planned for San Francisco later that year, bringing together Latin American founders building with AI. The project gives Monashees a concrete example of how it intends to connect its regional investing focus with the networks it is seeking in Silicon Valley.

This story draws on original reporting from Crunchbase News.