It’s been quite a week. I was finally able to write about a VC round closing in Colombia. A local VC actually closed a $1.3M series A round with social gaming company, Zio Studios, based in Colombia. This has been the talk of the town down here since VC investing is pretty non-existent here (although, private equity investing is pretty well-established). It’s really another example of how things are changing making geography less of an obstacle and more of a choice of life.
Last week, I also wrote in a local portal called KienyKe about the stuff going on in the Middle East with the toppling of Mubarak in Egypt and the turmoil in the other countries. In this new world we’re living in, if entrepreneurs aren’t connected to other world-class entrepreneurs and investors, it’s almost becoming a matter of choice. As I said, geography is becoming less of an obstacle.
Even within the Latin American region, digital strategies that target the whole region used to emanate from countries such as Brazil and Mexico and, on occasion, from Argetina (Mercado Libre) or Chile. Nevertheless, now companies such as PagosOnline with their Latin American Payments (see video) strategy and VivaReal are targeting Latin America all from a headquarters based in Colombia.
Yesterday, during a rainy afternoon in Bogotá, I interviewed the co-founders of Latin American Payments, Jose Velez and Martin Schrimpff, which offers a robust payments platform, anti-fraud system and payments collection all designed specifically for the needs of the Latin American market. The company is PCI certified, have won international prizes for their platform and are already working with clients such as Sony, Amway, Harvard Business Review and Telefonica and are starting to speak with international retailers, gaming companies and travel players among others.
Latin American Payments is a division of PagosOnline, a Colombian start-up with almost 100 employees which counts Buscapé, the large Brazilian comparison shopping site, as it’s majority shareholder (75%). As many know, the South African investment firm, Naspers, bought almost all of Buscapé’s shares for well over US $300M a couple of years back and is busy building it into a Latin American powerhouse (along with it’s satellite companies).
As the pictures below show, there’s quite a bit of hustle and bustle going on right now at Latin American Payments. Jose and Martin are busy complementing an impressive team of developers and business people from top banks and international credit card companies as they go after a Latin American e-commerce market that is surging almost 40% annually to $21.8B.
It might seem strange to offer a Latin American solution from Colombia instead of Mexico or Brazil. Nevertheless, it makes more sense if you consider that, unfortunately, Colombia is one of the most challenging regions for combating credit card and ATM fraud in the world. Several years back, I was talking to a local bank executive who told me that ATM machine makers had to continually innovate in Colombia (some of these innovations found their way into the entire product line) because of the “creativity” with which some Colombians would try to “beat the system.”
Those Colombians are the bane of resourceful and entrepreneurial Colombians like the people at Latin American Payments who are using their ingenuity and hard work to make sure their clients are protected from losses. Incredibly, as happens all around the world, when you are challenged to survive (and thrive) in such hostile circumstances, you come out stronger. That’s one of the reasons that Jose and Martin are so confident about the future.
Nonetheless, there are competitors. Paypal is working to penetrate the market further and local competitors are also developing their own solutions and expand to other countries. Jose and Martin are conscious of this, but believe that 8 years of experience, constant investment in their platform and the ability of clients to collect payments from customers in a variety of ways (overcoming the low credit card penetration in the region) are key assets.
The final asset, they believe, which gives them an edge is the entrepreneurial environment they’ve fomented and the impressive team of young, knowledgeable collaborators they are assembling with the necessary chops to execute on the vision. Finally, (and for disclosure purposes), I the company its sponsorship of the Founder Institute in Colombia (for which I am the director).
Hoy tuve el privelgio de hablar con la primera persona en America Latina en matricularse para el programa de incubación del Founder Institute. Se trata del Colombiano, Cesar Trujillo, quien fue muy exitoso trabajando como empleado dentro del mundo de mercadeo digital para empresas como Studiocom y, hace unos meses, lanzó su nueva compañia, Binario.io. Cesar no dudó en aplicar, ser acceptado y matricularse (por USD $650) en el Founder Institute que comenzará el 26 de abril en Bogota.
En la video entrevista (abajo), Cesar habla de la oportunidad que ofrece el Founder Institute de conectar a emprendedores con mentores internacionales (en adiciòn a los nacionales) quien ya han pasado por los mismos retos. Esta clase de experiencia impartida de una forma abierta es invaluable y puede ahorrar mucho tiempo y dinero en errores cometidos sin necesidad. Esto sin hablar de la preparación que se logra para aprovechar cualquier oportunidad que se le pueda presentar a los emprendedores cuando tengan el chance de presentar su proyecto a potenciales inversionistas.
Despues de Cesar, varios ya se han matriculado tambien y espero poder conocerlos en los siguientes dias. Pueden seguir a Cesar en Twiitter acá @cesartrujillo . Sin dilatar esto mas, es mejor que usted escuche directamente de Cesar su vision sobre el Founder Institute, especialmente comparado con otras opciones:
Ayer me reuní con alguien quien me dijo que no estaba claro que yo era el Director del Founder Institute en Colombia y me di cuenta que hay que decir esto mas claramente. Creo que no lo he dicho tan directamente entonces aprovecho y lo digo: Hace mas de medio año, comencé mis conversaciones con Adeo Ressi, creador del Founder Institute, para traer ese programa acá a Colombia. Finalmente, al final de diciembre firmamos dicho acuerdo.
Yo había visto todo lo que existía en Colombia en terminos de crecer el ecosistema de emprendimiento (particularmente en el area de tecnología) y vi un vacío. Es vacío está en el area de emprendimientos que están aprovechando la explosion de crecimiento en la web y el hecho que paises como Brasil, Chile y Argentina si cuentan con relativamente numerosos ejemplos de dichas empresas que han llegado a grandes tamaños (a veces siendo compradas por otros).
Lo que vi es que la maner para Colombia “ponerse al dia” es conectar al país con Silicon Valley no solo en terminos de emprendimientos sino tambien en terminos de inversionistas. Por esta razon, entré en conversaciones con Adeo, firmamos y estoy contento con el hecho que el Founder Institute comenzará su expansión en America Latina por Colombia! Te invito a aplicar para el programa ya.
It’s been quite a week. I was finally able to write about a VC round closing in Colombia. A local VC actually closed a $1.3M series A round with social gaming company, Zio Studios, based in Colombia. This has been the talk of the town down here since VC investing is pretty non-existent here (although, private equity investing is pretty well-established). It’s really another example of how things are changing making geography less of an obstacle and more of a choice of life.
