May was a bustling month for Latin American startup scene, with companies rushing out to tighten deals and hurl out new services before a now-imminent FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Here’s a news we don’t wish to miss:
Big players
A Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) is set to open in Miami in a few weeks. Located in Venture Hive‘s downtown Miami location, it will be a initial of a kind in a US. As we reported, Miami was comparison partly since of a tighten ties to Latin America, and Microsoft says that this new MIC will offer as a gateway to a LATAM region.
In addition, a Redmond organisation hopes to roller of FIFA World Cup with a release of a Brazil-exclusive Nokia Lumia 630. The mobile handset includes a built-in Digital TV (DTV) vigilance receiver that will let soccer fans watch games wherever they are.
Google rolled out a voice-based hunt underline in Brazilian Portuguese. In addition, users can now navigate within Brazilian airports, soccer stadiums and selling malls by Google Indoor Maps, that launched in Brazil a few weeks ago. The association also awarded four Brazil-based amicable projects with R$1 million ($446 million USD) as partial of a latest Social Impact Challenge.
Facebook announced it would expand a Premium Video Ads to general markets including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and a UK. The rollout will be light over a subsequent few months.
eBay launched Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese versions of a Web and mobile selling platforms for Latin American customers. The association had already confirmed a interpretation skeleton final September. In an interview with Pulso Social final April, a company’s Head of Marketing for Latin America Fernando Trueba settled that “Latin America as a segment is a priority for eBay.”
Intel non-stop a RD core in Rio de Janeiro, ZDNet reported. It will core on a ‘Oil Gas’ and ‘Smart Cities’ verticals, with a concentration on Internet of Things, Big Data and High Performance Computing (HPC) solutions.
Expansions…
Spotify launched a song streaming in Brazil, blank progressing deadlines after confronting delays though still on time for a World Cup. The height is now accessible in 57 countries, though faces clever foe in many of them. Its opposition Deezer recently unveiled a partnership with song approval app Shazam to let users listen to a songs they have tagged. The underline will be accessible in a UK, Germany, Mexico and Brazil and follows identical agreements with Spotify and Rdio.
Private automobile use Uber also landed in Brazil. According to Startupi, a participation is currently singular to Rio de Janeiro, and follows progressing rollouts in Bogotá, Cali, Lima, Panama City and Santiago.
Rocket Internet’s cab engagement height Easy Taxi stretched into Uruguay. According to local journal El País, a Montevideo swift includes 2,000 purebred vehicles, compared to 500 for a aspirant SaferTaxi.
América Móvil became a fifth user to behind a Firefox OS initiative, with a release of a Alcatel OneTouch Fire in Mexico by a internal subsidiary, Telcel. This means Firefox OS is now available in 15 countries.
As for MVNO Virgin Mobile, it is scheming to enter Mexico and Brazil, respectively in 2014 and 2015, El Financiero reported. To do so, it lifted a new turn of financing value $86 million, corroborated by a $41.5 million line of credit.
Yelp rolled out a online beam for restaurants and internal businesses in Argentina, Info Technology reported. Available during yelp.com.ar, it already facilities localized calm and reviews.
Online coding training height Codecademy is now accessible in Brazilian Portuguese, French and Spanish interjection to partnerships with respectively Brazil’s Lemann Foundation, Libraries Without Borders and a city of Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, in-person programming training startup Ironhack expanded from Spain to Miami with an eye on Latin America, Pulso Social reported. The association organizes eight-week bootcamps in both mobile and web development.
Messaging app Line stretched a paid-for general pursuit use Line Call use to iOS and made it accessible in an initial 10 countries, including Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. All of them solely Argentina were already enclosed in the service’s Android rollout.
…and new launches
Social network for readers Lectorati done a official entrance during Buenos Aires Book Fair. While it shares similarities with a American counterpart, Amazon-owned Goodreads, its pattern and facilities have been blending to a ambience of Latin American users, Lectorati’s owner Juan Ramiro Fernández told Argentine journal La Nación.
Argentine app for hearing-impaired users uSound is now accessible on Android. Its idea is to act as a smartphone-powered amplifier for deaf people who can’t means costly conference aids, in serve to providing anyone with a simple hearing test. Its product got showcased twice during Buenos Aires’ Red Innova Conference a few days ago. On one hand, it was one of a 14 companies pitching during Wayra Argentina’s Demo Day. On a other hand, it took partial in a Red Innova Challenge, that it won in a Health, Social Impact and Education category.
The other winners among a Challenge’s 21 finalists were Mr Presta (Banking Financial Services), BikeStorming (Smart Cities), Simplicar (e-Commerce Retail), Sparkflow (Entertainment Media), BTCTrip (Travel Hospitality) and Wine Like (Mobile).
Brazilian preparation association Grupo Positivo and online training module startup Blackboard announced a vital partnership, Edukwest reported. It will see Grupo Positivo’s subsidiaries exercise Blackboard’s record for teachers and students.
DIY height Guidecentral expelled an Android app and a website redesign, a startup announced on a blog. Already accessible on iOS, it had been absent from Google Play for a few months while a app underwent a finish overhaul to simulate a company’s new identity. As we might remember, Guidecentral recently denounced a Maker Program that rewards crafters for pity projects.
The group behind B2C secure messaging app HASH launched Criptext, a private communication height for companies and governments. According to a Miami-based owner Mayer Mizrachi, one Latin American supervision is already regulating a use and several telcos showed seductiveness in adding Criptext to their network.
Discovered launched an Etsy-like online marketplace to showcase a work of artisans from rising markets. As we reported, it now bonds products from 6 countries (India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco and South Africa) though hopes to enhance serve in a entrance months.
Some got acquired…
Brazilian module organisation Totvs bought SaaS association Virtual Age for an undisclosed sum, ZDNet reported. The acquired association is formed in southern Brazil and provides platforms for a weave and wardrobe sectors.
Spanish holding for personal promotion businesses Red Arbor bought 70% of Latin American online pursuit portal CompuTrabajo, Spanish tech blog Loogic reported. Its portfolio already enclosed InfoJobs Brasil.
US amicable networking app Skout bought Chilean-born nightlife app Nixter for an undisclosed sum, TechCrunch reported. Nixter now operates in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and will sojourn a standalone brand. According to VentureBeat, a transaction was finished final January.
…and some got funded
Brazilian e-commerce heavyweight Netshoes lifted a $170 million appropriation turn led by Singapore’s emperor account GIC, AdNews reported. The company’s founders and prior backers Tiger Global Management, Temasek Holdings, Iconiq Capital and Kaszek Ventures also participated.
Online march marketplace Udemy lifted a $32M Series C turn led by Norwest Venture Partners, EdSurge reported. The association skeleton to bottom a expansion in unfamiliar countries on locally-created calm in unfamiliar markets, rather than tiny translations. It already offers courses in 10 languages, carrying Spanish as a many renouned denunciation after English.
Miami-based outside promotion startup AdMobilize lifted a Series A turn of $2.2 million from Azoic Ventures, Rkk3r Labs’ investment arm Rokk3r Fuel and Venezuelan super angels. According to a Miami Herald’s blog The Starting Gate, AdMobilize will be opening a London bureau subsequent month and hopes to open another bureau in Brazil soon.
Brazilian personal financial height GuiaBolso lifted a second turn of appropriation led by Kaszek Ventures, Startupi reported. Participants embody prior backers e.Bricks and Valor Capital, as good as particular business angels.
Argentina-based craving amicable networking startup Joincube lifted $500K in appropriation from unnamed US angel investors, that it skeleton to use to open offices in Brazil and Chile. Joincube was formerly accelerated by Wayra and Start-Up Chile.
Search engine for flights and hotels Viajala reached a cumulative $130k in seed funding, a owner Thomas Allier told TNW. Its backers are Telefónica’s accelerator Wayra Colombia, Ruta N-backed Socialatom Ventures and Latin American entrepreneurs Andrés Barreto and Diego Saez-Gil. The startup is formed in Colombia, targets Latin America and formerly went by Start-Up Chile’s program.
More acceleration and incubation
Government-backed module Start-Up Brasil launched a new call for startup applications, alongside several tweaks to a controversed welfare process. According to Startupi, it had comparison 118 startups as partial a initial twin editions, though only 87 indeed perceived backing, due to a array of issues that resulted in an surprising castaway rate. Starting from this edition, teams that have already been accelerated by one of a program’s partner accelerators won’t be means to request for a possibility to accept R$200k in open appropriation ($89k USD).
Meanwhile, a Brazilian state of Minas Gerais showcased 40 startups that went by a acceleration module for early-stage startups, SEED. The Demo Day eventuality took place on May 29 and captivated approximately 500 participants, including 95 investors, Exame reported.
500 Startups comparison twin Latin American companies as partial of a 9th acceleration batch: Mexico’s Survmetrics and Brazil’s Solidarium. Several Latin America-based accelerators also announced new batches, including Abril Plug and Play, Recife-based Porto Digital, Argentina’s Media Factory and Start-Up Chile.
Funding sources
Argentina-born seed account and accelerator NXTP Labs assimilated army with Mexico-based seed account and mobile-focused corporate accelerator naranya*LABS to create a new early-stage account that will deposit during slightest $8 million in Mexico (disclosure: NXTP Labs is an financier in my company, MonoLibre). Part of a account will come from open appropriation postulated by Mexico’s National Entrepreneur Institute (INADEM). It will be used to deposit in 48 startups in Mexico, while also covering follow-on investments over a subsequent 4 years.
A new investment account was innate in Chile: Magma Partners, that is set to deposit a sum of $5 million in startups, with tickets trimming from $25k to $75k. It already made twin investments, respectively in genuine estate site Propiedad Fácil and in 4D IT resolution reSTUDIO.
In a eye of a law
Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and a group of reporters launched a island’s initial eccentric online news outlet, 14ymedio, the BBC reported. The site was blocked hours after it initial went live and can’t now be accessed from Cuba but a proxy, Sanchez pronounced on Twitter.
Chilean telecommunications regulator Subtel criminialized mobile carriers from charity giveaway entrance to amicable media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter by covering mobile information costs on interest of their users, GigaOM reported. They will now have to stop these practices by Jun 1 or face fines for violating a country’s law on net neutrality.
Also on TNW:
Evernote now has some-more than 100 million users
FireChat now lets we group-chat anonymously with people around you, even but internet
Firefox OS 1.3 arrives with twin SIM support, continual autofocus, flash, intelligent app collections, and more
Here are a BBC’s skeleton for a initial ‘24/7 World Cup’
LinkedIn launches denunciation welfare targeting and personalized page feeds to assistance brands strech some-more users
Motorola will tighten a Texas bureau where it assembles Moto X smartphones in 2014
Ringo hurdles Skype with a pursuit app that doesn’t need Internet and is cheaper too
Vevo for Windows Phone gets updated with a new Home shade and improved browsing features
Good reads from opposite a Web:
Andres Oppenheimer: In Cuba, record might kick censorship [Miami Herald]
Don’t Diss Cheap Smartphones. They’re About to Change Everything [Wired]
El camino a Brasil: de cómo los ‘smartphones’ aprendieron a bailar samba [CNET en Español, in Spanish]
El camino a Brasil: de cómo alistó -o no- su infraestructura [CNET en Español, in Spanish]
Inside Medellin: How Pablo Escobar’s hometown hopes to turn South America’s ‘Silicon Valley’[Telegraph]
Jóvenes argentinos desarrollaron una prótesis criminal una impresora 3D [Infobae, in Spanish]
Marcos Galperín: “En esta industria, es más importante el crecimiento de la Web que el PBI” [La Nación, in Spanish]
Miami Looks Beyond Bikinis And Cafecitos – Now Wants To Become A Tech Hub [Fox News Latino]
News drones over El Salvador [Global Post]
Out in a Open: An Open Source Website That Gives Voters a Platform to Influence Politicians [Wired]
Twitter’s Growth Shifts to Developing Countries [NYT's Bits]
Image credit: La Red Innova on Facebook