Startup Accelerator Spotlight: Carao Ventures

Carao Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in high potential startups, accelerates and supports early stage projects, and contributes in the development of the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem in Central America.

Name of Accelerator: Carao Ventures

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Website: http://www.caraov.com/

Founding Partner and Managing Director: Allan Boruchowicz

Founding Partner: Adrian Garcia

Operations Lead: Luis Diego Rojas

This article is part of our Startup Accelerator Spotlight Series featuring accelerators from around the world. We hope these spotlights will assist the entrepreneur should they consider attending an accelerator program.

In two sentences or less, tell us about your accelerator and its objectives.

Carao Ventures is a venture capital firm that invests in high potential startups, accelerates and supports early stage projects, and contributes in the development of the regional entrepreneurship ecosystem in Central America. We back extraordinary entrepreneurs who combine innovation with the capability to transform industries and generate new solutions to the market.

Is Your Startup Investable? Take the Test and Find Out Now!

Why is your accelerator program unique? Please describe the benefits of participation in your program.

We create custom-made strategies for our startups. Carao Ventures is the only formal VC and accelerator in the region, providing the entrepreneurs with operative and strategic guidance, a co-working space, as well as support in business development to transform projects into companies and accelerate their growth.

Startup Due Diligence: 5 Reasons it is Critical to the Angel and VC Investor

What is the most difficult part of working with startups?

Due to the lack of development in the startup ecosystem in the country, it sometimes gets difficult to find the right resources for startups in certain industries.

4 Steps to Change Failure Into Success

What do you enjoy the most; what do you find most appealing about working with entrepreneurial startups?

Every day at work is exciting, never the same. In case of working with startups in Costa Rica, which is a country still developing the startup ecosystem, it’s great to know that our work can improve and develop the country’s situation at large, and also that some startups will eventually improve the lives of their customers.

Tell us about your success stories; which are the most interesting companies to have participated in your program?

We handpick every new opportunity aiming to only include high-potential startups. To date, we have led investment rounds for 6 companies which are continually growing, and several have received funding from other sources as well.

Our startups are led by exceptional entrepreneurs that ensemble capable and motivated work teams. Here are a few companies from our portfolio and a brief description of their offerings:

Bildtek – Specialized construction system of light-gauge steel structure solutions to help build commercial and residential projects.
slidebean – Cloud-based software solution that enables the user to create visually appealing presentation slides.
Singularities – Artificial Intelligence platform to create models of customer’s beliefs, opinions and behaviors based on “Big Data”.
junar – Cloud-based open data platform that transforms government data into readable, searchable, and usable insight in a fast, easy and affordable way.
How to Launch a Tech Startup If You Are a Non-Technical Founder [Infographic]

What are the three most important factors startup entrepreneurs should consider when contemplating attending an accelerator?

They must be sure of what should be expected upon joining an accelerator.
They should fully understand the next steps.
Determine what the real benefits are which may be offered to their company.

What else would you like to share?

It is exciting to work in a startup ecosystem that is still developing; there are always new problems to solve in creative ways.

Carao Ventures was founded in 2012 in San Jose, Costa Rica. We have reviewed 2,000+ applications and have developed partnerships with 11 startups in software, fintech, biotechnology, education, and other industries. We are strategic partners of EY Central America, members of GAN, and part of XCALA (BID-FOMIN).

Looking for a startup accelerator to attend? Check out our Startup Accelerator Spotlight to learn about options!

Are you familiar with other accelerators you believe should be spotlighted? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them, sharing your comments below.

Business Startup Spotlight: TripHappy

Women Entrepreneurs Spotlight: Evaluados

Pam Goforth

Pam Goforth is Research Manager for FundingSage, which provides valuable information, tools and resources to entrepreneurs seeking to start, grow and fund a business.

Definitioner

Venture Capital / Venture Capitalist

Bounce Rate

Website

An organized property made up of a group of connected pages on the World Wide Web, (Internet) that are considered a single entity.⁶

User

An individual or enterprise that utilizes a product or service. Such use can be on a paid or unpaid basis.⁶

Entrepreneur

A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks to do so. Entrepreneurs are the founders of startups and are the people angel investors support.⁷

Portfolio

A strategic collection of startup companies invested in by an angel, angel group or Venture Capital Fund.⁶

Funding

This term is used synonymously with the words “financing” and “capital.” It refers to the amount of money that is needed for a business endeavor. For example, a new business owner may seek a certain amount of funding for their startup company. This “raised” capital can be used to launch their endeavor as well as to sustain their company until monetary profit can be generated.⁴

Venture Capital Firm

Venture Capital Firm is an investment company that invests its shareholders' money in startups and other risky but potentially very profitable ventures.⁵

Venture Capital

Investment capital made available to high growth, scalable startups, typically beginning at the early stage, from a fund supported by accredited investors.⁶

Venture

Venture is often used for referring to a risky start-up or enterprise company.⁵

Startup

A startup is a new business venture / enterprise in its initial or early stages of development. These stages include the concept, seed, early, growth and mezzanine stages.⁶

Early Stage

The key characteristic is market development. The business is focused on sales and marketing and proving business viability.²
A state of a company that typically has completed its seed stage and has a founding or core senior management team, has proven its concept or completed its beta test, has minimal revenues, and no positive earnings or cash flows.³
This term generally refers to a young enterprise that is three years old or younger. During this phase, a company is still in its novel stages of development. They could be in the process of experimenting with new products or services that they intend to market in the near future and/or may have viable products that are already available to the public.⁴

Director

Person elected by shareholders to serve on the board of directors. The directors appoint the president, vice president and all other operating officers, and decide when dividends should be paid (among other matters).³

Market

Based on supply and demand, this term refers to the societal arrangement whereby consumers purchase goods and services from businesses and individual sellers in exchange for currency. In economic relevance, the “market” can be divided into different industries, such as biotechnology, food, etc. The exchange between the consumer and seller contribute to a society’s market economy which greatly depends on these transactions for economic viability.⁴

Capital

Financial capital is a term that can refer to the money exchanged between entrepreneurs and investors during a business deal. Entrepreneurs need to raise capital for their startups while investors can provide them with the needed capital (or funding). Financial capital usually comes with interest, and new business owners can use their financial capital in purchasing real capital (or machinery or equipment) for their new business.⁴

Accelerator

In an Accelerator, a Seed investment is made in return for equity and usually between $15K - $50K. Startups are admitted in classes and work in groups. They are generally given a deadline to complete intensive training and iteration (typically 1 week to 6 months). Startups end an accelerator program with a Demo Day in which they pitch to investors.²

INFOGRAPHICS