Primero, a startup focused on helping large Latin American corporations transform their operations through artificial intelligence, has raised R$62 million (US$12 million) in a seed funding round, one of the largest of its kind in Latin America.

The investment will allow Primero to expand its operations and continue helping companies improve profitability through the modernization of their business processes.

Kaszek, one of the early investors in Nubank, co-led the round alongside General Catalyst. Other participants included Definition, Conviction and 8VC, as well as angel investors including shareholders and executives from FEMSA, Bimbo, Aeroméxico and Kimberly-Clark de México.

Primero already works with organizations including Kimberly-Clark de México, Smart Fit, Verde Valle, Sede Café and Mexico City’s Ministry of Economic Development, known as Sedeco.

Among its clients is Smart Fit’s Mexican operation. The Brazilian company is one of Latin America’s largest fitness chains, and Primero said it may eventually expand the partnership to Brazil.

What Primero Aims to Deliver to Latin America’s Largest Companies

Primero’s core value proposition centers on solving one of the main barriers facing large organizations seeking to deploy AI at scale: fragmented data and disconnected systems.

Its main product, Primia, is designed to address the fact that critical business data is often spread across systems that were never built to work together, including enterprise resource planning systems (ERPs), customer relationship management platforms (CRMs), financial platforms and warehouse management systems.

Organizations worldwide manage an average of 957 different applications, but only 27% of them are connected, according to the MuleSoft 2026 Connectivity Benchmark Report.

This fragmentation represents a major obstacle to expanding the use of artificial intelligence across corporate operations. In Brazil, the opportunity is particularly significant given the size of the economy. According to the study The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Brazilian Economy, produced by Reglab, AI could add R$986.7 billion to Brazil’s economy by 2030.

At one of its current clients in the consumer goods sector, retail deductions were spread across an ERP, warehouse management systems, external platforms and accounting software. After implementing Primia, the company was able to identify more than US$10 million in incorrect deductions that had previously gone unnoticed when the processes were handled manually.

Primia connects fragmented systems through a unified intelligence layer designed to give AI a more complete understanding of how an organization operates.

The platform’s differentiator, according to Primero, is not simply connecting systems. It also encodes business rules and operational logic, allowing AI systems to operate with the context needed to understand processes, make decisions and execute tasks.

In that process, Primero also helps companies automate processes that previously required extensive human oversight.

In one example involving a client in the construction sector, Primia automated 85% of a process that had previously required employees to manually review each item, leaving only 15% for human review.

Structuring Data for AI to Understand the Business

The company’s goal is to enable businesses to automate complex processes in a controlled and auditable way without losing visibility into how decisions are made.

The platform is implemented module by module, with Primero’s engineers working alongside client teams to understand their business context, language and organizational culture.

With each new module, Primia accumulates more knowledge about the organization, expanding the context available to the AI and allowing it to understand, reason, make decisions and execute tasks within the company.

The technology currently operates in organizations across sectors including financial services, manufacturing, retail, logistics, construction and healthcare.

“The world’s most competitive companies can be built from Latin America. The region has companies with global scale that are at the heart of this economy, and AI is an opportunity for them to make an unprecedented leap in competitiveness,” said José Murillo, co-CEO of Primero.
“If Verde Valle exports more, if Kimberly-Clark de México makes better and faster decisions, and if the large companies in this region become more efficient thanks to AI, that will be the best proof of what we do.”

Primero was founded by José Murillo, Andrés Rosales and Santiago Buenahora, who studied at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania and previously gained experience at companies including Meta, 8VC and Robinhood.

The founders returned to Latin America to build the company in the region.

Much of Primero’s team has followed a similar path, with academic backgrounds at U.S. institutions including Stanford, Wharton and Harvard Business School and professional experience at global companies such as Google, Meta and Uber.

Approximately half of Primero’s engineers have participated in international mathematics or computer science olympiads, according to the company.

“José, Andrés and Santi combine great technical ambition with an uncommon understanding of how to build enduring companies in Latin America,” said Alex Tran, Managing Director at General Catalyst.
“As companies across the region adopt AI, Primero is building the foundational infrastructure that will make this transformation possible.”