Doing Business and Raising Money in Latin America: My SUP Academy Talk

Last week I gave a talk at Startup Chile’s SUP Academy about doing business and raising money in Latin America. It was fun share what I’ve learned over the past five years in Chile with the next classes of startup chile entrepreneurs.

The audio quality is pretty bad, sorry about that. Hopefully it’s still listenable!

Here’s the show notes:

0:00 – Introduction: My story

Exchangehut, Entrustet, Welcu, Startup Chile, How I ended up in Chile.

4:30 – Magma Team Overview + Introducing Beatriz Cereceda, our Entrepreneur in Residence

6:30 – Magma portfolio + What we do and how we’re different

11:00 – How to raise money in the US as a Latam company

15:30 –  The types of businesses you should think about starting in Latin America

B2B Examples: Pricing Compass, Myhotel, Deenty, Founderlist.la, Amberads

18:30 – More examples: Companies with their back office in Latam and sales in the US/Europe/Asia

Examples: Archdaily, PropertySimple, Bankity, Maker.do, Keteka, Amberads

20:20 – Why social startups should be in the US, not Latam

20:45 – Advice for doing B2B sales in Latam, focused on Chile

24:00 – Copying/Cloning in Latam + Adapting to local realities

29:45 – Why acquisitions are less common and for lower multiples in Latam

32:40 –  Q and A – How does Magma make money investing in Latam?

35:30 Whats the sales cycle look like for B2B companies in Latam?

36:30 – How do we decide how much equity we ask for?

37:30 – Are there accredited investor requirements in chile? Are there active angels? Founderlist.la.

39:00 – Is there a startup bubble in Latam? Worldwide? How attitudes have changed in Latam since 2010? Note: I misspoke on this answer saying MRR when I meant ARR.

2010. Chantapreneurs and serial contest “winners” starting to fail.

40:30 Is there a US startup bubble?

Photo Credits: Daniel EcklerEduardo Beltran, Elvis Kennedy, Richard Hurd, Garrett Ziegler, Gerard Van der Leun, Mark Hunter, Dennis Yang