All posts tagged tappsi

  • June 25, 2018

    Discussion on Latin American Investment

    tropicalgringo-investment-eventA couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak on a panel about Latin American investment thanks to a gracious invitation by the Los Andes University.  I answered a number of questions about investment in Latin America compared to other regions as well as how Colombia stacks up in comparison to other countries in Latin America.

    I spoke about the startup investment environment in Brazil which I consider above and beyond most of Latin America in terms of the size of the deals.  I’ve had the opportunity to visit the startups and some of the investors in this country a number of times and even analyzed an investment (while at Intel Capital) in a startup from Rio.

    Read more

    No Comments / English, General /

  • February 24, 2017

    Tropicalgringo Startup Dinner 2017

    Tropicalgringo dinnerLast night, we had a great dinner with some of the startups from the TropicalGringo Portfolio (others were traveling). In the photo above, from left to right are Juan Salcedo (co-founder of Tappsi and TPaga), Arnulfo Ospina and Roxana Vergara (co-founders of Vendty), Javier Cardona and Nicolas Duran (co-founders of 1Doc3) and Andres Gutierrez (co-founder of Tappsi and TPaga).  Missing were Felipe Chavez and Sergio Pachon (co-founders of Kiwi Campus) and Carlos Santana (founder of Acsendo).  Needless to say, it was a night to remember!

    Read more

    2 Comments / English, General /

  • November 26, 2016

    TropicalGringo Portfolio continues to ROCK as 2017 rolls in

    TropicalGringo Portfolio 2016I can’t believe we’ve reached the end of the year already. It’s either that I’ve had too much fun this year or that I’m getting older; I’ll choose to kid myself and think that it’s the former.  My work within BBVA’s New Digital Business unit has been incredibly rewarding this year.  Besides working on an important deal with some incredible startup founders, I’ve met startups in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.

    Fortunately, during some moments of downtime (e.g., at night, etc.), I reap tremendous satisfaction from being an Advisor and shareholder of four awesome startups that each have exciting news (e.g., one closed a Series A round of funding and all are growing internationally with one of these launching in UC Berkeley): 1Doc3, Vendty, Acsendo and Kiwi Campus (I maintain close contact with a fifth one, Tappsi, that already had an exit). As readers of this blog know, I presumptuously call this group of startups the TropicalGringo Portfolio.

    Read more

    No Comments / English, General /

  • October 28, 2016

    Observations on Latin American startups

    tropicalgringo-startups

    In this post, I’d like to give my general impressions on the state of startups in Latin America.  There are much more thorough posts on the subject such as those from the impressive Omar Tellez on Techcrunch.  Also, as usual, Conrad Egusa, CEO of Publicize, has published incredibly thorough and well-written reviews of the startup ecosystems in Mexico, Chile and Colombia.  Federico Antoni wrote a comprehensive article on the exciting Fintech space in Mexico.  Nonetheless, I’m going to offer a more general impression of the state of startups with personal opinions and points of view.  I name some startups below, but am missing some important names so I ask that you include the names that I’ve missed in the comments section.

    A little more about my particular point of view. I was born and raised in the US.  Although I grew up in Pennsylvania, I lived in Silicon Valley for five years and worked at startups such as Santa Cruz Operation (Santa Cruz) and NetManage (Cupertino).  I, also, wrote and edited articles for InfoWorld Magazine (Menlo Park).  Nonetheless, my parents were from Colombia, South America and the “adventurer” in me drove me to check out the expat lifestyle and move down here.  It’s been great and I am eternally grateful for finding the woman of my dreams (from Cartagena) and being blessed with two wonderful children.
    Read more

    1 Comment / English, General /
← Older Entries