Startup Valuation Methods

Category : Entrepreneurship
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I was featured in Emma McGowan’s article on Startups.co called 10 real world startup valuation methods. 10 investors shared ways that they value businesses that they invest in. I think it’s an interesting article, as it shows that there is huge variety in how different investors will look at a business. None are right or wrong, they are all specific theses that individual investors have found to be useful for them. It’s worth checking out.

My contribution to the article is at the end and is borrowed from advice Techstars mentors gave to Devin Baptiste, CEO of GroupRaise, a Magma Partners portfolio company that helps groups book events in restaurants and allows restaurants to compete for the group’s business by donating a percentage of the bill to the charity of the group’s choice. From the article: (more…)

New York Times: House Hunting in Chile with Andes Property

Category : Andes Property
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Lisa Prevost wrote an article breaking down the Chilean real estate market. My team and I have helped hundreds of foreigners buy and rent apartments in Chile since 2013 when we started Andes Property were quoted extensively in this report. Our attorney Jose Tomas Marambio, a Santiago real estate and business specialist is also quoted. Overall, Santiago and Chile in general are still interesting places to invest. You can still find properties that generate 8-10% cash on cash returns and as commodities prices return, there’s still room for the Chilean Peso to strengthen, further increasing gains as you diversify out of dollars. From the article:

Santiago saw an increase in housing prices between 2010 and 2015, but the pace has slowed since, said Nathan Lustig, an entrepreneur and a principal at Andes Property, a company that provides furnished rentals in Santiago, primarily to foreigners.

A value-added tax on the sale of new properties went into effect in 2016, and “prices for new construction went way up, as everybody tried to buy before the new tax came in,” Mr. Lustig said. “And they’ve kind of stayed that way.”

The value-added tax rate is 19 percent, but the final rate is usually lower, because it is applied to the sale price after the land value is deducted, said José Tomás Marambio Yaes, a real estate lawyer in Santiago.

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Introducing Magma Fund II: $15M to Support Entrepreneurs in Latin America

Category : Magma Partners
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I’m excited to finally be able to announce our second fund, Magma II, which will continue to support the growth of U.S. incorporated startups with technology and sales teams based in Latin America, along with Fintech, InsuranceTech and Blockchain startups in Latin America. Just like Magma I, we’re still 100% privately funded.

Since we launched as Chile’s first fully private VC firm in 2014, and subsequently expanded across the region and into the United States, we’ve invested US$2.5m of our own money into 32 pre-seed and seed-stage companies with founders from ten countries. These startups now employ 300+ people from 15+ countries and have annual sales of US$15M+.

We’re excited to continue to build on Magma I by investing into 60 pre-seed and seed stage companies over the next three years into two niches: (more…)

Thinking about Thought Leadership

Category : Entrepreneurship
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I was included in Yitzi Weiner’s article called 99 Thought Leaders Share the 5 Most Important Things Needed to Become a Thought Leader. This is a great article with some amazing entrepreneurs and investors, you should check out the whole things. I wanted to share my portion of the article originally published on Thrive Global.

5 Things Needed to Become a Thought Leader:

Decide why you want to be a thought leader — To make yourself feel good? To be “famous”? To get invited to conferences to speak? To drive leads for your business? To start a consultancy? Something else? Pick your goal and work backward from there.

Have useful thoughts — It should go without saying, but thought leaders should provide useful content that helps people understand the world better. If you’re trying to be a thought leader simply regurgitating mealy mouthed, hedged thoughts of others, you’re likely a social media personality, not a thought leader. (more…)