⛰️ The View From the Top
Satellites from LatAm, FinTech Investments, and Insights from David Velez's Talk at Stanford
Welcome to Tech Latino! This is Stanford Latino’s biweekly newsletter where we capture the emerging trends, biggest deals, and exciting ideas in the LatAm technology environment.
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In the past two weeks…
🚀 Platzi makes exciting developments: A Colombian EdTech startup, Platzi teaches Latin American students and professionals technological concepts, ranging from coding languages to cryptocurrencies. Recently, two major developments have taken place involving the company:
👩🏻🚀 Venturing into space exploration: Platzi announced that in approximately 10 months, they’ll be releasing a satellite into space to bring the NewSpace closer to the new generations. Platzi plans to launch courses in space exploration, the Internet of Things, and radio communication.
🤝🏻 Partnership with Duolingo: Platzi has partnered with Duolingo, allowing 200 students of Platzi English Academy to take Duolingo’s internationally recognized English proficiency test free of charge.
🛡️Strike expands to Latin America: Cybersecurity startup Strike recently raised $5.4 million in a Seed Round led by Magma Partners, Greyhound Capital, Latitud, among others. The startup evaluates companies’ digital vulnerability, and accordingly helps them become more secure. Following this funding round, Strike hopes to expand to Latin America, and is currently planning to make its services available in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.
💊 HealthTech Prixz Raises Series A: SV Latam Capital recently led a Series A round for Prixz, a startup that facilitates buying medicine online. It was founded in Mexico in 2015, but grew by 400% in the pandemic, reaching 12 million monthly subscribers. Though the amount raised in the series A was not divulged, its total valuation is now known to be at $100 million.
💳 Kaszek invests in two FinTech firms: Kaszek Ventures, one of the main venture capital firms in Latin America, has co-led funding rounds for two fintech startups. The first is Minka (🇨🇴), which allows its users to transfer money through their phone numbers. Led by Tiger Global and Kaszek, Minka raised $24 million in their Series A round. The second of these startups is Xepelin (🇨🇱), which helps other businesses organize and manage financial affairs. The company raised $111 million in a Series B co-led by Kaszek and Avenir funds.
🌲 The Stanford Diaries: View From the Top Speaker Series
This week, Stanford’s View From the Top speaker series hosted David Velez. Here are some nuggets of knowledge we thought were worth sharing:
🖊️ Find the non-consensus that is right: have a brain full of questions, not answers
🖊️ Position yourself where there is scarcity
🖊️ Do something hard: it is better to fail doing something hard than fail doing something easy
🖊️ Building a company is about the people: we need to work on fostering the technical talent and leadership skills of the next generation in LatAm
🖊️ Think big because of the journey, not the destination
🖊️ Take care of your body: if your body is healthy your mind is healthy, and you can work harder
Spotlights : The Four F’s!
Every week, we spotlight one of each: a firm, a fund, a founder, and a food item. This week, we look at Treinta, Morado’s founder Angela María Acosta, Monashees, and Argentinian Asado!
🗒️ Firm Spotlight: Treinta
“Out of the 50 million microbusinesses in LATAM, today 90% still track their sales and expenses by using pen and paper”— Treinta addresses this problem. Founded by Lluis Canadell and Man Hei Lous in Bogota, Colombia, Treinta is a digital ledger app that helps microbusinesses in Latin America record expenses, organize inventory and track how their business evolves over time. It is an alternative to pen and paper that saves time and helps companies grow. They have raised more than 60 million dollars in funding and have over 25 investors.
💪🏽 Founder Spotlight: Angela Maria Acosta
Angela Maria Acosta is the Founder and CEO of the beauty startup MORADO. Originally from Colombia, she started working at ACI worldwide as a Marketing Associate in 2017 before moving on to work at Rappi in Colombia. She worked at Rappi for four years, making her way up to Business Unit Head of Supermarkets. She left in March of 2022 to start MORADO, a digital beauty marketplace funded by a16z, H20 Capital Innovation, the founders of Rappi, and many others.
💸 Fund Spotlight: Monashees
Monashees is an early-stage venture capital fund founded in 2005. Its founders, Eric Acher and Fabio Ingel, started the company in São Paulo, Brazil. With over 200 total investments, they have eight funds and have invested in companies like Rappi, Meluiz, and Loft. The company believes in investing in companies that inspire, and want to have transparent, fair, and collaborative connections.
🇦🇷 Food Spotlight: Argentinian Asado
This week we recommend trying Argentinian Asado. It consists of various meats cooked on the grill like steak, chorizo, sausages, and ribs. Sides that accompany include guacamole, salads, cron, and grilled veggies.
💡 This week’s reads:
💳 Crunchbase Article: Why Fintechs Supporting SMBs are Crucial to the LatAm Economy
🤑 TechCrunch Article: Chingona Ventures lands $52M to fund overlooked founders in massive markets
📚 Pato Bichara: To Breed More Unicorns, Latin America Must Grow Edtech Industry
💓 Are you a Latin American female founder? Join the Amela Community!
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