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.

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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.