By Narayan Ammachchi

Start-up accelerator Wayra and MercadoLibre have joined forces to fund and train early-stage technology entrepreneurs in Argentina. The e-commerce portal MercadoLibre said it would ‘co-invest in certain ventures’ selected by Wayra, a start-up accelerator from Spanish telecom giant Telefonica.

The agreement comes weeks after Wayra issued a call for young entrepreneurs to send in their applications for venture capital by May 26.  The e-commerce portal is likely to invest in companies capable of creating new applications and services to its community of buyers and sellers. MercadoLibre recently announced the launch of an investment fund of $ 10 million that will be entirely focused on new ventures that use their platforms.

According to analysts, MercadoLibre’s aim is to strengthen the e-commerce ecosystem in the region it operates. MercadoLibre is “an ideal partner for acceleration and internationalization of our companies,” said Andrew Sabol, Country …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

The Brazilian Ministry of Science & Technology is offering funding to overseas technology companies interested in developing innovative software and IT services inside Brazil – a move reminiscent of CORFO’s (Chile) creation of StartUp Chile launch several years ago.

The government has allocated 25 slots for foreign tech start-ups in its “Start-Up Brasil” accelerator program designed to foster innovation in Brazil’s software and information technology services industry.

“Shortlisted enterprises will be eligible for up to US$ 596,000 in funds,” said the Ministry in a statement.

‘Start-Up Brasil’ has a budget of US$ 19.8 million and aims to support 75 domestic companies besides their foreign counterparts.

“We want to encourage entrepreneurs in the area of information technology. This area is strategically important for us to develop new business for Brazil,” said Brazil’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Marco Antonio Raupp.

Participating companies are required to have been operational since the past three years and to develop …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

Chile received more than US$ 9 billion in foreign direct investment in the first quarter of this year, according to official figures released this week.

The FDI inflow increased 87 percent compared to $4.87 billion received in the previous three months. More than five billions dollars flowed into the country in March, the highest monthly foreign investment in the past 16 months, according to the Central Bank.

According to ECLAC, Chile received more than 30 billion USD in foreign direct investment in 2012, making it the second largest FDI recipient in the region after Brazil.

Last year, Latin America and the Caribbean set a record in foreign direct investment (FDI) (6.7% more than in 2011), despite  international conditions characterized by shrinking FDI flows worldwide.

Chile has also stepped up its investment elsewhere in the region. “Outward direct investment by LAC countries came …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

U.S. low-cost airliner JetBlue has announced the introduction of daily flights between two American cities and the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince.

There will be daily flights to Haiti from both New York City and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, said the carrier in a press release.The service will begin on December 5, 2013.

JetBlue said it has plans to offer one daily flight to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and twice daily flights to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL).

On their arrival in Fort Lauderdale, passengers can catch flights to other destinations in the United States including Boston, MA; New York (JFK, LaGuardia and Westchester County); Newark, NJ; and Washington, DC (Reagan National).

Customers traveling on JetBlue’s new nonstop service from Port-au-Prince to New York will be able to connect to Buffalo, NY, Boston, MA, and Chicago, IL, among other destinations, …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

Brazilian investment firm, e.Bricks Digital, has launched a $100 million venture capital fund to support the prospective technology start-ups in the region.

São Paulo, Brazil-based e.Bricks Digital was established in October 2012 from the spin-off of the digital business unit of the RBS Group. The new fund is targeted toward early stage firms – based in the U.S. or Brazil – whose focus is to exploit growth in Latin America markets.

The company stated in a press release that it would make ‘strategic investments’ in start-ups in technology sectors including e-commerce, mobile and digital media.

e.Bricks – whose current portfolio includes Predicta, Wine.com.br, Grupo.Mobi – says it intends to invest in as many as 15 start-ups every year.

The venture fund is looking for companies with large market potential, annual pre-revenue turnover of $10 million, and a scalable business model.

Besides investments, …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

Launching a business in Chile is far easier today than it was a few days ago. The Southern Cone has inaugurated an online platform that allows anyone to start a business in a matter of hours and at zero cost.

If you are planning to start a business, all you need to do is: Fill up a form specifying the characteristics of your company, such as the names of partners, the line of business and the capital investment.

The platform will absorb the information and create a document that will then be sent to the Internal Revenue Service, which will issue a taxpayer ID number.

Once you have got hold of the ID number, you can set your business in motion.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera inaugurated the platform last week. This system has in fact become popular in countries such as New Zealand, Australia, Canada …

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Some of the best moments of Nearshore Nexus ’13 happened on the fly – during networking breaks, on the way to sessions, in hallways, at lunch or during our closing “Nexus After Dark” reception. Our team has gathered the best photos from those moments here in one album on our Facebook page – take a look and recall the great memories!

View Slideshow: Business Networking at Nearshore Nexus

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By Narayan Ammachchi

Analyst firm Fast Market Research has predicted that Brazil’s domestic IT spending will increase by 10 percent to reach US$ 11.80 billion by the end of 2013.

The key drivers of this growth are the international sporting events, FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games, which the Latin American country is hosting in 2014 and 2016 respectively.

The sporting events will ‘drive billions of dollars of IT spending’, noted the research firm.

“Despite a slowdown in PC sales in 2012 and forecasts of a deceleration of economic growth in 2013, we believe a number of factors will converge to stimulate faster growth in the IT market in 2013,” said the analyst firm in a press release.

In the hardware market, the launch of Windows 8 and the arrival of higher performance price competitive tablets are expected to boost sales.

Interestingly, the analyst …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

redIT has launched a data center in Tultitlán area of Mexico City, as the IT infrastructure service provider looks to tap into a growing demand for IT services in the Latin American country.

The 95,000-square-foot data center is designed to house eight PODs and will serve mainly government institutions.

redIT said the new facility aims to meet existing demand for data center services in Mexico City.

The data center is located close to a substation of the Federal Electricity Commission.

“Our presence in Phoenix resides at the largest Tier III facility in Arizona. And our expanding core of data centers in Mexico is second to none,” says the company in its website.

With eight data centers located in the Southwestern U.S. and Latin America, redIT is one of very few companies with dedicated international connectivity and modern, modular data center technology. Last year, the company’s client base grew by 16 …

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By Narayan Ammachchi

The first Clinton Global Initiative Latin America is scheduled for December 8-10 in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. According to the Associated Press, the former U.S. president made the announcement at the mid-year meeting of the initiative this week in New York City.

Also present at the time of announcement was Rio’s mayor Eduardo Paes and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. “At CGI Latin America, President Clinton will join regional and global leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds to highlight successes and create opportunities to network and build partnerships. During the two-day program of panel discussions and interactive working sessions, participants will focus on developing even more effective solutions,” reads a statement on the CGI website.

Bloomberg, according to AP, has been a key visionary in creating a framework that could be used by cities all over the world …

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