All posts tagged latin america

  • November 20, 2013

    An “accelerator” for Latin American angel investors

    Latam Incubated OneIf you attend any conference on Latin American startups or startup investing, you indubitably will here someone talk about the lack of local angel investing in early stage startups.  Such an utterance will usually get a lot of heads nodding in acceptance of this problem.  What’s not usual is to encounter new options created to solve this problem, but I’d say that is what SSX, an early stage company stock exchange, which is also part of the Dutch Caribbean Securities Exchange, has done with Latam Incubated One.  This new offering allows potential angels to invest the amount of money they wish (starting at $2) in a liquid vehicle (traded shares) that will provide much more learning than they’d get trying to choose one startup investment for themselves.

    On the learning front, angel investors wishing to get started in startup investing can make one investment in Latam Incubated One and distribute their exposure across several investments.  Latam Incubated One will invest (from $50k on up) alongside some of the top accelerators in Latin America which include Wayra, 500 Startups in Mexico, 21212 in Brazil and NXTP in Argentina.  The investments will be made in startups that graduate from one of these accelerators’ programs.  Additionally, investment decisions will be made by investment committees with regional advisors of which I am one.

    Read more

    8 Comments / English, General /

  • November 14, 2013

    The impact of mission-driven organizations on emerging markets

    Adeo Ressi New York TimesToday, New York Times subscribers are reading the story on Adeo Ressi and the incubator he created: The Founder Institute.  In the article, when asked why he launches also in countries such as Colombia that are nontraditional entrepreneurial environments, he responds that he has created a mission-driven organization with the objective of helping the two percent of the population with “entrepreneurial genes” launch meaningful and enduring technology companies.

    As I’ve written before, it’s been quite a rewarding ride to have been able to work with Adeo and the Founder Institute for these past three years and to be able to count on his support while running the program here in Colombia.  At one of the Founder Institute Director meetings that Adeo ran in Silicon Valley, he asked all of us, among other things, about the value of FI in each country.  In my case, I said that I feel that the value of something like the Founder Institute could be even greater in an emerging market such as Colombia, because the size of the startup industry is so small and the know-how is extremely sparse.

    Read more

    No Comments / English, General /

  • November 8, 2013

    Emerging markets have a unique opportunity that most will squander.

    Think biggerThe other day I wrote a post about thinking bigger and now see that the concept has applicability to countries as well as startups. I took a day trip to Medellin yesterday to talk, along with my friend Conrad Egusa, with the management team of a multibillion dollar corporation with almost 200,000 employees.  They are taking a serious look at Colombia and, particularly, Medellin.  It really made me think about something that I’ve stated verbally but don’t think I’ve written here.  That we are living during a moment in history when a number of things are shifting (e.g., economic power,  penetration of digital tools, etc.).  Many countries (particularly, in emerging markets) such as Colombia can either decide that the future will be much different than the past and start making decisions commensurate with the opportunity before them or squander their window of opportunity and forfeit a much brighter future to emerging market countries who have more insight into this new global context.

    This event reminded me of the beginning of the year when an agency in Boston, Massachusetts (Jim and Sandy) reached out to me through my blog here because they were planning to visit Colombia.   For anyone reading this who needs confirmation that writing a blog and connecting with the outside world is rewarding, this should be proof enough.  In that case, I was able to connect them with the national government as well as my Founder Institute alliance partner, Ruta N, and they ended up having a tremendous visit.  In this case, it wasn’t a case of connecting them with others (they had that covered), but more a matter of giving them the low down from a bicultural perspective on what we see here.

    Going back to the session we had yesterday morning in Medellin with this impressive group of visitors.  First of all, it was impressive to see that the whole management team from the Chairman and CEO were present.  I just looked at their corporate website and it’s and looking at the management team pictures it’s amazing to see that they were all here.  It was really stimulating to follow their thought process in terms of analyzing the potential for doing business in Colombia and the types of deep, penetrating questions that they asked.

    Read more

    No Comments / English, General /

  • November 6, 2013

    On thinking bigger and executing “smaller”

    TropicalGringo Puntaje Nacional

    Yesterday was a fun-filled day of meeting with the startups that are starting the 14 month program at the accelerator where I’m Program Director.  This cohort of companies seems to be filled with founders who are passionate about what they are doing and interested in giving it their all.  This makes all the difference, in my mind, not only in terms of their chances for building great businesses, but in terms of the joy and interest in help guide them in any way I can.  I noticed, along the way, that I was offering my feedback on their long term vision while pushing for short term results (more on that later).

    Also, I was delighted to meet the founders of a very interesting educational startup from Chile called Puntaje Nacional (see photo).  These founders have a startup which seems to be killing it in Chile and is now looking to expand to Colombia. One of the metrics I remember is that of 450k users.  Also, any of the startups I usually speak with in Latin America would be happy to have their revenues (won’t divulge number ’cause I didn’t ask permission) and the growth opportunities they have in front of them.

    Read more

    No Comments / English, General /
← Older Entries
Newer Entries →