Mexican Startups Lead 500 Global’s Investment Batch 17

De izquierda a derecha: René Lomelí, Regina Zurutuza, Santiago Zavala, Damaris Mendoza y Didier Quiroz, partners en 500 Global (Foto: Global 500)

In a global context with a quarterly slowdown of around 34% in startup funding, according to CB Insights’ State of Venture Q3 22, or where almost a third of private investors plan to reduce their venture capital exposure in the next 12 months, funds that invest at an early stage continue to stand out for their consistency, according to the most recent CB Insights report. 

500 Global LatAm is one such VC fund that has maintained its US$60k investment in every early-stage startup. Today it released its 17th batch, the third of the year. In it, five companies from Mexico, two from Colombia, one from Peru, one from Argentina, and one from Ecuador stand out as part of the Somos Lucha program in Latin America.

“From platforms for the recreation of any person to B2B solutions, the ten startups selected for generation 17 promise to continue positioning LatAm as an interesting market for private investment,” assures 500 Global in a press release.

500 Global’s Batch 17

The startups that make up the new batch to close the year are:

Alquilá Tu Cancha (Argentina): is a sports-tech platform that connects athletes and sports centers. It offers a comprehensive solution to find where and with whom to play, as well as to find the motivation to do so. They have more than 350 registered sports centers and 200,000 active members.

Blau Corp (Mexico): is a platform that seeks to streamline and digitalize the garbage collection operation for governments and waste management companies. Its objectives include having cleaner and more sustainable cities, saving thousands of pesos in gasoline, increasing the percentage of on-time collections, saving several hours of planning, and eliminating miscommunication between citizens, companies, and governments.

DataInt (Mexico): helps organizations mitigate security risks to their personnel and physical assets through data intelligence. The startup focuses on streamlining decision-making for risk mitigation. Through data analysis and visualization tools, it generates intelligence information to guarantee operational and logistical security in public and private sectors in Mexico. 

Gigstack (Mexico): is software for managing and automating electronic invoicing for entrepreneurs and SMEs. It makes it easy to manage and control clients, payments, and finances through electronic invoicing, expense control, recurring payments, clients, payment links, and financial health, among others. The company assures that it reduces up to 90% of the time invested by the companies that use it.

Mekan (Colombia): a one-stop-shop for the B2B auto parts market. It is a marketplace where auto repair shops can buy auto parts of different brands and categories, mainly in braking, suspension, injection, and ignition. In its online store, customers can buy spare parts from different suppliers. It promises better delivery times and prices compared to traditional spare parts solutions.

Midas (Mexico): through a network of participating stores, the startup provides a personal rewards app that grants promotions and helps to save. This app offers rewards such as a credit for each purchase or the redemption of points to buy any product or service in registered stores. 

Revie (Mexico): a platform for obtaining reviews for eCommerce sites through WhatsApp. The platform allows obtaining user-generated content in text, photo, audio, and video format to automate marketing campaigns and scale sales.

Taxo (Ecuador): is a tax automation platform for accountants and professionals. It simplifies the generation, filing, and payment of taxes for individuals through automated electronic invoicing services, automatic invoice downloading from SAT, digitalization of physical invoices, automatic tax calculation, and approval of returns. It provides access to reports, support, advice, and visual tracking of obligations. 

TEDI (Peru): edtech for professionals in the construction sector, offering live training from experts. It is a platform with more than 70 courses and around 50 expert teachers that offers international certifications and alliances with top-level companies. 

Wannabe (Colombia): match-maker platform between the hiring needs of companies and tech talent with verified skills. It claims to reduce up to three times the time spent on the selection and hiring of talent and that through artificial intelligence makes a match between the needs required by the company to fill its vacancies and the skills of each of the candidates, reducing recruitment times and delivering the most suitable candidates for each position.

For this batch, 2011 companies applied. 963 passed to the second stage, 164 continued with the individual interview phase, 55 in the final interview phase, and the 10 already mentioned were the selected ones. 

You may also be interested in: Study Reveals Upcoming Trends for B2C Fintech in Latin America

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