Google selects 8 LatAm fintech startups for new accelerator program

By October 6, 2017

Google has hand selected 8 startups from Latin America to be part of its new Campus Latam Exchange Founders program.

The chosen companies from Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, and Peru are all fintech startups who have proven entrepreneurial talent in the region.

Among the chosen companies is Latin Fintech, a startup providing quick online consumer loans to millennials in Peru. Under the premise that obtaining a financial service should not be a difficult or tedious process, the company deliver the best alternative to traditional banking. Using complex algorithms to process large volumes of data, they can lend money in minutes.

This month the selected technology finance companies will get the opportunity to spend a week at Google’s Sao Paulo Campus where they will have access to personalized content, mentoring sessions and advice from both Google experts and professionals in the business sector specializing in the Brazilian market.

The Sao Paulo Campus has been operating in Brazil since June 2016 as a Google initiative for entrepreneurs. It will be the first time that a company office has designed a program exclusively for startups in Latin America.

“The fintech Brazilian ecosystem is booming. Local startups are developing products and solutions that cater to a consumer market that was outside traditional financial services, meeting previously unmet needs with huge growth potential,” says André Barrence, Director of the Sao Paulo Campus. “Even with different legislations, it is possible to identify users in emerging countries with similar characteristics, so that Latin American fintech can become companies that solve not only local problems but those of the entire region.”

These Google spaces are specifically aimed at hosting entrepreneurs and companies with new ideas that want to create or promote new businesses. The fact that Google has shifted its focus to emerging Latin American startups to participate in this brand new program showcases the importance of the region in today’s fintech sphere.