x
x
LATIN AMERICA • TECH
Nadia Mykhalevych
DEC. 11, 2019
On November 29th, the 7th edition of the Seedstars World tour in Latin America wrapped up with the Seedstars Summit Latam in Medellin, Colombia. The event gathered 400+ participants from 28 countries, making it one of the largest entrepreneurial events in the country. The Summit resulted in more than 35 deals in soft commitment and generated over 2M mentions online.
The highlight of the Summit was the pitching round between the 16 startups that won the local Seedstars competition in their country. Nine startups were selected to continue their journey with Seedstars to represent their region at the Seedstars Summit 2020 in Lausanne, Switzerland and compete for the title of the Seedstars Global Winner, and to win up to USD 500,000 in equity investment.
Ribon, Brazil, a donation platform for millennials
Mynkana, Ecuador, the uber of market research
Mesa, Chile, a solution that brings diners to restaurants at off-peak times
Evimed, Uruguay, online education for medical professionals
Ruedata, Colombia, data analytics to boost efficiency in bus and truck fleets
Afinidata, Guatemala, the smart early-childhood tutor
Pixdea, Costa Rica, education through VR classroom programs
Manzana Verde, Peru, a subscription service for healthy meals
Baubap, Mexico, a financial inclusion platform
More than just a tech conference, the Seedstars Summit Latam was an opportunity for all attendees to collaborate, gain knowledge, and build fruitful relationships with each other. For the first time, the event was open to other startups outside of the Seedstars World competition including 9 startups participating in the Seedstars & Apps.co Expansion Program aimed at helping those ventures scale and expand their activities to other markets. Additional delegation startups joined the event as well including 3 sponsored by ISA, 2 supported by Ruta N and 8 that applied to the activities individually; making a total of 38 entrepreneurs.
Prior to the main Summit day, 38 participating startups completed an intensive growth Bootcamp at Ruta N, focused on scaling up their businesses, followed by the Investor Forum at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) sponsored by Amazon. The startups had over 150 one-to-one meetings with recognized local and international mentors and investors such as Monashees, Redwood Ventures, Village Capital and many more.
“I was impressed by the quality and diversity of startups looking for solutions in Latin America, the diversity of the sector was also pleasantly surprising”, Anna Raptis, founder of Amplifica Capital.
The Summit also featured three workshops by Hubspot in Inbound Sales Strategy for startups, “Why Medellin” - hosted by ACI Medellin, Procolombia, and Ruta N, and a Corporate Ventures Masterclass hosted by Seedstars for 26 industry experts and corporates.
“The Seedstars event in Medellin brought the most important agents for entrepreneurship in Latin America together. It was incredible to see new and old faces forming part of this ecosystem of knowledge and experience.” Rafael Obando from Hubspot.
Among the companies and institutions that made the Seedstars Summit LATAM 2019 possible are Ruta N, the Swiss Embassy of Colombia, Avianca, Amazon, ISA and the UPB, with the media support of France24, & Entrepreneur.
“A very interesting event with an innovative format that involves not only startups from the entire continent, as well as corporates and universities, but the event also created an exchange of innovation and entrepreneurship as well as culture, which is very important for the UPB.”
