Learn more about them below!

Horacio Melo, Start-Up Chile´s Executive Director: As a Commercial Engineer, he has worked for PyG and Latin American Airlines as a Marketing Manager. He is devoted to contribute in whatever is needed to turn Chile into a developed country. He strongly believes that entrepreneurship and innovation are key tools to achieve this goal. He enjoys soccer and outdoor/extreme sports in his spare time.

Samir Rath is an entrepreneur and angel investor working with entrepreneurs globally. Currently, he is the founder of Synovum Partners, a group of committed professionals who work with start-ups and SMEs to launch and grow impactful companies across geographical boundaries. In Chile, he is a co-founder of Mas Con Movil, a Startup Chile company, providing productivity solutions to the retail industry. He recently started a co-creative space Area51 in Cochin, India to facilitate interaction between entrepreneurs, freelancers, artists, musicians, mentors, industry experts and investors thus hoping to create a thriving innovation ecosystem. He is an associate partner in Acumen Fund, a non-profit private equity fund based in New York, which is redefining the way capitalism can be harnessed to address bottom-of-the-pyramid problems. Previously, he was instrumental in setting up one of the most prominent financial trading firms in Asia. He started his career as a macro-economist and worked with senior public officials and ministers from IMF, WB and various countries as well as advised financial institutions on expansion strategy for Asian markets. He is trained as an Integrated Circuits Engineer, is schooled in design thinking at AC4D and is currently part of an experimental business education initiative between IE, Spain and Brown University, USA.

Marijn Berk was named 2011′s best young entrepreneur, and was awarded a scholarship by the Kauffman foundation, which brought him to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Silicon Valley. But that’s not all. Berk is more than just a clever young businessman. He leads the way in creating clean portable power sources for mobile devices and making mobile products truly mobile. Berk designed his own patent-pending charging technology that optimizes power delivery to the phone without requiring a battery. By simplifying existing technologies he made the charger cheaper, easier to use and at the disposal of users in developing countries.

When? Wednesday, May 16th, 9am

Where? “Sala de Exposiciones” at Universidad Finis Terrae main campus, Pedro de Valdivia 1509

The Start-Up Chile Demo Day, the first event of its kind ever done in Chile, is just 9 days away. Suppers have been making so much noise online about it, the media is beginning to pay attention. We are receiving many media inquiries asking Horacio Melo to tell them more about what´s about to happen. So far, the Start-Up Chile Demo Day has been commented on Revista Poder y Negocios, La Segunda, and Diario Financiero. Folks at Diario Financiero are putting some pressure! Their story published today is titled “Start-Up Chile seeks to raise USD$5 million on investments at the first Demo Day in the country”.

Let´s go for it!

Here is what Sebastián has to say about himself:

“I’m a a Social Entrepreneur having created three different ventures by the age of 23 focusing on sports nutrition, innovation consulting and the environmental impact of launderettes. Currently I’m the C.E.O of EmpreDiem, I have recently been awarded of MA from the University Adolfo Ibañez, in innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the best schools for business in Latin America.

I believe that teaching Entrepreneurship is the key to Defeat Poverty, so people be empowered with the problem and the solution. With the rights tools and having a Desing Thinking you can achieve business focusing over profits, in people and planet, creating social innovations.

I’m convinced that in any project that I get involved I must leave some mark or make a change, that give me the strength to continue.

I really love what I do, i want to dedicate my life to make the world a better place, I love to play soccer, and hang out with my friends and family., listen to new ideas and always start new things, co-creating constanly to always see different views of the same thing and get the best of each one.”

When? Wednesday, May 16th, at 7.30 pm

Where? Casa Lastarria (Lastarria 70, Santiago)

Sign Up HERE!

Ravi Mehta wrote an article titled “Why instagram won´t be the last billion dollar app”, in which he discusses different “ingredients” which, “when combined, (…) translate into explosive growth” he says. Among Mehta´s ingredients, there is “New Modes of Usages,” where Geolocation plays a key role and where Gympact is showcased as a very innovative app that mediates how people interact with the world around them.

Leaving prints in the sand of time, Gympact, congrats!

SaferTaxi got featured at Emol as “The App modernizing  how to call a cab”, emphasizing how Clemens Raemy and Jonathan Lo found a business opportunity in LatinAmerica rather than Europe and moved here leaving all fears aside. The article is a detailed story including how the idea was born, how and when did they team up with Cristóbal Llugany, and how customers are not charged when they use the app. Read it here!

Excitement is spreading like the flu at the Start-Up Chile offices. Are you ready for May 23rd?

Start-Up Chile´s founder, Nicolás Shea, will participate as a speaker at The Ecomonist Innovation Summit to be held tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The magazine gathered Marco Antônio Raupp, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil;  Lino Barañao, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Argentina, and Nicolás Shea, founder of Start-Up Chile. They will discuss the role of governments in promoting innovation and stimulating economic growth. Do we need to say how important we think this is? We´ll definitely stay tuned.

Learn more about the conference here.

To get started, we need to embrace trust, they say. Suppers who organized the above mentioned meetup emphasized over and over on this. “As online reputation mechanisms are constantly developing it becomes easier to avoid trouble”, they state, “the safety of the sharing services is a very important, and many startups are seriously working on it”.

So, who is actually doing this, rather than just talk about it?

KASSI lets local communities create their own site for sharing. Kassi users can lend, give, sell or buy items and services from each other. It can be used to share rides, recycle old children’s clothes, borrow power tools or to get someone to walk your dog. Kassi is started in Finland, and in January 2012 part of Kassi team arrived to Chile to bring the service to Latin America. During last few months a lot of great things have happened: service has been translated to Spanish and four pilot communities have been started to test Kassi in the universities, companies and condominiums. Kassi has been opened also at kassi.cl where Chileans can start their own sharing groups and meet and help their neighbors, classmates and coworkers!

KORU is Airbnb for skills: a marketplace that lets anyone buy, sell, or trade specialized services (e.g. programming, Salsa lessons). People can set up profiles, list skills, and monetize their time via transactions or trades. Thus far, they have seen awesome participation from the Chilean community. The one challenge they have faced is the language barrier, but that can be seen as a positive as well. Many of their early users are taking advantage of the opportunity to trade Spanish lessons for some English tutoring. Koru will remain available to Chileans for the foreseeable future.

Every year there are thousands of foreign students coming to Latin America in exchange programs and internships, but there is no dorms or any formal housing system available for them.They usually had to look for a place by themselves despite they don’t know the city well nor the language. That is how MAMAROOF was born. Mamaroof is a trusted marketplace that provides an easy long term housing solution for foreign students in Latin America in the safest and easiest way. Mamaroof allows students to find roommates and places to stay, read property reviews, pay through a secure platform and consult the landlord for any doubts about the property. Also it gives the opportunity to local landlords to earn some money and split expenses by renting their extra space, connecting them with people from all around the world and sharing experiences.

LOCALGUIDING.COM was created because the founders think the best experiences are those when you get in touch with the local people, when you eat the local food, see local art, do an local activity…. That’s why they connect you with local guides who are passionate about their destination and know the place inside out. On LocalGuiding.com you can find and book unique tours directly from the locals who organize it. While the traveler saves money, it directly benefits the local people – they get a fair wage.

CUMPLO is a peer-to-peer lending online platform, in other words, people can invest in other people. The person that requests money from others can set the amount, the term, and the maximum interest rate that they are willing to pay back the credit. Investors, on the other hand, can lend money to the people that they consider are a low risk and they can also evaluate if the interest rate and term is attractive to them.

Last, but not least: what about you? What do you do to consume less and share more?

What is this party all about? On may 23rd, the way investment on startups happens in LatAm will change with no turn back. Investors from around the world will have the opportunity to meet Start-Up Chile’s entrepreneurs and their projects. Great speakers from Google, 500startups, and Design Thinkers (among others) will share their expertise at the event, but the focus of all the attention will be the 32 incredibly talented teams that will present their projects on stage. Welcome them with an applause and MAKE SOME NOISE!