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Latin American entrepreneurs are growing in number and confidence as the region moves out of the pandemic. We’ve selected six of the most dynamic and interesting businesspeople across the continent to focus on.
These movers and shakers are determined to learn all they can, both in their home countries and abroad, and they’re making waves across the world. Check out these top Latin American entrepreneurs in 2021.
Serviap Global can help with your global expansion needs. Contact us today to learn how you can build your business with PEO in Latin America.
Simon Borrero, Rappi (Colombia)
Simon Borrero is the co-founder and CEO of Colombia’s Rappi, a delivery startup company that was born in 2015. He studied at the prestigious Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With more than 10 years of experience in the tech industry as a whole, he has his hands in other startups beyond Rappi as well.
Borrero is also the founder of Imaginamos, a software development company with more than 300 employees and over 3,000 corporate clients across 17 countries. He also co-founded the mobile commerce platform Grability as well as ventures such as Elecciones and Ventrevista.
Simon is one of the Latin American entrepreneurs that has always considered himself to be a hustler of sorts. One way he and his two co-founders marketed the Rappi app was to give away free donuts to people on the streets—as long as they downloaded the app.
Ricardo Weder, Justo (Mexico)
Ricardo Weder founded Mexico’s Justo in 2019 and has been serving as its CEO ever since. While the grocery startup is a massive company today, Weder also refined his skills in other countries. He served as president, CEO, and COO at Cabify over his 4.5 year tenure there, and he spent one year at Easy Taxi as well. Before that, he was a mover and shaker at major international firms such as HSBC, JPMorgan, PwC and 3M.
Weder obtained his MBA at the Mannheim Business School, which is consistently ranked as Germany’s best business school and one of the top 10 in all of Europe. Before that, he completed his undergraduate studies at Stanford University.
Named a Young Global Leader at the 2021 World Economic Forum, Weder was also placed on the Forbes & Expansion 30 list. He is considered to be one of the leading Latin American entrepreneurs and an angel investor.
Federico Vega, CargoX (Brazil)
CargoX has been working to connect freight with shippers for years now, and CEO Federico Vega is at the center of it all. Helming the company since November 2011, he has helped many other small- and medium-sized companies in Brazil as well as other Latin American entrepreneurs.
Before joining CargoX, Vega worked for 3.5 years at Sontra Cargo, an online marketplace for transporting goods. He used his time at the company to mold his skills and outside-the-box thinking, enabling him to create the incredibly successful business that CargoX is today.
Gabriel Puliatti, Emptor (Peru)
Gabriel Puliatti proudly says that he was a hacker at the age of 15. Today, he runs Emptor, an identity verification and background check company based out of Peru. As both the co-founder and current CEO of Emptor, Puliatti has a lot of passion for what he does. He isn’t just one of the most exciting Latin American entrepreneurs, either. Yes, he can drive sales, gather and encourage teams, work on products, and handle other executive duties—but he is also a fully hands-on developer, always ready to dive into coding work and data processing tasks.
Marcos Galperin, MercadoLibre (Argentina)
Marcos Galperin was born into wealth, as his family owned one of the world’s largest leather companies, SADESA. While that afforded him the opportunity to study at some of the world’s most prestigious schools, he took initiative to excel beyond his initial privilege and create a multinational empire.
Galperin earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and his MBA from Stanford University. While at Stanford, he founded MercadoLibre. The original intent was to build off the business model that eBay was enjoying in the U.S. and take it back to Latin America. This made him one of the most successful recent Latin American entrepreneurs.
Today, MercadoLibre is one of the largest companies in the entire region, often touted as the Amazon of Latin America. As the chairman, president, and CEO of the company, Galperin has a reported net worth of roughly $5.82 billion.
Matias Muchnick, NotCo (Chile)
Matias Muchnick considers himself a tech disruptor, but he operates in a different industry than most of the other top entrepreneurs on this list. The company he runs, NotCo, works to create delicious food that’s also good for the planet. NotCo is a blend of food production, science, and artificial intelligence. It takes food that comes from animals and re-imagines it using ingredients totally derived from plants.
Muchnick studied at two prestigious U.S. universities—Berkeley and Harvard. He first founded Eggless, a vegan food company, in Chile but he wanted to do more. He founded NotCo after realizing that many companies in the food sector operate on obsolete, inefficient technology.
He teamed up with his partners—Karin Pichara, who has a Ph.D. in computer science, and Pablo Zamora, a biochemist—to redefine the way we make and think about food. Today, NotCo is estimated to have a billion-dollar valuation, making him another of the Latin American entrepreneurs to enjoy massive success.
Serviap Global can help you invest in Latin American entrepreneurs
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Contact us today to learn more about how you can expand your business in South America and Latin America.
