Israeli equity crowdfunding platform OurCrowd has announced its first event in Latin America, as the company aims to spread its influence on the continent.
OurCrowd Sync: Sao Paulo 2019, an invite-only event, will gather speakers and experts from Brazil and the wider region at the Sheraton WTC, in Brazil’s largest city, on September 24 and 25. Produced by the same team that curates the annual OurCrowd Global Investor Summit, in the firm’s home city of Jerusalem, it will showcase leading technology and enterprise from Latin America—a region often overlooked by tech’s luminaries.
OurCrowd, which is Israel’s most active venture investor, recently passed $1.1 billion in committed funds, and counts 180 companies in its portfolio. Its latest event will expand the brand’s purview, and contribute to a region that is finally fulfilling its tech potential.
“The theme of OurCrowd Sync: Sao Paulo 2019 is ‘Connecting Startups, Capital, and People,’ which reflects OurCrowd’s mission of providing access to the best venture investment opportunities, and allowing our global ecosystem to support these companies’ growth,” said OurCrowd CEO Jon Medved.
Investors pumped just $1.5bn of venture capital into Latin America in 2018. But thanks to a rising SME landscape, and the entry of a $5bn region-specific fund by Japanese investment giant SoftBank, 2019 is proving a purple patch for the continent’s startup pack.
That is high time for a continent home to 163m people aged between 15 and 29, and 415m mobile phone users. Brazil and Mexico have the third- and fifth-largest Facebook populations on earth, and a raft of initiatives in both states have propelled them to the front of Latin America’s tech market.