The accompaniment of accelerators makes more projects become successful because they provide support to jump obstacles.
Latin America, facing the world
Latin America is generating technology-based companies in scale and this is the beginning of a transformation for the region. Although less than a decade ago the explosion of tech startups began, Latin America already has seven technological startups that have become unicorns in 2018: Rappi, 99, the Nubank fintech, PagSeguro, Stone Pagamentos. Rounding out the ArcoEducação and Ascenty list.
The most successful tech company championship is won by Brazil (with 48%) and it places us in second place with 19%. Then follow Mexico (14%), Chile (8%) and Colombia (7%). It is a strong indication that the risk investment market is growing in the region.
The successful ecosystem
The strength of a successful ecosystem made Argentina and Brazil peak in the leadership of innovative companies: they generated a pool of talent. Accelerators and venture capital funds play an essential role in the accompaniment of this tech explosion.
In Argentina to reach the levels of outstanding development that we see today, it was necessary to build an ecosystem that invested money but also time in advising those who develop knowledge-based services: the universities that make up the talents, the policies and governmental incentives , among others.
2019 is already being undoubtedly the year of the specific accelerators for the agtech world. The Yield Lab and CREA launched their acceleration programs with very tempting proposals for entrepreneurs who want to add value and innovate in agro-industry and agro-food.
About The Yield Lab
The Yield Lab seeks talent throughout America and to tempt entrepreneurs offers a capital of US $ 100,000 in investment. But it will also add value with an acceleration program in different locations: Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile and St. Louis, in the United States. The selected projects will receive individualized tutoring from industry experts and will have at their reach the network and the accelerator’s partners.
For its part, CREA will select eight entrepreneurs to give them technical feedback. They will also have the opportunity to test their startups with the network of producers of the organization, among other benefits.
The projects convened are those that fall into one of the following categories: precision agriculture, automation and robotics, sensors and IoT, machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data, virtual and augmented reality, marketing, traceability and logistics, integration and productive diversification and new production systems.
Why do I recommend an entrepreneur to apply to accelerator programs or incubators?
For a great idea to become a relevant company, it probably takes a path with enough obstacles to discourage the most enthusiastic. The accompaniment of accelerators makes more projects become successful because they provide support to jump obstacles. They also deeply understand the stages of development of entrepreneurs.
Faced with key decisions that can mean success or failure, it is essential to have technical support and at the moment of taking off, a network is needed to get more customers, new investors and better suppliers.
The validation of an accelerator was a key point in the cases of agtech companies that are successful today, which proves once again that nothing is achieved alone. The time runs agtech entrepreneurs, February 15 close both calls is time to think big.
Also published on Medium.