154 startups selected to participate in Start-Up Chile Program (inglés)
154 startups selected to participate in Start-Up Chile Program, garnering $40K of equity-free seed capital & 1-year work visas
- Selected participants, hailing from 33 different nations, comprise the second of three application rounds for 2011
SANTIAGO, Chile– September 23, 2011 – After receiving over 650 applications duringthe one month application period that ended in August, Start-Up Chile announces that 154 startup companies [Appendix 1] have been selected to participate in this year’s second round of the prestigious and world-recognized program. The goal is to provide capital to 300 startups by the end of the year.
Slated to arrive in either November, 2011 or January, 2012, the 154 chosen startups hail from 33 different countries representing a myriad of industries and many of the best educational institutions in the world including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, the London School of Economics, and the Indian Institute of Technology.
The United States is the most largely represented country with 35% of the selected startup population– the countries that closest follow in number of applicants are Chile, Canada, and Argentina with 27, 12, and 5 applicants, respectively.
39% of the selected startups fall into the Enterprise software and IT industry, while the Ecommerce and Trade sector tails closely with 35% of the applicants. Other well represented areas include Mobile and Wireless, Social/NGO, and Energy and Cleantech.
Each participant passed through a series of rigorous evaluations conducted by venture capitalists, active entrepreneurs, and specific industry experts, as well as by the Committee of Entrepreneurship and Innovation that presides over InnovaChile. Jean Boudeguer, Start-Up Chile’s Executive Director, affirms that “Start-Up Chile has been very well received by the international entrepreneurship community. In turn, this has allowed us to attract more than 1000 entrepreneurs to apply in one month's time, demonstrating that Chile is truly becoming a global innovation hub.”
About Start-Up Chile
Start-Up Chile is a program created by the Chilean Government, initiated by the Ministry of Economy and executed by Corfo/InnovaChile, that seeks to attract earlystage high potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap their startups using Chile as a platform to go global. In line with the national goal of converting Chile into the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Latin America, the program plans to bring 1,000 startups to Chile by 2014.
During the six months the participants must be in Chile– for which they receive US$40k of equity-free seed capital, a 1-year work visa, and access to local financial and social networks– the objective is to raise funds, hire talent, create networks, and to launch their businesses from Chile while leveraging and interacting fully with the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The program, unique in the world, and catalyst of similar initiatives such as Startup America, Britain, and Greece, is the ideal opportunity for bootstrappers to receive funding without ceding equity while utilizing one of the strongest Latin American economies as their launching/development platform. Start-Up Chile has been featured in The Economist, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and Forbes, among others.
For more information about the Start-Up Chile experience, please visit www.startupchile.org
Press Contact:
Brenna Loury
