Tag: monterrey

Luis Garza, Kinedu: Helping Parents and Kids Through the Magic of Software, Ep 89

Luis Garza is the founder of Kinedu, an app that provides educational games and activities for parents and kids to play together. He was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico but had the opportunity to study abroad at a young age. Luis knew from early on he wanted to give others the same educational opportunities he had been given as a child. 

After college, he joined the corporate world but eventually made his way to his passion: early childhood education and entrepreneurship. His first startup was Advenio, a high-quality daycare for preschoolers in Mexico, which led to his current pursuit: Kinedu. 

Kinedu encourages early childhood development at scale. Parents and teachers can access over 2,000 one-minute long videos on Kinedu’s app that provides them with content and tools to better engage in their child’s development.

For this episode, I sat down with Luis, our first guest from Monterrey, to talk about what it’s like starting a business and living in one of Mexico’s most important business centres. We cover his journey from the corporate world as a consultant, to developing a business plan for his first startup Advenio, and eventually starting Kinedu. We also discuss the cultural differences that led him to miss trains while he was attending boarding school in the UK, and what it was like to study at Stanford at a time when no one was really paying attention to tech. 

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Mexico Venture Capital Overview

This post is the fourth in a series about Latin American venture capital ecosystems. Read the post on the Chilean Venture CapitalPeru Venture Capital, Colombia Venture CapitalHighlighting Latin American Startups. Hopefully it’s helpful. Let me know what I missed and got wrong!

Mexico is the most interesting startup ecosystem in Latin America. It’s interesting because:

  • Population (125m, Mexico City has more people than Chile)
  • Biggest Latin American economy leads to startups servicing local market
  • Proximity to the US leads to more global vision from entrepreneurs
  • US companies with their tech back offices in Mexico
  • US funds with presence in Mexico

There are three important cities for tech in Mexico, although there is activity in many other cities, too.

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