8 More Indian Startups to Fly to Chile; 105 Companies Selected But Applications Reduce

Saturday December 01, 2012 , 3 min Read

The Chilean Government took a very supportive move for the local startup ecosystem by giving birth to the Startup Chile Accelerator in late 2010. $40k equity free funding for a startup is lucrative for many even though the team has to move to Chile. The aim of the Chilean government to foster the startup ecosystem and accelerate the nations growth has been achieved to an extent as Chile has definitely been stamped as a place to look out for in the startup world.

The Accelerator is already in its 6th batch and has announced the new 105 companies selected. The number of applications being received has been growing exponentially untill now. Batch 5 received 1509 applications from which a massive 101 were chosen. The number of companies chosen for Batch 6 has increased to 105 but the applications have gone down to 1400. Not a significant decline but this might suggest the stagnation point for applications.

The new batch has 7% Indian companies (8 of 105) and is a country that has a fairly high representation. Chile used to have maximum representation but that has gone down now with USA having 24% of the companies. Chile has 19% and Argentina has 9%. Talking about the sectors of these companies, eCommerce is the clear leader with 24% companies in the space.

Indian Companies:

Floost: Floost is a content discovery platform that helps users build a community around interests.

HealthAssist: New Delhi based HA is a online/mobile platform for HR mangers that gamifies health and wellness for Corporate employee and rewards them for for staying fit.

SkyBulls: SkyBulls is a simulated multi-exchange stock market trading platform for people who want to educate and train themselves and test their strategies in a real trading environment before directly investing in the market.

CrispyGames: Crispy Games is a technology driven mobile gaming company. They specialize in building multiplayer social games.

(More will be added to the list)

Startup Chile has been selecting startups on a voluminous scale and has been able to create a global buzz. The alumni companies will now be at a stage of scrutiny and will be asked a few questions. Nathan Lustig, the founder of Entrustet which was the first company from Startup Chile to get acquired did his own research and gave a few stats that come from the first batch of 22 companies:

The Data

6 companies (27%) have at least cofounder living full time in Chile.
10 companies (45%) have significant businesses still running in Chile.
7 startups (32%) have raised a total of US$4,020,000 from VCs and angels
16 startups (73%) are still bootstrapping full time, of which 5 (23%) are profitable.
Taken together 12 startups (55%) are either profitable or have raised significant money.
2 startups (9%) are being run part time
3 startups (14%) failed
1 startup (5%) was acquired
Founders from 14 companies (64%) have returned to chile at least once or continue to live here
19 companies (86%) still have business relationships in Chile
At least 16 jobs were created in Chile

Read Nathan's post here and stay tuned for more updates from Startup Chile.

(edited by Jubin Mehta)

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