Yeah, we have been selected into the StartUp Chile Program! More than 656 startups applied and we are amongst the lucky ones to participate, which means we will be going to relocate to Chile for some six months and be part of a group of 100 entrepreneurs who bootstrap their organizations with the support of the Chilean government.
As we hear from former participants it is an incredible program and might also be a great avenue to inspire more entrepreneurial spirit in other countries. Start-Up Chile was created by the Chilean Government and seeks to attract early-stage high potential entrepreneurs to bootstrap their startups using Chile as a platform to go global. In line with the national goal of converting Chile into the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Latin America, the program plans to bring 1,000 startups to Chile by 2014.
During the six months we must be in Chile for which we receive US$40k of equity-free seed capital, a 1-year work visa, and access to local financial and social networks. The objective of StartUp Chile is to have us raise funds, hire talent, create networks, and to launch Glovico from Chile while leveraging and interacting fully with the local entrepreneurship ecosystem.
The program, unique in the world, and catalyst of similar initiatives such as Startup America, Britain, and Greece, seems to be an ideal opportunity for bootstrappers to receive funding without ceding equity as well as social entrepreneurs with a focus on Latin America. Start-Up Chile has been featured in The Economist, BusinessWeek, TechCrunch, and Forbes, among others.
We’ll be leaving Germany in six weeks so we are getting everything together already and looking forward to amazing experiences in Chile. Our main focus there will lie on our teaching methodology and creating more visibility on the American continent. Stay tuned.