Tag: crossing borders podcast

Magma Partners First Half 2018 Update

Since we closed our second fund in January to invest in fintech/insurancetech companies in Latin America and US companies with Latin American tech and sales teams, the entrepreneurs we support have been busy. And so have we. Here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting things that have happened in the first half of 2018.

New Investments

We’ve invested in 8 companies out of Magma II since January. Here are three that are public. We’ll be announcing more of our investments in the next month.

CryptoMarket – CryptoMarket is a Chilean fintech company that operates cryptocurrency exchanges in Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Europe, with plans to open Mexico and Colombia this year. Magma coinvested with Consensys, the fund created by the cofounder of Ethereum in a $600k round.

BrainHi – Puerto Rico based Brainhi helps doctors and dentists book more appointments using chat bots. They’re the first Puerto Rican company to be accepted into YCombinator. I met them during a visit to Parallel18 in Q1.

Workep – Medellin and San Francisco based Workep is a project management tool built onto of G-Suite. I’ve know Carlos Eduardo Alvarez since meeting him at a BBQ in 2015 in Medellin and have been following since then. We reconnected at Parallel18 this year and invested recently.

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Ep 44 Lauren Cascio: How Abartys Health is Upgrading the Insurance Industry

The US healthcare market loses up to US$750B in fraud and inefficiencies every year. The insurance industry is famously bureaucratic and relies on antiquated technology to communicate with healthcare providers and patients. My guest today is Lauren Cascio, co-founder and COO of Abartys Health, a health insurance tech company that created a system that allows seamless data flow and communication between insurers, doctors and patients in Latin America and the United States.

Lauren was selected by Walmart as one of Puerto Rico’s most promising business leaders, made the Caribbean’s 40 under 40 list, and was a finalist for the Forbes 30 under 30. Lauren is also proud to have delivered the winning pitch at SXSW’s ReleaseIT competition in 2017 and Parallel 18 Accelerator’s Investor Choice at the 2017 Demo Day.

While Lauren didn’t originally set out to become an entrepreneur, she has always loved taking risks and learning from her mistakes. We talk about her decision to teach herself how to code and what she’s learned from starting and scaling a business in Puerto Rico. We also discuss the Puerto Rican startup ecosystem and why it can be an advantage to growing startups.

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