CAF makes its first investment in a Latin American govtech
Govtech is a new public-private collaboration mechanism where the public sector works with the most innovative aspects of the private sector, especially startups, to solve public problems through data intelligence and the highest level technologies.
CAF-development bank of Latin America- made its first equity investment in a govtech startup in Latin America. This is OS City, a Mexican-Argentine company with expert experience in the use of blockchain to help national and local governments transform into digital, secure, reliable and citizen-centered service platforms.
OS City participates in CAF’s govtechlab,, a service platform that works to solve public problems and supports national and local governments in the region in their public policies to promote govtech ecosystems for public innovation, with the first GovTech Book being a key element for the region.
During this pandemic, OS City made its platform available to the governments of the region, including solutions ranging from the use of artificial intelligence for streamlining citizen attention and response processes to a new citizen digital identity using blockchain technology to ensure the exchange of information with unprecedented security, efficiency and trust.
Through OS City, governments have the ability to digitize any procedure in minutes, manage it online and issue official documents on blockchain that can be ported and reused by their citizens for any procedure, in addition to being easily verifiable in terms of authenticity, expiration, revocation and fraud through the simple scanning of a QR code.
The objective of this investment in OS City is to strengthen the startup in developing its technology and expansion to other Latin American countries. In addition, this investment indirectly supports two digital transformation projects in Panama, with its Smart CID Platform for requesting public information, and in Colombia, with workshops and courses for the creation of govtech and blockchain capacities.
Through its Investment and Business Development Fund (FIDE), CAF has developed an Investment Program in Innovative Companies and Ventures with short-term impact to respond to the Covid-19 crisis. The program is led by the Directorate of Impact Funds and Investments and supports this investment in the shared vision between CAF and OS City to reinvent the public sector with new technologies, improve its legitimacy and create new capacities for the design and delivery of public policies based on the Sustainable Development Goals.
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