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A total of 19 nationalities were present in this edition of the official call of APEC, which was made from Chile by the venture capital area of Fundación Chile, ChileGlobal Ventures, along with the Chilean Pacific Foundation, with the support of CMPC and Entel ExploraLab, the open innovation area of the technology company.
A total of 189 applications received the call Inventing The Future, the official call of the APEC aimed at startups around the world that proposed solutions to two of the most important challenges of our society: Digital transformation and circular economy.
The call, which lasted approximately 1 month and a half, was held within the framework of the APEC 2019 SME and Entrepreneurs Summit (SME Summit 2019); event to be held on November 14 in Santiago, Chile. There, the winners will have the opportunity to present their solution through a Pitch in front of an international audience of about a thousand people, validating their business in the Latin American venture capital ecosystem and the Asia-Pacific coast.
The startups in this call applied for four great benefits: to the financing and support of ChileGlobal Ventures to enter the Latin American market; the possibility of working with two large Latin American corporations: CMPC and Entel; to be present at the APEC SME and Entrepreneurs Summit 2019 and pitch their solution in front of about 1,000 people and the possibility of winning a ticket to a roadshow in Singapore to explore commercial entries into the Asian market.
The Managing Director of ChileGlobal Ventures, Jamie Riggs, explained that “this is a very important milestone for us: we are reaching more and more markets and establishing alliances in other continents, which is beneficial both for our startups, which can scale their businesses quickly and safely, as for Chile when receiving startups from other countries, who can deliver knowledge and generate transfer of skills. The internationalization and expansion of the market of our startups is paramount and Inventing The Future has been a reflection of the success towards it”.
The next steps of the call will contemplate the review and selection of the applying projects, who will know if they remain as shortlisted for the next phase on October 10, in the case of startups that applied for the ChileGlobal Ventures Accelerator, while the shortlisted ones for the network of angel investors and the investment fund of the same institution will be communicated on October 15.
The six best startups of the call will be selected to present their projects in front of an audience of about 1,000 people at the APEC SME and Entrepreneurs Summit, which will be held on November 14 in Chile, within the framework of the summit International Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum.
The call in figures
Inventing The Future received a total of 189 applications from 19 international economies, including Argentina, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Costa Rica, Ecuador, United States, Spain, India, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela and Vietnam.
While 92% of the applications came from Latin American economies, 4% were made from Asian economies, 3% from North American and 1% from European.
Regarding Chile, 66.1% of the startups that applied are of national origin while 33.9% come from foreign economies.
About ChileGlobal Ventures
ChileGlobal Ventures is the venture capital area of Fundación Chile, an organization with more than 40 years promoting innovation and creating new industries for the economic growth of Chile and Latinamerica.
Over the years, ChileGlobal Ventures has partnered with +180 startups, invested +$105 MM and executed 19 exits. Also developed an Angel Investment Network, the most active in Chile and one of the most important ones in Latin America, connecting +90 angel investors. Recently, ChileGlobal Ventures launched its second fund, CLIN, financing 20 seed stage startups focused on B2B markets and sectors associated with the sustainable use of natural resources.
