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Kaszek and General Catalyst Back Primero’s US$12M AI Push

The Editor

The Editor

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Kaszek and General Catalyst Back Primero’s US$12M AI Push
Kaszek and General Catalyst Back Primero’s US$12M AI Push

AI transformation startup Primero has raised a US$12 million Seed round co-led by Kaszek and General Catalyst to expand its enterprise AI deployments across Latin America. The company was founded by José Murillo and Andrés Rosales, alongside Santiago Buenahora; its backers also include Definition, Conviction, 8VC, and angel investors linked to FEMSA, Bimbo, Aeroméxico, among others.

Primero’s core product, Primia, connects fragmented enterprise systems and codifies company-specific business processes so AI agents can perform complex, auditable workflows. The company says it already serves customers including SmartFit, Terpel, Verde Valle, and Mexico City’s economic development agency, and will use the capital for hiring and larger deployments with enterprise clients across the region.

Market Context

The investment targets a persistent enterprise bottleneck in Latin America: critical data, business rules, and operational processes are frequently distributed across legacy ERP, CRM, finance, and storage tools. Primero’s proposition is not simply to add a chatbot, but to create an operational intelligence layer that gives AI agents the context required to act across those systems.

The timing reflects a broader move from AI experimentation to organization-wide deployment. McKinsey’s 2026 survey found that 54% of companies with more than US$1 billion in annual revenue are scaling AI across the enterprise, while 40% are scaling AI agents in at least one function. Yet only 37% report any positive EBIT impact, underscoring that deployment, workflow redesign, and measurable ROI remain the defining challenge for vendors and customers alike.

What Stands Out

“Before, selling software was more of a leap of faith. With AI, you can sell outcomes.” José Murillo, co-CEO, Primero

Regional Relevance

For the United States, the deal highlights an increasingly important cross-border opportunity: enterprise AI adoption in Latin America is becoming a distinct market rather than merely an extension of U.S. software distribution. General Catalyst’s participation gives Primero a U.S. institutional investor with experience in scaling technology companies, while the founders’ backgrounds across Meta, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, 8VC, Robinhood, and Microsoft connect the company to U.S. technology and capital networks.

For Mexico and Latin America, Primero’s financing brings capital to the more difficult layer of AI adoption: integrating models into core business operations rather than providing standalone productivity tools. Its customer base spans fitness, fuel retail, food, public-sector development, manufacturing, logistics, financial services, construction, and health—sectors where legacy systems and manual processes are common.

The Other Side

Will enterprise customers prove the ROI beyond pilots?
That is the sector’s central test. McKinsey found that AI use is growing faster than measurable financial impact: 37% of surveyed organizations reported some EBIT contribution, while only 6% qualified as AI high performers.

Does integration create a defensible advantage or a scaling constraint?
Deep integration into legacy infrastructure can produce higher switching costs and richer operational data. It can also lengthen sales cycles, increase security reviews, and make each deployment harder to standardize.

Sources & Transparency

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