Tropical Gringo

I've spent the last several months, exploring the state of Digital Innovation in Latin America.  Although I wouldn't say that there are tons and tons of examples, what I would say is that there are some impressive companies.  The obvious examples are players such as Buscapé with their US $340 investment from Naspers and Mercado Libre, which had their IPO in the states a few years ago. As ComputerWorld recently published, Latin American Net Arena offers VC Opportunities. Nevertheless, smaller companies such as VivaReal and Compra3 have achieved great success early on thanks to building world-class teams and ...

Last night, after knocking down a few too many glasses of wine (and some JD) with an old Argentine friend who was passing by, I got home and started chatting with someone I admire a lot, Yuri Gitahy.  Yuri created an excellent fund called Aceleradora in Brazil and he mentioned an article in TechCrunch about a study that found that VCs are looking for start-ups in emerging markets. As if that wasn't enough, a few friends, like Andres Barreto, commented that one of these VCs, Dave McClure, was actually visiting Colombia at the moment (accompanied by writer Sarah ...

It's been quite a week which, for myself and others such as Felipe DeConce (Chile) and Simon Olson (Brazil), marks an inflection point in the world of Latin American web start-ups. As I mentioned in the article published in VentureBeat and NYTimes.com, US web start-ups are starting to acquire Latin American web companies much earlier in their development process. For example, witness the recent actions by Groupon and Playdom in rapidly acquiring web companies in Latin America. Also, I ...