4vets – Leveraging Technology to disrupt veterinary supply in the world's second largest pet care market 4vets.com.br is an online B2B supplier of veterinary products for pet shops, veterinary clinics and animal hospitals in Brazil. We will provide medication, surgical and diagnostic equipment, grooming products, nutraceuticals, specialty toys and accessories. Brazil is the second largest pet care market in the world with more veterinary clinics than any other country. We solve the problem of inefficient product procurement by providing an online one-stop shop with excellent customer service. We also improve care and outcomes by importing blockbuster medications and equipment currently unavailable in Brazil. 4Vets is participating in the Start-Up Chile incubator program and will launch nationally in Brazil in early 2012.
Nevoa Networks was founded in 2005 and is a virtualization trailblazer with its own cloud storage platform and storage stack. Since shipping its first private cloud storage system in 2008, Nevoa has continued to make powerful technology that redefines the economics of big storage available to companies and data centers of all sizes. From just consolidating disks to spanning data centers, Nevoa can prepare you for aggressive data growth challenges and opportunities.
Zoop is a secure mobile social commerce and payment platform that allows anyone with virtually any device to get paid however they do business. Zoop offers a free and ultra-portable mobile credit card terminal that enables individuals and businesses to accept chip cards, mobile wallets, and magnetic stripe payments on the go. The multi-functional credit card terminal works with any phone, tablet or computer.
Workana (www.workana.com) is a marketplace for freelance and remote employment focused on the Latin American and US Hispanic market. Workana was founded in April 2012 by the entrepreneurial team behind Sonico, the Latin American social network with 55m users. It was recognised by TheNextWeb award for best start up in August, 2012. Workana’s aim is to create the finest marketplace of online employment in Spanish and Portuguese, to shorten the distance between talent and work, and to allow businesses to hire and manage in the cloud, with access to qualified freelance professionals.
Checkout10 takes the loyalty cards to a whole new level, through a digital platform (web and mobile) full of benefits for companies and clients.
Sign documents. Online. Clicksign is an online environment to exchange and sign documents. Users can send, store, manage and electronically sign documents such as contracts, purchase orders and forms. For individuals, and organizations of all sizes and industries.
Video Tips from Ariel Poler for Applicants
Ariel Poler has put together an excellent set of video interviews with a handful of leading figures from Silicon Valley. The videos contain many insightful tips and addresses many of the issues that typically come up for Silicon Valley angel investors. We highly recommend that applicants view these videos: http://beta.bestofangel.com/adviceNokia Prize
Nokia has joined as a sponsor of the contest and will be contributing up to 20 Nokia Lumia 800 devices for applicants that develop mobile applications on the Windows Mobile platform (please see details below). We encourage all applicants to develop a version of their mobile apps for the Windows platform. Link to Nokia's developer platform: http://www.developer.nokia.com/.New Judge, Speaker and Angel Investor Additions
We have added three more very well qualified individuals to our pool of judges, speakers and angel investors. Ariel Poler founded IPRO, one of the first web analytics companies and is on the board of StumbleUpon, Kana Software, LinkExchange, Odeo and SpeedDate. He’s an investor in AdMob, Flixster, BrightRoll and NexTag. Constantin Bisanz is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. Most recently, he sold Brands4Friends to eBay for $200 million. He was named “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Harvard Business School. Young Sohn has extensive experience in the technology industry in both Silicon Valley and in Asia. He is an early investor in numerous start-ups, including W3i, Friend2Friend, Fieldnation, Anapas, etc. He is currently a board member of ARM and Cymer. More information on these new additions can be found in the judges section.Selection Criteria
- Your business plan targets the mobile, web, cloud or big data space
- Your idea is innovative and disruptive
- Your business plan is viable, has a monetization strategy, targets a large market, is scalable and has the potential to be a "billion dollar plus" idea
- You have made some progress on the development of the application (at a minimum, you have a detailed set of design mock-ups)
- Your idea will have some positive human impact or contribution towards social good
- Your team members have a promising background
- You have raised less than US$1,000,000 to date
Prizes for
Qualified Applicants
- 3 months of free Small Mob from Stackmob
- 3 months of free e-mail, cloud server and e-mail marketing from Mandic
Prizes for Final 5
- 9 months of free e-mail, cloud server and e-mail marketing from Mandic
- $1,000 credit towards services from Treasure Data
Main Prize for
Final Winner
- US$100,000 in angel investor funding
- Media sponsorship in the U.S. and Latin America
- Legal advice from Machado Meyer
- 12 months of free e-mail, cloud server and e-mail marketing from Mandic
- Data center hosting from ALOG for 2-years
- Software development services from Globant
- 2 years of remote SOC (Security operations center) services; checking and monitoring of the winner's implementation (application) from Synapsis
- 1 year of media promotions through Synapsis' communications channels
- $5,000 credit towards services from Treasure Data
- All-expense paid trip to Silicon Valley to meet with entrepreneurs, VCs and corporates, as well as a Napa wine trip from Silicon Valley Bank
Mobile Winner Prize
- US$100,000 in funding from Qualcomm Ventures
- Expense paid trip to California to present at QPrize Finals
- Medium mob for 1 year from Stackmob
- 10 Nokia Lumia 800 devices for Brazilian applicants
- 5 Nokia Lumia 800 devices for Colombian applicants
- 5 Nokia Lumia 800 devices for Mexican applicants
Win a Nokia Lumia 800 at LatChallenge
If you have developed and submitted a qualified Windows Phone application to LatChallenge and you are one of the first 20 to do so, you can win a Nokia Lumia 800. The first 20 qualified Windows Phone applicants will be notified by the end of the event. To be eligible for the Nokia prize, your application form must include the URL of your Windows Phone app published in the Windows Phone Marketplace. You will have until September 30, 2012 to have your application published on the Windows Phone Marketplace to be eligible for the Nokia prize. Prizes are limited to 10 devices for applicants from Brazil, 5 devices for applicants from Colombia and 5 devices for applicants from Mexico. Applicants from any other country are not eligible.Aleksandar Mandić,
Founder and Director of Mandic
Alexander Mandic launched his first business in 1990, MANDIC BBS, which by 1996 became one of the leading Brazilian Internet destinations, then known as MANDIC INTERNET S.A. In 2000, Mandic became Ig's (Internet Group) co-founder and VP until 2001. In 2002, Mandic re-launched Mandic S.A., focusing on corporate email. In 2012 Mandic S.A. received an investment from Riverwood Capital, combined with Tecla Internet, and is in the process of creating the biggest cloud computing one-stop-shop for SMBs in Brazil.
Ariel Pfeffer,
Entrepreneur
Ariel Pfeffer is an entrepreneur with several successful regional and global e-commerce platforms covering gaming, entertainment and services. He has also been involved in the Direct Response TV business for more than 25 years. Mr. Pfeffer has been an expert panelist for the ERA (Electronic Retailing Association), the NIMA (National Infomercial Marketing Association), the DMA (Direct Marketing Association) and the ABEMD (Brazilian Direct Marketing Association). He is also one of the founding members of the Punta Tech Meetup, a Board member of Endeavor Uruguay, an active investor of the Club of Business Angels of IAE (Argentina) and a YPO (Young Presidents Organization) member.
Ariel Poler,
Entrepreneur and Investor
Ariel is an entrepreneur, mentor and investor. At Best of Angel he is discovering and supporting the best start-ups outside Silicon Valley. Ariel was the founder of IPRO, the first web analytics company, and of Topica, one of the first email communities. He was board member of Kana Software, LinkExchange, StumbleUpon, Odeo, and SpeedDate. Ariel currently serves on the boards of Freedom Financial, MixTent and Strava. His angel investments include AdMob, Flixster, Slideshare, Pantheon, Outright, BrightRoll, Optimizely, Causes, Kongregate and NexTag. Ariel holds a B.S. in Mathematics with Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from Stanford University. He is originally from Venezuela and lives in San Francisco with his wife and three children. Ariel is addicted to kitesurfing - particularly kite racing and kiting on waves.
Bill Tai,
Angel Investor and Partner at Charles River Ventures
Bill is as comfortable on a kiteboard in the Pacific Ocean as he is in the office. Bill is an angel or seed investor in Tweetdeck (Twitter), Tango Video, Soundtracking and other mobile apps. Bill has had 19 companies grow to become publicly listed since becoming a venture investor, and established CRV's Silicon Valley office in 2002. He is currently Chairman of Maxthon International, and founded a number of companies in an executive role: Chairman IPInfusion (Tokyo:4817), Founding President Tradebeam (NASD:CDCS) and Chairman / CEO iAsiaWorks (IAWK). As a sponsored athlete and Olympic Ambassador for the Int'l Kitesurfing Association, he is part of the effort that earned Kiteboarding a spot in the upcoming RIO Olympics and creator of the MaiTai Kite Camp. His full bio is available on www.about.me/BillTai.
Carlos Kokron,
Carlos Kokron, Managing Director, Qualcomm Ventures – LatAm
Carlos Kokron is a Managing Director of Latin America at Qualcomm Ventures and is currently scouting companies that will help transform the lives of people and businesses in the Region by leveraging the mobile Internet. He has funded and helped grow technology companies since the dot-com bubble, such as Patagon.com, Spring Wireless, Yavox, Navini Networks, Alog Datacenters and Senior Solution. Prior to Qualcomm Ventures he was a Partner at Stratus and earlier he was Head of Intel Capital for the region. Kokron is an independent Board member at @ttitude Global and is also an Endeavor mentor.
Constantin Bisanz,
Entrepreneur and Investor
Constantin is Serial Entrepreneur and Investor. He recently sold his last company, Brands4Friends, for $200M to eBay, which marks one of the largest sales in Europe. Brands4Friends is a shopping club, which provides its customers a possibility to buy branded goods (fashion, shoes, cosmetics, tech, travel, cars, lifestyle products) with great discounts. After 3 years the service became number 1 in Germany, UK (secretsales.com) and Japan. Constantin has been named "Entrepreneur of the year" by Harvard Business School and was also named "Exit Champion" for founding Germany's largest Internet exit transaction. Constantin is passionate about kite-surfing and photography.
Francisco Alvarez-Demalde,
Founding Partner at Riverwood
Francisco Alvarez-Demalde is a Founder and Partner of Riverwood Capital Partners, and heads Riverwood's efforts in Latin America and its New York office. Riverwood manages more than $1 billion, and makes private equity investments in high-growth businesses, primarily in the global technology, technology-enabled, services, and related growth industries. Prior to joining Riverwood, Mr. Alvarez-Demalde was an investment professional at Eton Park Capital Management, where he focused in emerging markets. Previously, he was an investment executive at KKR, where he focused on leveraged buyouts in the Technology Industry in both North America and Asia, and an investment banker with Goldman, Sachs & Company.
Michael Copeland,
Editor at Wired Magazine
Michael V. Copeland is a senior editor at WIRED, where he focuses on all things related to the business of technology, but especially making sense of data analytics, where social is going next, and the collision between computer science and biological science. Prior to WIRED he was a senior writer at Fortune Magazine covering everything from electric cars to genomics and the latest in jet-powered surfboards. Before joining FORTUNE, Copeland was a senior writer at Business 2.0. Copeland graduated from the University of Pennsylvania.
Nicolas Tejerina,
CEO of Navent
As Founder and CEO of Navent, Nicolas has been the driving force behind the creation of the company. He is not only responsible for the general management of both the real estate and the jobs classifieds businesses, but he also oversees the definition and execution of the company's strategy. Prior to Navent, he joined Bumeran in 2000 shortly after the company's startup. The company was later acquired by Terra-Lycos, and then in 2003 Nicolas successfully co-led an MBO of the company after which he was appointed CEO. During his tenure at Bumeran Nicolas held different positions in Argentina, Mexico and the United States.
Oliver A. Flogel,
Ministry of Technology, Chile
Oliver Flögel serves as Executive Secretary of Digital Development for the Government of Chile, being responsible for the design and execution of the country's digital agenda. He was part of the Telefónica Group between 1994 and 2010, holding different positions in Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Chile in the areas of mergers and acquisitions and corporate finance, being appointed CEO of the Chilean operation in 2003. Oliver is also an Angel Investor and founding Partner of InverSur Capital a firm that manages the largest entrepreneurship center in Chile and an early stage venture capital fund.
Hernan Kazah,
Co-founder of Kaszek Ventures and MercadoLibre
Hernan Kazah is a co-founder and Managing Partner of Kaszek Ventures, a Venture Capital firm focused in the technology industry in Latin America. Before launching Kaszek Ventures, he cofounded MercadoLibre (Nasdaq: MELI), Latin American largest commerce and payments online platform, in 1999 and co-led its growth for 12 years –first 9 years as COO and last 3 years a CFO-. He currently sits in the boards of several technology firms: Kekanto, PetSupermaket, BelezaNaWeb, HelpSaude, Vostu, PedidosJa, MadeirMadeira and GetNinjas. He was selected Endeavor Entrepreneur in 1999, chosen Established Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2009, and awarded "The Outstanding Young Persons of Argentina" recognition by the Junior Chamber International in 2004.
Sarah Lacy,
Editor-in-Chief at PandoDaily
Sarah Lacy is the founder and editor-in-chief of PandoDaily. She is an award winning journalist and author of two critically acclaimed books, "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0" (Gotham Books, May 2008) and "Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos (Wiley, February 2011). She has been covering technology news for over 15 years, most recently as a senior editor for TechCrunch.
John Pfeffer,
Private Investor and Entrepreneur
John Pfeffer is a London-based private investor and entrepreneur. He is an early-stage investor in Silicon Valley-based technology companies Bina, Atheer, Genophen and PassBan. In 2012, he founded ELAV, the largest residential property developer in the Williston tight oil basin. He was previously a Partner at private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, where he was a member of the founding team of KKR in Europe. In over a decade with the firm, he headed the retail industry team in Europe, developed KKR's activities in Latin America and Turkey and played a leading role in KKR's investments in Maxeda (formerly Vendex KBB), Pets at Home, Toys 'R' Us and U.N Ro - Ro. In the late 1990s, Mr. Pfeffer was Chairman of the Executive Board of Groupe Allium S.A., the largest information technology reseller and service provider to corporations and governments in France, Italy and Spain. Prior to that, he was with McKinsey & Company in Europe and Latin America where he specialized in turnarounds. In the 1980s, he founded MTC, the company that brought cinema snack counters into video rental clubs across the U.S.
Veronica Serra,
Partner at Pacific Investimentos
Ms. Serra is an advisor to OEP and founding partner of Pacific Investments, the Brazilian investment advisor for OEP since 2006. Before Pacific, she headed the Latin America investments group of International Real Returns LLC. Prior to that, Ms. Serra worked for Leucadia National Corporation, Goldman Sachs and Banco BBA.
Young Sohn,
Chairman of ARM Asia Pacific and Board of Director at ARM
Young Sohn has extensive experience in Technology industry both in Silicon Valley and in Asia. He is an early investor at numerous start-ups including W3i, Friend2Friend, Fieldnation, Anapas, etc. He currently is a board member for ARM Holding PLC, and Cymer, Inc. He is the former CEO of Inphi Corporation, Inc. Previously he was President of the semiconductor products group at Agilent Technology, Inc. and Chairman of Oak Technology, Inc. Prior to that, he was President of the Stoarge business of Quantum Corporation. Young also worked at Intel Corporation managing the Samsung-Intel strategic partnership. Young was an advisor to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab's OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program from 2005 to 2007 and serves on the MIT Sloan School Board.
Additional Involvement
- Bob Wollheim, Startupi and Founder of Appies
- Carlos Leiva Burotto and Shonika Proctor, AndesBeat
- Joaquim Lima, Riverwood Capital
- Cesar Lee, Riverwood Capital
- Diego Gomes, Webholic
- Diego Remus, Startupi, columnist at IG.com.br and Associação Brasileira de Startups
- Guido Grinbaum, Founder and CEO of Dridco
- John China, Silicon Valley Bank
- Martin Migoya, Globant
- Pablo Brenner, Entrepreneur
- Sergio Fogel, Entrepreneur
- Sidney Breyer, Founder and CEO of ALOG
- Ty Amell, Co-founder and CEO of Stackmob
Interested in becoming a sponsor? Send an e-mail to cesar@rwcm.com
Interested in becoming a media partner? Send an e-mail to cesar@rwcm.com
| Ellas 2.0 |
Se busca a las startups más prometedoras de América Latinaaug 9 - El ganador o ganadora del certamen Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge recibirá un premio de US$ 100.000, además de otros premios que le permitirán hacer crecer su negocio. |
| Startupi |
LatAm Startup Challenge: vamos indicar quem vai receber feedback antecipado dos investidores. Faça seu pedidojune 22 - Cesar Lee, investidor associado na empresa de venture capital Riverwood Capital, combinou comigo que alguns investidores da companhia, incluindo ele mesmo e outros sediados no Vale do Silício, vão orientar previamente empreendedores brasileiros que estejam interessados em participar da competição Latin America Startup Challeng (conheça nesta matéria), que vai premiar empreendimentos latinos com um total de 200 mil dólares em espécie, mais outros prêmios. |
| CACE |
Competencia latinoamericana de Start-Upsjune 15 - El pasado 29 de mayo se abrió la inscripción para el Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge. El ganador del certamen recibirá un premio de US$ 100.000, además de otros premios que le permitirán hacer crecer su negocio. La competencia tiene como objetivo identificar a los empresarios tecnológicos más prometedores de América Latina, apoyar a la Tecnología de los ecosistemas locales y crear oportunidades de networking entre Silicon Valley y América Latina |
| Start-up Chile |
Latin America Start-up Challenge Announced! You in?june 13 - A consortium of investors and technology companies today announced an early stage financing competition aimed at identifying the most promising technology entrepreneurs in Latin America, supporting the local technology ecosystem and creating networking opportunities between Silicon Valley and Latin America. |
| Endeavor Brasil |
Latin America Start-up Competitionjune 11 - Quem serão os próximos líderes em tecnologia na América Latina? O Latin America Start-up Competition é uma grande oportunidade para você mostrar a sua ideia inovadora e fazê-la crescer exponencialmente. |
| TransMedia.cl |
Riverwood Capital lanza desafío para startups de la regiónjune 5 - La firma de inversiones norteamerciana Riverwood Capital llega a Chile y América Latina con un concurso de negocios llamado "Latin America Start-Up Challenge", cuyo objetivo es descubrir y dar a conocer la próxima ola de nuevas empresas de tecnología potencialmente exitosas de la región. |
| CAPITAL.cl |
En busca del "Zuckerberg latino"may 31 - Ya se pueden ir preparando todos los emprendedores de América latina, pues los fondos de inversión Riverwood, propietario en Chile de Synapsis, y el Silicon Valley Bank están organizando el que promete ser uno de los eventos start-up más glamorosos del año: el Latin America Mobile, que pretende nada más y nada menos que "buscar al próximo Mark Zuckerberg de Latinoamérica", nombre que se comunicará en un evento en octubre en Punta del Este, Uruguay. |
| InfoBae |
Buscan al próximo genio de la informática en Latinoaméricamay 31 - Descubrir al sucesor de Mark Zuckerberg es lo que la empresa estadounidense Riverwood Capital se ha propuesto, y para ello ha invertido en varias empresas de la región, como la empresa argentina Globant, la compañía brasileña de data center Alog y el proveedor chileno de soluciones de TI Synapsis. |
| ResultsON |
Competição latina de startups vai distribuir 200 mil dólares mais prêmios diversosmay 30 - Estão abertas as inscrições para a competição Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge, promovida pela Riverwood Capital (empresa que investe private equity em empresas tecnológicas e de serviço com alto crescimento), pelo Silicon Valley Bank (banco do Vale do Silício que presta serviço a correntistas e fundos) e pela Qualcomm Ventures. |
| Webholic |
DESAFIO DE STARTUPS DA LATAM PROMETE US$ 100.000 EM INVESTIMENTO PARA A VENCEDORAmay 30 - Que a América Latina está com tudo, já sabíamos, mas agora temos mais empresas apostando no cenário latino de startups. O Riverwood Capital, fundo americano que possui escritório em São Paulo, se juntou ao Silicon Valley Bank e Qualcomm Ventures para promover a Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge, competição que busca startups inovadoras com foco em web, mobile, nuvem e big data. |
| AmericaEconomia |
Riverwood Capital convoca a startups a competir por US$ 200.000may 30 - El desafío es para startups que pretendan orientarse a la tecnología móvil y cloud computing. |
| innovacion.cl |
Riverwood Capital lanza desafío para startups de la regiónmay 30 - La firma de inversiones estadounidense Riverwood Capital llega a Chile y América Latina con un concurso de negocios llamado "Latin America Start-Up Challenge", cuyo objetivo es descubrir y dar a conocer la próxima ola de nuevas empresas de tecnología potencialmente exitosas de la región. |
| ILoveChile.cl |
Riverwood Capital Launches US$200,000 Latin America Start-Up Challengemay 30 - Earlier today, Riverwood Capital announced a Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-Up Challenge aimed at discovering and showcasing the next wave of highly successful technology startups they believe will be born in the region. |
| Startupi |
Competição latina de startups mobile, web e nuvem vai distribuir 200 mil dólares e prêmios diversosmay 30 - Temos a alegria de sermos parceiros de mídia do Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge, promovida pela Riverwood Capital (empresa que investe private equity em empresas tecnológicas e de serviço com alto crescimento), pelo Silicon Valley Bank (banco do Vale do Silício que presta serviço a correntistas e fundos) e pela Qualcomm Ventures. |
| Andesbeat |
Riverwood Capital launches $200,000 Latin America Start-Up Challengemay 29 - Earlier today Riverwood Capital announced a Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-Up Challenge aimed at discovering and showcasing the next wave of highly successful technology startups they believe will be born in the region. |
| Diario Financeiro |
Buscan al próximo "Mark Zuckerberg" en latinoaméricamay 28 - Encontrar al próximo "Mark Zuckerberg latinoamericano", es lo que Riverwood Capital se ha propuesto y, para ello, el próximo 29 de mayo inician las inscripciones del Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge. |