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#178 From Emerging Markets to the World: Building Global Startup Accelerators that Create Impact. Exploring the Puerto Rico Startup Ecosystem
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#178 From Emerging Markets to the World: Building Global Startup Accelerators that Create Impact. Exploring the Puerto Rico Startup Ecosystem

The Recipe for Accelerators in Emerging Markets

Greetings Rare Ones🎉,

Are you new here? Welcome to the family of Rare Ones. This is the Rare Birds Emerging Market Podcast Newsletter. Each week I send out this long form newsletter to our community of Rare Ones as I have conversations with early stage startup founders, ecosystem builders and angel investors from across emerging markets. This long form newsletter is a deep dive into one or several themes discussed in the podcast episodes.

The Rare Birds Emerging Podcast Newsletter is written for Emerging Market early stage startup founders, ecosystem builders, angel investors and the curious.

We are now on series 8: Exploring the Puerto Rico Startup Ecosystem.

Get past analysis from the archives 👉🏾 here.

In addition, I send out the Weekly News! It is an action packed weekly curation of blockchain news and blockchain podcasts from across emerging markets featured in the Rare Birds Magazine.

💡 A Snippet 💡

Blockchain News This Week:

📑A Bitcoin ETF is now trading on the Brazilian stock exchange

📑Chinese Payment Giant Alipay Launches NFT Sales

📑El Salvador’s soon getting 1,500 Bitcoin ATMs

📑Paraguayan Lawmaker to Present Bitcoin Legislation Next Month — Aims to Make Paraguay Global Crypto Hub

📑ENGIE, Energy Web Access to Electrify Sub-Saharan Africa with DeFi

Blockchain Podcasts This Week:

📻 Why El Salvador Made Bitcoin Legal Tender with President Nayib Bukele

📻  Meron Estefanos from Eritrea: Bitcoin Can Take Down Dictators 

Get more from this week’s issue 👉🏾 here.

Lastly, My Sunday Sevens🌱 a list of seven things I have been exploring for the week.

1-Podcast
2-Discovery
3-Tweet
4-Question
5-Map
6-Reads
7-Infographic
Get this week’s Sunday Sevens 👉🏾 here.

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🛠 Quick Recap🛠
🛡Analysis from the Rare Birds Emerging Markets Podcast
🛡 News from the Rare Birds Magazine
🛡 Updates from My Sunday Sevens Newsletter

In this week’s newsletter I go down the rabbit hole into the theme of accelerators in emerging markets based on my conversation with Sebastian Vidal.

Let’s go through a series of Essential BIG Questions together so we can collectively understand: The Recipe for Accelerators in Emerging Markets.


”Start-Up Chile attracted entrepreneurial talent from all over the world. All with the aim of, on one hand, generating that break in the mentality of the local entrepreneur and, on the other, placing Chile on the peak of the innovation and global entrepreneurship map.” 1

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Sebastian was very clear with me that Startup Chile was intentional and built with a main goal and purpose: To change the nation’s culture towards entrepreneurship and to position Chile as the hub of innovation for Latin America!

The Chilean government knew that their entrepreneurs needed support and they understood that their country was too reliant on the natural resources industry. They identified a clear problem and formulated a solution in the form of Startup Chile.

According to the World Bank Chile has been one of the Latin America’s fastest growing economies. Like most countries it suffered immensely during the pandemic.

Suggested Reading: The World Bank Chile Country Report

Excerpt: “Despite tremendous economic progress and poverty reduction over the last few decades, the existing policy framework has been insufficient to continue fostering productivity growth and economic diversification, improve labor market outcomes, and further address deep-rooted inequality.”

🌱 Essential BIG QuestionWhat is Chile’s ‘resource rich’ economic story?

👇Have a Glance (i) 👇

Source: Visual Capitalist

Thinking Point


It should be noted that Startup Chile was a response to their local environment and used globalised solutions. This local-glocal model is something that Sebastian explained on the podcast. It is a strategy of innovation and global entrepreneurship which he says had a local focus but with a global outlook.

Startup Chile was launched in 2010 and here are a few milestones from its impact report.

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🏴 It was the first program of its kind in the world.
🏴 It has been replicated by many countries around the globe.
🏴 It has received 1600+ applications since its inception.
🏴 Startups have collectively raised over $997M in funding.

👇Have a Glance (ii) 👇

Source: Startup Chile Impact Report

🌱 Essential BIG Question: So how do we replicate it?

The idea isn’t to replicate but to learn from the successes’ of the Chilean programme and see how it can be applied elsewhere. This is what Sebastian explained to me in our conversation and precisely what he did when he was invited to Puerto Rico. What is different about Startup Chile is that it never tried to emulate Silicon Valley, Israel or elsewhere. As a starting point, it was aiming to satisfy a local need with one goal in mind: impact.


The Puerto Rico Recipe

Parallel 18 is an initiative created by the Puerto Rico Science & Innovation Trust, a private non for profit organisation. Its mission is, “By 2022, Puerto Rico will be a center of global recognition that develops and retains scientists, companies and entrepreneurs of world excellence, to boost our competitiveness and creativity.”

The Puerto Rico Science & Innovation Trust states on its website:

Researchers are our lifeblood.
Entrepreneurs are our change-makers.
Investors & Enterprises are our catalysts


Parallel18 describes itself as a global accelerator program that offers Puerto Rican and international entrepreneurs access to high-quality business training, mentors, business contacts, and investors to help startups scale from Puerto Rico. It provides equity free funding, office space, and support in an effort to jump-start the island as an innovation hub.

🌱 Essential BIG Question: What about impact?

In the below episode of Crossing Borders below you will hear Sebastian speak about the impact both Startup Chile and Parallel 18 are having in their respective ecosystems.

👇Have a Watch (i) 👇

Source: Crossing Borders

Puerto Rico has tailored the Startup Chile model to suit their ecosystem by:

🏴Building a tech community
🏴Retaining local talent
🏴Repatriation of talent
🏴Creation of a Knowledge Based Economy

By identifying their key problems they were able to build a robust programme which is having impact both locally and globally (glocal model).

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Must Read: Startup Chile a Critical Analysis

Excerpt: “The efforts of Start-Up Chile in many ways highlight both the way that government initiatives can be helpful in spurring entrepreneurship; as well as the need for public policy to address all elements of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in order to have maximum impact. While Start-Up Chile can perhaps be tweaked around the edges, it will be important for Chile to identify, and deal with, the binding constraints at the microeconomic level to assure that the efforts of Start-Up Chile are allowed to bear fruit.”

🌱 Essential BIG Question: Which countries have devised their own recipe?

IncuBAte (Argentina) Peru (Startup Peru) Mexico(Startup Mexico), Ruta N (Colombia), Start-Up Brazil, MaGIC (Malaysia), Start Up Jamaica and K-Startup Grand Challenge (South Korea) amongst others have all studied the Startup Chile model and devised their own recipe.

🌱 Essential BIG Question: Where do the Startup Chile startups originate?

👇Have a Glance (iii) 👇

Source: Startup Chile Impact Report

Startup Chile is now 11 years old. Since its inception in 2010 it has attracted global talent with many originating from the nearby United States. In last week’s newsletter we explored innovation. Startup Chile is indicative of how countries can foster true innovation using its own resources. It was the first innovation global policy and has successfully acted as a blueprint for others to follow.

Final Thoughts

One of the most memorable insights I came across whilst studying the Startup Chile model was research that supported the idea that when foreign and local entrepreneurs interact business skills are enhanced. The implication being that behaviours change as a result. As many countries in emerging markets overcome the challenge of building an entrepreneurial culture (and mindset) simple efforts to encourage collaboration, if even at a superficial level can catalyse innovation. As we move away from silos we should also be encouraged to interact with others across the globe who are building startups.

Sebastian and I covered quite a bit in this conversation:

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

  • Growing Up in Concepcion, Chile

  • Being a Curious Child

  • The Road to Start Up Chile

  • Deep Dive into Start Up Chile

  • Building Playbooks for other countries

  • Puerto Rico Calls

  • Why Ecosystems Don’t Grow w/o Money

  • Innovation Challenges Faced by Puerto Rico

  • The Glocal Experiment Model

  • Moving to the Puerto Rico Science, Technology & Research Trust

  • How to Reach Out to Sebastian

As always, thanks for reading and for more exchanges, questions and ideas message me via joann@rarebirdshq.com

Bye for now!

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Sebastian Vidal

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