Airbag raises US $700K to address the world’s seventh-leading cause of death
Airbag raises US $700K to address the world’s seventh-leading cause of death. Impacta VC was the round’s lead investor.
Founded in 2018 by Adrián Trucios, Raúl Dávila, José Manuel Beauregard, Alonso Guzmán, and under the astute mentorship of Zev Siegl, one of Starbucks’ founders, Airbag is an insurtech developing solutions through disruptive technology and innovation to tackle the enormous problem of traffic accidents around the world.
As the first software focused on drivers, Airbag helps companies gain greater control over their operations while improving productivity and encouraging drivers to adopt safer driving practices. In this way, Airbag helps companies keep their drivers, customers, vehicles, and third parties safer.
In this investment round, the Mexican startup set out to raise USD500.000, and ultimately exceeded that target, raising around USD700.000. Impacta VC, a venture capital fund that supports social impact companies, announced an investment of USD100.000 in the startup, becoming the round’s lead investor.
““We’re proud and delighted to welcome Airbag to the Impacta family. During last year’s IFSP, its founder gained a very good understanding of how fundraising works, and that is key to the success of any startup. We were also impressed by its month-over-month growth, the size of the market, and the different business models it is pursuing to grow the company. For all these reasons, we decided to invest in the company so it can continue growing and raise its seed round alongside the best VCs,” says David Alvo, CEO and Managing Partner of Impacta VC.
Airbag’s addition to Impacta VC began taking shape in 2022, when the startup took part in the fund’s innovative strategic capital-raising program, called the Impacta Fundraising Strategy Program (IFSP for short).
Zev Siegl himself recommended the startup for acceptance into the IFSP 2022, a program that will run again in August this year.
On that occasion, 54 startups from 10 Latin American countries were selected from hundreds of applicants to learn how to raise capital by designing their own fundraising strategies, with the aim of oversubscribing their investment rounds. At the end of the IFSP, Airbag was selected for the fund’s portfolio based on criteria such as the strength of its team, the problem it solves, the size of the market, its mentors (including Zev Siegl), and the value of its product.
“Being part of Impacta is helping Airbag grow and become a top-of-mind solution for driver safety, and the validation of our company’s impact and business model is helping us expand across Latin America. The support of savvy investors, on the one hand, and being part of a community of entrepreneurs seeking to change the world, on the other, will help Airbag reach its goal: saving millions of lives,” said Adrián Trucios, Airbag’s founder and CEO.
To help purpose-driven entrepreneurs fund and scale their companies and, in turn, increase their positive impact on the world, David Alvo has joined forces with a regional team of 20 industry leaders, including Alan Farcas (Chile, former Endeavor and Nazca Ventures), Stephen Jakter (Uruguay, impact angel investor), Marcus Dantus (Mexico, Shark Tank and founder of Startup México), and Adeo Ressi (founder of VC Lab, TheFunded, Founder Institute, and Elon Musk’s former roommate), among others.
In addition to Airbag, Impacta VC’s portfolio includes early-stage investments in the Latin American startups Betterfly, Wheel the World, Lab4U, Kilimo, Carryt, and Cuéntame, and the fund plans to expand its portfolio by adding impact companies from across Latin America.
