Colombia – Latin America’s Tech Hub

During the last decade the country has invested heavily to promote development and technological innovation within the nation. US tech companies that are looking for remote engineering talent therefore started hiring Colombian developers to scale and grow their teams.

While US companies look at Colombia as an outsourcing destination, the country brought up its own stars who already disrupted a wide range of sectors such as logistics, groceries and banking. Prisma Softwares presents a selection of the country’s most innovative tech firms.

Rappi is Colombia’s most successful tech startup that initially started as food delivery service and later expanded to financial services such as QR-based digital wallets. Having raised a $220m Series D led by DST Global, Rappi has become Colombia’s first unicorn. The prestigious Y Combinator accelerator program accepted Rappi in 2016 and since then it attracted top tier tech investors such as SoftBank Investment Advisers who invested $1bn in 2019.

Addi is a consumer lending fintech that offers credit and banking solutions to underserved borrowers that high street banks tend to exclude due to little or insufficient credit history. Co-founded by Santiago Suarez who held roles at LendingClub and J.P. Morgan in the US, Addi managed to attract a strong investment syndicate that includes investors such as Andreessen Horowitz, monashees and Foundation Capital.

Habi is a data-driven real estate platform that simplifies the homeownership lifecycle in Latin America. Using a proprietary pricing algorithm it enables quicker and more efficient buying and selling of homes. Habi is backed by investors such as Tiger Global Management who led a $5.5m pre-seed round in 2019 with US based co-investors FJ Labs and Supernode Ventures.

Merqueo is an on-demand grocery startup that offers deliveries at competitive prices in Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. Having raised a $50m Series C led by IDC Ventures, DigitalBridge and IDB Invest, Merqueo attempts to aggressively expand to all Latin American markets.

Hogaru enables its users to connect to qualified personnel to perform jobs at homes, businesses and shops. Its mobile platform offers a cost effective and efficient solution for job seekers and employers. Hogaru joined the Y Combinator and is backed by Wayra and Velum Ventures.

Platzi is the largest Spanish-speaking tech school in the Spanish-speaking world with an immense community of Latin American developers. Platzi enables students to learn in-demand skills with more than one million students using its services.

Liftit offers a platform that optimizes processes in the logistics sector. It monitors operations in real-time and tracks services from the time the order is placed until it is dispatched, allowing businesses to optimize their logistics services. Liftit is backed by AC Ventures and monashees.