Latin American e-commerce site scores $70M from Ontario pension fund

Canada, meet Latin America. Latin America, meet Canada.

The two regions reached around the global superpower sitting between them today and shook hands, sealing a $70 million investment by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan into the Dafiti Group.

For those of you just getting up to speed with the world beyond the U.S. borders, Teachers’ (as they call it) is one of Canada’s largest investment funds, with almost $130 billion under management.

Dafiti, for its part, is one of Latin America’s largest e-commerce retailers, with operations in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. It has raised $255 million to date, including a $50 million seed round led by Rocket Internet. It states that its catalog contains 125,000 products from 2,000 different brands.

Brazil, in particular, is one of the fastest-growing sectors for e-commerce, posting 25 percent and greater growth in recent years.

“We will use this money to strengthen our customer service and our product assortment,” said cofounder Philipp Povel, in a statement sent to us by Rocket Internet.

Dafiti employs 1,400 people and is based in Brazil.