Thiago Viana, head of ventures at Prosus Ventures, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2026 Powerlist.
When Thiago Viana stepped into a leadership role at Prosus Ventures, he brought with him something rare: deep operational fluency from inside the portfolio itself.
Formerly known as Naspers Ventures, then part of South African internet company Naspers, Prosus Ventures is a Netherlands-listed company that invests in a range of areas and frontier technologies.
Prosus might have close to 200 deals in its history, but it is best known for Naspers’ astute investment in Chinese internet company Tencent. The Prosus Ventures arm is now looking for the next set of leading companies across seed to growth.
Viana joins Prosus Ventures from iFood — one of Naspers’ flagship Brazilian investments — where he spent six years as director of innovation and partnerships. With a background spanning product, marketing and financial planning, he brings a multi-disciplinary lens to early-stage investing. His appointment reflects Prosus’ strategy of maintaining a close, specialised perspective on local technology ecosystems, while connecting founders to a global innovation network.
Viana’s iFood experience positions him well to leverage Brazil’s operational expertise to scale innovation globally. His mandate to apply that locally rooted knowledge across Prosus’ international portfolio is precisely the kind of specialised, regionally grounded approach that has long distinguished the team.
Prosus is leaning into its structural advantages, such as emerging markets, network-effect businesses and platforms that can plug into its operating ecosystem. Wins last year include the IPO of ecommerce platform Meesho in December and Oxford Ionics’ acquisition by IonQ.
This matters because Prosus occupies a rare position in corporate venturing. Unlike most CVCs, it behaves like a global venture fund with permanent capital, yet retains strategic optionality through assets like OLX, iFood and PayU. Under Viana, that dual identity is being sharpened rather than diluted and Prosus Ventures invested over $400m across 40+ transactions in its last financial year.
The result is a portfolio that is becoming more coherent. Where Prosus Ventures once looked like a collection of bets, it is now closer to a system that connects capital, customers and capability, with its main priority to help startups all around the world build.
Yet challenges remain. The portfolio is still vast, exits are uneven and the macro environment continues to test valuation discipline.
In his new remit, Viana will look to identify and accelerate the founders building category-defining businesses across Prosus’s core markets, globally — not as a fund manager, but as a builder backing builders, plugging early-stage companies into an ecosystem with over 1B+ customers around the world.
The GCV Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.
Here’s a snapshot of their recent deals:
