20 startups (co) founded by Latin American Women
November 19th marks UN- backed Women’s Entrepreneurship Day. With the date just around the corner, Women’s participation in business is in the spotlight this week. Why? Because the purpose of the international day is to support and encourage women, who are still underrepresented as founders.
With this in mind we want to bring center stage some companies led by Latin American Women we admire:
Circulo de Belleza
Circulo de Belleza is a vertical marketplace that supplies beauty salons and professionals in Mexico. The startup was founded in 2020 by Maribel Domínguez to provide digital tools to a very analogue beauty salon industry.
Compound Foods
Compound Foods is recreating coffee without coffee beans by leveraging synthetic biology, to make sustainable coffee. The company is led by Costa Rican Maricel Saenz to help tackle the threat of climate change in coffee production. The startup just recently launched their first product, Minus Coffee, a beverage that tastes exactly like cold brew (minus the beans).
Divibank
DiviBank is a fintech that provides capital to startups and SMEs to boost their digital advertising programs with revenue-based financing. Cofounded by Rebecca Fischer in 2020, the startup aims to provide a better financing alternative for entrepreneurs in Brazil.
Eyecue Insights
Eyecue is a company that seeks to maximize business performance on social media through an AI-powered visual platform that turns social media images & video into structured data that can be analyzed & optimized. The startup was founded in 2019 by serial tech entrepreneur Carolina Bañales, who sold her first tech startup – a virtual makeover app – in 2018.
FlickPlay
Pierina Merino is the Founder and CEO of Flickplay, a web3 social app where people can unlock and create videos with their NFTs. With FlickPlay, owning a NFT becomes a more tangible experience, as you can build the ranking of your digital assets by storytelling with them, and access real-world utilities tied to them.
Flourish
Cofounder and COO Jessica Eting is behind SaaS platform Flourish. Flourish helps financial institutions attract, engage and retain consumers, through a suite of rewards, loyalty and savings features. The platform enables financial institutions to support their customers’ financial health while forming more loyal and profitable relationships.
HelloGuru
HelloGuru is a no-code platform that helps businesses build software faster. Cofounded by Angela Castillo Llinas, the platform syncs customer data from data warehouses to business tools like Salesforce, HubSpot or Intercom – everything with #NoCode.
Influur
Influur is a marketplace for creators, influencers and brands to find business opportunities. The platform is cofounded by 4 women: Alessandra Angelini, Valeria Angelini, Paula Coleman and Fefi Oliveira.
Talanta
Previously the Intern Group – Talanta matches learners with in-person or virtual internships at top global companies. Led by Colombian Johanna Molina, hostess of the podcast: How to be the difference.
Jefa
Jefa is a Neobank for women in Mexico. Led by Emma Sánchez Andrade Smith, Jefa is revolutionizing the banking industry by bringing women into it.
See more: T-Mobile takes SA 5G in 2.5GHz national
Laboratoria
Mariana Costa Checa is the founder of Laboratoria, a Latin American organization with the objective of shaping a more diverse, inclusive and competitive digital economy. Laboratoria offers tech bootcamps to women and helps them find a job in the tech industry.
Neivor
Caterine Castillo Ceballos, Paola Fuertes Ceballos and Oscar Garzon are the founders of Neivor, a payments company for residential communities and homeowners associations in Latin America.
Prometeo
Ximena Aleman is cofounder and co-CEO at Prometeo, an Open Banking platform for Latin America that provides a single point of access for banks, fintechs and enterprises to access consolidated financial information, initiate payments, perform transactions, and build financial management tools.
Quansa
Quansa is an employee benefits SaaS for large businesses in Chile and Brazil, cofounded by Mafalda Barros.
Truora
Maite Muniz Telleria is cofounder of Truora, a technology company that builds authentication and communication tools for Latin America.The company’s mission is to simplify and automate user interactions for enterprise customers through their authentication tools in WhatsApp, increasing user response rates and providing a better experience.
Vexi
Vexi – Vexi helps underbanked lower-middle class Mexicans build credit history by giving them credit cards. Cofounded by Gabriela Estrada and Cinthia Merlos.
Yana
Yana is an app founded by Andrea Campos. The app uses an AI chatbot that delivers cognitive behavioral therapy in Spanish language to users all over the world who are suffering from depression or anxiety.
Veloz
Veloz is a direct sales platform empowered by a large female community. Cofounded by Catalina Gomez García and Tatiana Torres Caviedes, Veloz aims to create self-sustaining communities to help reduce poverty and close the gender gap.
