Colombia — Prime for Tech Innovation
Colombia, the world’s gateway to South America, is in the race to become LatAm’s Technology Hub. From HubSpot anchoring its Latin American headquarters in Bogotá to Google and Facebook opening up permanent offices, major tech companies have selected Colombia to play a key role in their expansion to LatAm. Soon after WeWork opened their third Latin American location in Bogotá, Amazon followed suit and opened a customer service center and its first Latin American network access point outside of Brazil. Over the past decade, Colombia’s political stability and growing middle class have demonstrated the nation’s potential to lead LatAm’s tech revolution.
Holberton, the full-stack software engineering school that opened its first campus in San Francisco in 2015, has also taken notice of Colombia’s skilled workforce and business-friendly economy. Holberton recently announced that it will open two campuses in Colombia, one in Bogotá and one in Medellín. This marks the school’s first international expansion.
“Colombia’s digital growth is so impressive that they cannot currently train the required pool of software engineering talent fast enough…”
— Julien Barbier, Holberton’s CEO
Smart Capital
Government initiatives like Apps.co, iNNpulsa, and RutaN, supplemented by founders investing with smart capital, have laid a strong foundation for Colombia’s blossoming tech ecosystem. This has enabled Ricardo and Alejandro Garcia-Amaya, founders of Nilo Ventures (seed-stage Micro Fund investing in LatAm tech startups) the opportunity to continue strengthening the tech ecosystem by bringing smart capital and fostering a connected community of the world’s Top Latino Tech Leaders.
In March of 2019, the brothers organized an intimate get-together where Bogota’s most influential tech founders (having raised an aggregate of $110 Million) and investors gathered, connected, and exchanged best practices.
Colombia’s tech transformation has been a work in progress for many years. Early pioneers such as, Andres Barreto (Founder of First Rock Capital), Wenyu Cai (Founder of Polymath Ventures), Alex Torrenegra (Co-Founder of Torre), have played their part in laying the foundation.
10 years ago, it might have been difficult to imagine Colombia growing into a global technology hub. Today, Colombia’s positive economic outlook, innovative government initiatives, and proactive tech leaders, have created a nation ripe for the global tech revolution.
