Startup Chile is opening up a new round of applications tomorrow with hopes of inviting up to 100 new teams to come to Chile to run their startups. Like our initial group of 23 teams, the new teams will be awarded $40,000 to develop their business in Chile.
If you’ve been following my blog, Startup Chile is a program to turn Chile into the high tech hub of South America. The Chilean government is offering world class startups $40,000 to move to Chile to develop their businesses for a minimum of 6 months. The goal is to import a tech scene to augment the emerging Chile tech scene. There are already some great Chilean companies, entrepreneurs and tech teams and the goal is to inject more teams to make the Chilean tech sector zoom.
Back in November, Jesse and I were the 7th team to come to Chile as part of the program and we both agree that if we had to do it all over again, we would in an instant. We avoided the cold Wisconsin winter, but more importantly, we’ve met amazing entrepreneurs from both Chile and the rest of the world. Our friends from the program are Chilean, Portuguese, Israeli, German, Chinese, Canadian, Irish, South African, British and more (apologies to those I missed). The list goes on.
We also have used the money very wisely. Santiago is a very affordable big city and costs about as much as Madison, WI if you want to live really well. You could live very well here on $1200 a month including housing, less if you share an apartment. Being in Chile and out of our normal routine also helped us concentrate on our business. It allowed us to take a step back and really work on the business, away from distractions in the US. I fully recommend applying for Startup Chile. It’s been a great opportunity for Entrustet as a business and for me as a person.
For more info, check out the Startup Chile application and terms and conditions, along with my Startup Chile FAQ I wrote up about my experiences living in Chile. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have either in the comments or via email.
5 Comments
Hi Nathan
Great posts. Especially the Travelouges.
I am thinking of applying to the startup Chile program.
A few things I wanted ask of you.
1) Is the ecosystem(apart from the program) good for companies looking to raise seed/angel funding for further growth?
2) Is there good engineering talent around/ as in the local ecosystem
3) I’ve understood the terms of the grant. Do the accounting/reporting norms allow partial off-shore technology development?
4) Any other tips you might have
Cheers.
Gauarv
Hi Gauarv,
1. There seems to be local VC/Angel networks, but so far only one company has sucessfully raised money here. Another tried and ended up deciding to look for $ back in the states. There is lots of money floating around here, but it will come down to valuations and whether you think they will be good partners. I really dont have enough info yet to show a good answer here.
2. We’ve been interviewing developers the past week or two after having trouble getting in touch with them at the start. There seems to be good developer talent that is starting to come out of the woodwork now that the program is more developed and accepted by the chilean tech community.
3. Currently, yes. I haven’t read the new terms/conditions, so I can’t comment on that.