Natura's Thamara Prado: Latin American CVC Needs Discipline

Natura's Thamara Prado says corporate venture capital in Latin America needs a more disciplined approach. That's the headline claim from her interview with Global Venturing, and it lands at a moment when the region's startup funding environment has cooled sharply from its 2021 peak.

Prado speaks with authority here. She runs corporate venturing for Natura, the Brazilian beauty group behind brands sold across Latin America and beyond. Her critique isn't aimed at outsiders — it's aimed at how corporates in the region, including her own peers, structure and run their investment arms.

The core of her argument is discipline. In practice, that word covers the fundamentals practitioners know well:

• Clear investment theses tied to corporate strategy, not opportunistic bets
• Governance that can say no to deals
• Measurement that holds a CVC portfolio to real standards over time

What does this change for Latin American CVC?

For corporate venturing teams in the region, the message is a push toward institutional rigor. Prado's framing suggests the easy-money era let some programs drift — writing checks without the discipline that mature CVC units in the US and Europe built over decades.

For founders in Latin America raising from corporates, the implication cuts both ways. A more disciplined CVC buyer means harder diligence and stricter strategic-fit tests. It also means the corporates that do invest are likelier to be durable, strategic partners rather than fair-weather check-writers.

For Natura itself, Prado's public stance signals the company intends to hold its own venturing activity to that higher bar. When an operator of Natura's scale — a multinational consumer group with deep roots in Brazil — puts its name to a call for discipline, competitors and partners tend to recalibrate.

Why this matters now

Latin America's venture market has been through a full cycle of boom and retrenchment. Corporate venturing units, which often expand in flush times, face the toughest test when capital tightens: prove strategic value or get cut.

Prado's intervention reads as a practitioner's answer to that test. She isn't arguing the region should do less CVC. She's arguing it should do CVC better — with the same operational seriousness the region's best startups now demand from their investors.

The so-what: if Natura's approach becomes the regional template, expect fewer, better-structured corporate deals in Latin America — and a sharper dividing line between CVC programs that survive the downturn and those that quietly wind down.