Greg Mitchell

Entrevista Meghan Stevenson-Krausz

Meghan Stevenson-Krausz es Directora de INCA Ventures y Presidenta del Directorio de PECAP. Es fundadora de InclusivX, una organización que promueve equidad, diversidad e inclusión en la industria de venture capital en Latinoamérica. Meghan fue miembro fundador del Directorio de WeInvest Latam y es miembro de Global Shapers, ha sido parte del hub de San Francisco y ahora del hub de Lima.

Linkedin: Meghan Stevenson-Krausz

Twitter: @meghan_sk

Otro: https://meghansk.medium.com

Entrevista Jose Deustua

Jose Deustua es Managing Director UTEC Ventures y miembro del Directorio del PECAP. Ha invertido en más de 30 startups en Perú y Latinoamérica.

Linkedin: Jose Deustua

Entrevista Maria Pia Morante

Maria Pia Morante es Gerente de Inversiones en ALIVE Ventures, donde es responsable del origen, estructuración y administración de inversiones, particularmente en Perú. Antes de ALIVE, Maria Pia fue Jefe de Investigación de Renta Variable de Profuturo AFP. Maria Pia tiene un MBA de la Universidad de Duke y una licenciatura en Economía y Finanzas de la Universidad de Piura.

Linkedin: Maria Pia Morante

Entrevista Eduardo Peláez

Eduardo Peláez es Socio de UNE Asesores Financieros e inversionista ángel. Su estrategia de inversión temprana incluye inversiones en fondos como Luchadores III de 500 Startups, Arpegio y AVP Seed Fund I e inversión directa en startups, como Riqra, Arrivedo y Pawiis.

Linkedin: Eduardo Pelaez

Twitter: @eduardopelaezs

Entrevista José Garcia Herz

Jose Garcia Herz es Managing Director de Winnipeg Capital y miembro del Comité de Inversiones de Winnipeg Capital Startup Fund. Ha invertido en más de 15 startups en Perú y Latinoamérica en distintos niveles de madurez. Tiene amplia experiencia no solo en startups, sino también en administración de fondos, banca de inversión, gobierno corporativo, planeamiento estratégico, mercados emergentes y fusiones y adquisiciones. Apasionado de la enseñanza y del aprendizaje considera que invertir en startups es la intersección perfecta entre la innovación, el impacto, las finanzas y la transmisión de conocimientos.

Linkedin: José Garcia Herz

Twitter: @jgarciaherz

Entrevista Harold Marcenaro

Harold Marcenaro es Gerente de Riesgos No Financieros de BCP y un inversionista ángel activo desde Perú. Ha invertido en más de 20 startups en Perú, otros países de Latinoamérica, y los Estados Unidos.

Linkedin: Harold Marcenaro

The startup community we imagined

Imagine a world in which Peru startup Manzana Verde raises from FJ Labs, Fitia gets into Y Combinator, Fitco gets into Techstars, venture capital analyst Enzo Cavalie lands a job at a top US venture firm, and serial founder Amparo Nalvarte begins investing in startups. This is the world we imagined for the Peru startup community. This is the world we live in now.

The list of tangible results that Peruvian startup founders, and the Peru ecosystem, are achieving is impressive and growing longer. A dynamic combination of local funding and global disruption is democratizing capital, making it easier for startup founders to find a way to achieve regional and global success.

A new financing path for Peru startups

Peru startup founders never lacked aspiration, they just lacked options.

After five years of facing limited financing options in Peru that required founders to take a traditional, and local, path to raising capital, a new route has opened.

Has Mexico decoupled?

The recent mega rounds in Mexico, Flink ($12 million), Justo ($65 million) and Valoreo ($50 million), occurred within a few weeks. The size of these rounds marked new highs for Seed and Series A rounds in Mexico.

Let’s face it, this is way beyond the scope of what is happening in Peru. These rounds indicate the gap between Mexico’s startup ecosystem and the rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America may be widending, not shrinking.

Startup metrics: track weekly, measure monthly, and show quarterly

Startups have a lot of metrics. It is easy to get lost. The North Star Metric may be the most important, but don’t forget about active paying users, unit economics, MRR, NPS, all while you grow 10% a month.

For founders, measuring everything can be overwhelming, and makes it difficult to manage pitch meetings with potential investors. Venture capitalists want you to know your numbers, and expect you to determine which are the right ones to measure for your business model and stage of growth.

Here are some ideas for how to organize your metrics, and thought process:

Salkantay Ventures receives backing from IDB Lab

Recently, IBD Lab announced its first commitment to a Peru-based venture capital fund, Salkantay Ventures. Given the IDB Lab’s history as a first mover in backing early stage funds in the region, this is a strong message of support for the Salkantay team as well as the wider Peru startup community. Peru has reached a critical mass of capabilities in both building startups and investing in them.

Peruvian pushing the boundaries of deep tech

When you meet startup founder Tomás Vega, you won’t get too far into the conversation before he tells you that he wants to become a Cyborg!

What Tomás is doing is crazy. The good type of crazy. The break-boundaries-of-science type of crazy. The type of crazy Linda Rottenberg, founder of Endeavor, talks about in her book Crazy is a Compliment.

Marcos Brujis: A legacy of borderless optimism

Marcos Brujis was a loyal Peruvian whose embrace of humanity expanded from Latin America across all emerging markets. Over his long career as an investor, he inspired billions of dollars in capital to support projects, companies, and entrepreneurs all over the world.

Marcos was born in Lima in 1952. After studying at McGill, he worked at HSBC, then joined the IFC where he spent the better part of many years traveling the world persuading asset managers to dedicate funds to Latin America and other emerging markets.

It’s simple for U.S. investors to invest in Peru startups

More and more startups in Peru are receiving investment from U.S. investors. Many of these startups have reached product-market fit and some have already scaled across multiple countries in Latin America.

This trend is partly due to the growing tendency for Peru startups to set up U.S.-based entities as holding companies. Founders are using Simple Agreement for Future Equity (SAFE) financing documents, the standard document for early stage U.S. startups, allowing them to raise money from a wide variety of investors.

Photo by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos on Unsplash

Youth Movement

Peru’s young people took to the streets last week and made their voices heard. Peaceful protests were met with police aggression and two people, Inti Sotelo Camargo and Jack Brian Pintado Sánchez, were killed. By Monday of this week, a new President, Francisco Sagasti, was chosen by congress to lead the country. President Sagasti has held many roles in his career, including leading FINCyT, a government fund to support initiatives in science and innovation.