The Founder Institute's four-month curriculum covers everything you would expect from an early-stage startup program, including topics like "Startup Legal and IP” towards the beginning, to “Fundraising” near the end. What makes the curriculum special is the Mentors that teach it, whose passion, feedback and support helps our companies avoid rookie mistakes and set the foundation for a meaningful and enduring company.
The Founder Institute carefully recruits approximately 25 Mentors per Semester, who are normally the CEO or founder of a successful startup. Rather than specialists or consultants, we prefer Founders and CEOs to give our companies "the entrepreneur's perspective." The mentors share their experiences, best practices, and mistakes, while also providing specific guidance and feedback on the Founder companies.
In addition, the Founder Institute's unique Graduate Liquidity Pool allows our mentors to share in the equity of companies formed in each program - and, their share is based solely on the anonymous ratings they receive from the Founders both during, and after the program. In this way, the Founder Institute incentivizes mentors to take a special interest in our startups, and provide as much assistance as possible after the program.
We have a great lineup of Mentors confirmed for the Autumn 2013 Santiago Founder Institute, including many from out of town. See the full list below.
Adeo Ressi
Founder/CEO, Founder Institute
Adeo Ressi is the founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, the worlds largest startup-technology company accelerator. The Institute is the eighth startup that Mr. Ressi has founded or built, four of which were acquired and three of which are still operating. Mr. Ressi was also a Founding Member of TheFunded.com, an online community of 17,000 CEOs to research, rate, and review funding sources worldwide.
Agustín Pallotti
Director, Lupa Corporation
Agustín founded thextremeshop.com in 2004, the first online store for extreme sports in Latin America, and in 2006 developed a strategic alliance with Gravedad Zero, a leading TV show broadcast on ESPN Latin America. He was also founder and current Director of Lupa Corporation, a leader in digital tourism and streaming video in Argentina with some local projects that were seen all over the world.
Allan Jarry
Founder, NEOS
Allan is a serial entrepreneur as well as the GP of the fund DaD-NEOS. In addition, he is leading a network of angel investors based in Chile and Miami. He holds a degree from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
Ash Fontana
Venture Hacker, AngelList
Ashs last startup, Topguest, built marketing technology for the travel industry and went from idea to exit in 18 months. Previously, Ash founded a number of web marketing and network consulting companies while at high school at the University in Sydney. Professionally, Ash was a top-ranked Analyst in both principal investing and investment banking for Macquarie Capital in New York, published Macqaries flagship annual Equities Research report on infrastructure and worked in leveraged finance for Deloitte. Academically, Ash graduated with First Class Honors in Law, placed first in numerous law subjects at the most selective degree program in the country, and was ranked in the top 1% of his class in Accounting in his Commerce (Finance) degree at the University of Sydney, resident at St Pauls College. Ash is a mentor and investor in StartMate, started the first VC pitch competition at the University of Sydney and actively advises startups around the world.
Claudio Barahona
Gerente de Negocios, Wayra Chile
Fundó su primera empresa a los 18 años: una reconocida agencia de eventos tecnológicos. Tras terminar Ingeniería Civil Industrial en la U. de Chile, decidió que su gran fortaleza era apoyar y motivar a otros a emprender, en la labor de ejecutivo de proyectos tecnológicos en la incubadora Octantis de la U. Adolfo Ibañez. Luego tuvo un exitoso paso por la División de Innovación del Ministerio de Economía, tomando las funciones de Coordinador de Emprendimiento y Capital Humano. Hoy pertenece al equipo de Movistar Innova, fundando el Centro Movistar Innova y liderando el programa Wayra en Chile.
Cristóbal Silva
Managing Partner, FEN Ventures
Cristobal Silva is currently the Managing Partner the Fen Ventures. In the past was a senior associate at Bahamondez Alvarez & Zegers in the entrepreneurship and Venture Capital practice. He also is the Founder and President of Idealis, and member of the Board of Directors of several companies. Cristóbal is a lawyer graduated from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He obtained a Master in Laws (LL.M.) from Northwestern University, Chicago and a Certificate in Management from Kellogg School of Management.
Daniel Perez Rada
CTO, Epistemonikos
Daniel was co-Founder in Zappedy, a software for loyalty programs, which was acquired by Groupon in 2011 in more than US$10 millions. He has been an entrepreneur since he was studing Engineering at Universidad de Chile, creating products like Expenews.com and Epistemonikos.com. Daniel is expert in customer development, agile development, web architecture and programming.
Emilio Davis
CTO, Khipu
Emilio the CTO of Khipu and has lead over 200 projects for a wide range of clients or different size and complexity. He holds a degree from Universidad de Chile and his specialties include Product design, Platform arquitecture, Team management, Performance optimization, Web technologies, and PKI.
Gabriel Gurovich
Managing Partner, The Food Links
Emprendedor serial, Founder de The FoodLinks (innovadora compañía que cambió el modelo de negocios de comercialización de alimentos e mercados extranjeros), founder de DreamLine (primera y única empresa Chilena dedicada al diseño y fabricación de electrónica para alimentación y respaldo eléctrico) y miembro del directorio de Cuponatic LATAM. Gabriel es experto en temas de nuevos negocios, estrategia corporativa y negociacion con venture capitals y todo tipo de inversiontas early stage, también ha sido consultor de diversas empresas desde la consultora INNSPIRAL (ex IGT), ha participado como speaker en First Tuesday en muchas ocasiones y es socio del restaurante peruano Tambo en Santiago de Chile.
Humberto Lobos
Co-Founder & CTO, Movidreams S.A.
Humberto es emprendedor serial, co-fundador de SmartBoxTV y Movidreams entre otras empresas. Es experto en Gestión de Excelencia y Calidad de Servicio. Le encanta ayudar a construir y mejorar el ecosistema de emprendimiento del país. También es mentor de Wayra.
Juan Pablo Cappello
Principal, Greenberg Traurig
Juan Pablo was recently selected as a Top 50 Entrepreneur by Business Leader Magazine. He is a Principal Shareholder in the Latin American Group of Greenberg Traurig, an international 2,000 lawyer law firm. Juan Pablo was a partner in and a director of Patagon.com, which was sold to Banco Santander for a transaction value of over US$750 million. Juan Pablo is also a well known entrepreneur and deeply involved in supporting venture capital in Latin America. He co-founded (i) www.idea.me, the first Latin America crowdfunding site and (ii) Sauber Energy, a green energy company in Chile that resolves the problem of “harmonics” in the electrical grid, while remaining a serial ”seed investor” supporting many projects including Senzari (an international music site like Pandora only better), Urbita (a regional travel site), and LinkedStore (an Argentina site that supports SMEs).
Luis Martín Cabiedes
Partner, Cabiedes & Partners
Martin Luis Cabiedes is one of the most well known early stage investors in Spain and founding partner of CABIEDES & PARTNERS. Ex-CEO of Europa Press and lecturer at the Entrepreneurship program of IESE Business School. He specialieses in seed and early stage investments in Internet and Technology Ventures in Spain. He is currently invested in Printcolor, Bubok, Trovit, Nvivo, Coguan, Habitissimo, Blablacar, Rockola, Offerum, Uvinum, Parabebes, Bankimia, Mbaandcompany, Zyncro, Ulabox, Tiendeo, Deporvillage, Gigas, Comunitae, Nonabox, Deskidea, Ducksboard, Stopandwalk, Kantox, Nubelo and Hazloposible. Former investments include Ole, Myalert, Acceso or Privalia.
Maca Lara
Co-Fundadora, PulsoSocial
Periodista de negocios y tecnología. Emprendedora. Maca Lara Dillon, co-fundó PulsoSocial en el año 2008, medio especializado en el mercado de startups y negocios basados en tecnología Web de América Latina. También es conductora del programa radial "Casos de Negocios" que se emite semanalmente por Radio Palermo .
Manuk Masseredjian
Subgerente de Innovación, BBVA Chile
My name is Manuk Masseredjian, Innovation Manager of BBVA Bank in Chile. I´ve worked in different areas and companies since 2003, all of them focused in Banking Marketing and Strategy, I´m graduated with a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration (FGV-Brazil) and I have a Master Degree in Marketing (ESPM-Brazil).
Marcelo Guital
CEO and Founder, Guital & Partners
nternational expert in building and showing marks of entrepreneurship and manager innovacion.Creador Benedictino Waters, who after being bought by Coca-Cola Company is being studied in Chile and abroad to become one of the most important cases of entrepreneurship internationally. Founder Guital & Partners, the first company of entrepreneurship and innovation in the creation of marks in Chile. Their model has developed in over 12 companies generating ventures for more than 24 million dolares.He has given conferences in Chile and abroad.
Matías Zegers
Partner, Bahamondez, Álvarez y Zegers Ltda.
Matías es uno de los abogados con mayor experiencia en Chile en temas de emprendimiento y levantamiento de capital.
Pedro Pineda
Country Manager, Pez Urbano
Pedro fundó el sitio de compras colectivas Queremos Descuentos, donde se desempeñó como CEO hasta que la compañía fue comprada en 2011 por Peixe Urbano, el sitio de compras colectivas más grande de origen latinoamericano. Actualmente, Pez Urbano cuenta con operaciones en más de 80 ciudades en Latinoamerica y Pedro es el responsable de la expansión y estrategia en Chile.
Roberto Arancibia
Fundador, Producciones Globales
Roberto Arancibia, publicista, productor de eventos, fotógrafo, escritor de blogs. Hago clases en 3 Universidades, charlas y asesorías sobre web, redes sociales, Personal Branding, creatividad y publicidad en nuevos medios. Estoy en internet desde que todo comenzó. Amo la web, las buenas fotos, los buenos textos, la buena música, las películas, las canciones con piano y el rock clásico. Me gusta comer rico y los autos rápidos, las Nikon y los Macs.
Tim Delhaes
CEO, mon.ki
I am a serial and social entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in technology, networks and business development and currently the CEO of MonkeyContact, a Silicon Valley based startup currently still in stealth mode. In addition to MonkeyContact, I am also actively involved in a number of other projects including First Tuesday and Founder Institute Chile.
Tomas Bercovich
CEO and Founder, Zhetapricing
Tomas is CEO of Zhetapricing, first company in the world which build a revenue management solution for cinema industry. Besides, is the founder of Cuponatic, a discount retail B2C company. Tomas has participate in two financing rounds for his companies.
Vanesa Kolodziej
Managing Parter, Nazca Ventures
Vanesa Kolodziej is a Managing Parter at Nazca Ventures and Founder of Fundadoras.org. She is also the Co-founder of Palermo Valley, co-organizer of Start-Up Weekend BA, and GOAP Argentina. Start-Up World advisor and 500 Start-Ups mentor. Four time entrepreneur with Venture Capital experience. An entrepreneur with relevant experience in the Technology, Internet and Venture Capital/ Seed Investment sector.
