Latin America Start-Up Challenge 2012
http://latamstartupchallenge.com/
Official Press Release
http://www.prlog.org/11890733-andesbeat-named-media-partner-for-riverwood-capitals-latin-america-start-up-challenge.pdf
Background
Headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, Riverwood Capital is a globally-focused private equity firm that invests in high-growth businesses in the technology and services industries, across a variety of verticals and geographies.
The Opportunity
Riverwood Capital launched a start-up competition to identify the most promising technology entrepreneurs in Latin America, support the local technology ecosystem and to create networking opportunities between Silicon Valley and Latin America.
The Challenge
Riverwood Capital is a well-established investment firm and known mostly among medium sized businesses (average investments range from $20-70 million USD). Having had successful transactions in a few countries in Latin America they wanted to explore opportunities throughout Latin America’s start-up space.
[checklist]
- The startup market in Latin America was a new world for them
- Applications needed to be submitted in English
- Not widely known outside of Brazil and Argentina
- Aside from a few blogs, media outlets do not usually cover startups or the tech scene.
[/checklist]
AndesBeat Game-Changing Role
AndesBeat was initially invited to be Riverwood Capital’s media partner for Chile and during their initial ‘official’ contest launch was the only partner in Chile who had agreed to work with them (although they had previously attempted to reach other key & major media outlets and potential partners).
As this was the first contest of its kind for both Riverwood Capital and for Chile, after engaging in a few strategy planning sessions and sharing with Riverwood Capital some of the challenges we foresaw in the local community, we were able to mutually identify some touch points to better approach and engage the community and at the same time help Riverwood Capital increase their deal flow.
You guys are great partners for this!
-Riverwood Capital on their experience with AndesBeat
The Result
While AndesBeat work will continue on this project through January 2013, Riverwood Capital team has been flexible and thus early out the gate are enjoying a successful launch in Chile. AndesBeat post to announce the competition received over a thousand views in its first days.
AndesBeat has also attracted attention from startups currently based in other countries such as Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras and Costa Rica.
Long-Term ‘Cultural’ Impact/Milestones
[Awareness]
AndesBeat translated promotional content to Spanish and made it culturally relevant, then personally notified over 350 journalists, organizations and people of social influence (mostly in Chile or Chilean) to ask them to redistribute the contest information through their respective networks.
New potential strategic partners have connected with Riverwood Capital from both Chile’s public and private sector; additional media partners of influence have signed on to promote the contest; and AndesBeat has been supporting Riverwood Capital with identifying mentions in the Spanish speaking market and lesser known local publications.
CNN Chile did a segment on the Latin America startup challenge and showcased several of the local startup founders and the work of AndesBeat.
[Education]
AndesBeat has engaged local startup offices, organizations and journalists to develop an ecosystem that enables startup founders to receive help with completing their applications in English and also showcase the various projects coming from the region.
On behalf of Riverwood Capital, AndesBeat was selected to manage the curation of the applications at the national level (for Chile) and organize laser and early feedback coaching sessions with Riverwood Capital partners to support, enrich and optimize the experience for both Riverwood Capital and local startups alike.