By Kylie Madry
MEXICO CITY, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Mexican startup Primero launched publicly on Tuesday with a $12 million seed round co-led by Kaszek and General Catalyst, with the aim of bringing artificial intelligence to Latin America’s largest companies as they seek to modernize old systems and automate labor-intensive work.
The round, one of the larger seed financings recently announced in the region, also included angel investors including shareholders and executives linked to FEMSA, Bimbo, Aeromexico and Kimberly-Clark de Mexico.
• Primero is targeting a problem common across big Latin American companies: many still run core operations on fragmented legacy software, often with critical business rules and know-how living in employees’ heads rather than in digital systems.
• Its core product, called Primia, connects those disparate systems, captures company-specific processes and helps deploy AI agents that can carry out complex tasks.
• Chief Executive Jose Murillo told Reuters that AI is gaining traction in the region because companies can measure a clearer return on investment than they could with earlier waves of enterprise software.
• “Before, selling software was more of a leap of faith,” Murillo said. “With AI, you can sell outcomes.”
• Primero says it is already working with customers including gym operator SmartFit, fuel retailer Terpel, food company Verde Valle and Mexico City’s economic development agency.
• Murillo, a former Meta and Goldman Sachs employee, said Primero aims to help Latin American companies become more globally competitive rather than fall further behind global peers.
• The company said it would use the fresh capital to hire more talent and expand deployments with large enterprise customers across the region.
(Reporting by Kylie Madry, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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