Emma Group is a venture studio with a proven track record.

Emma Group

Founded by a team of former Endeavor executives, Matterscale aims to bridge the seed stage funding gap for Latin founders.

MatterScale Ventures

We invest in early and growth-stage companies that are cofounded by outstanding teams, are scalable, have solid unit economics, and are connected with Colombia and the rest of Latin America.

Simma Capital

TBD Angels is a group of like-minded angel investors who thrive on sharing advice, guidance, and capital with talented entrepreneurs. TBD Angels provide critical advice and connections to jumpstart the companies it invests in.

TBD Angels

Salkantay is a venture capital firm that creates value by collaborating with intrepid entrepreneurs, visionary investors and its allies to identify innovative ideas and transform them into successful and highly profitable companies. Salkantay invests in companies with high potential for financial return and impact in Latin America. The Fund has a generalist approach, investing in companies that are solving big regional market pains at scale and efficiently, using technology.

Salkantay Ventures

Established in 2016, Beta Ventures provides <Founder Capital>, encompassing hands-on, practical support of amazing early-stage founding teams in Brazil & Latam, through angel investments and mentoring by a fellow operator and fund-raiser.

Beta Ventures

Titan Angels is a seed and early-stage investment firm.

Titan Angels

EchoVC Partners is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm focused on financing and cross-pollinating leading technologies, teams, business models, and knowledge across North America, Africa, and SE Asia. The average investment size ranges from $25,000 to several million dollars depending on the stage of opportunity and capital needs of the business.

EchoVC Partners

The Ark Fund provides networked capital to talented entrepreneurs at an early stage: when most needed. Investment at this stage helps finance working capital, helps validate the business during or after an acceleration or incubation program, allows entrepreneurs to reach initial customers, validate their market and to measure value, with the goal to prepare them for their next investment round. Latin America boasts two of the biggest emerging economies in the world, a 500M spanish-speaking population and a $5 trillion economy. The region offers a tremendous opportunity for emerging entrepreneurs to create the next big thing that will change our world. Angels play an important role in helping to create these successes. By providing structured access to dealflow, investment training and community, The Ark provides high-net worth individuals and professional investors with a gateway to this transformative opportunity. The Ark enables opportunity to lead innovation and transformation of industries and economies.  TheArk has built a collaborative funding ecosystem, providing investment training through active funding in extraordinary startups. We challenge ourselves to be better and challenge humanity to be better.

The Ark Fund

Torre

Automated recruiting is difficult but inevitable. We’re solving it by building the global matching network for work.

<div>Torre is a platform which utilizes machine learning to pair businesses with freelancers for project-based work. The platform features work categories including sales, software development, copywriting, and business analysis.</div>

The on-demand economy has finally reached white collar work.

Online Freelancing Platforms

Torre launches new accelerator for remote work networking

<div>
 
 Torre is a platform which utilizes machine learning to pair businesses with freelancers for project-based work. The platform features work categories including sales, software development, copywriting, and business analysis.
 
 
 The platform’s activity has increased in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, reaching 1.5 million profiles and 500,000 active users per month. Torre receives approximately 22,000 unique job postings per month.
 
 
 Torre raised USD 5 million in its seed round funding from a consortium of individual investors including Diego Piacentini (former VP of Amazon and Apple), Mike Shoemaker (former Global Director of Product Operations at Uber), and Rodrigo Schmidt (senior Head of Engineering at Instagram) in July 2020. The fresh funds will be used to experiment new work categories such as marketing and customer service based on increased demand in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 
 
</div>

Textbroker is a platform for creative writing freelancers to connect with businesses. Textbroker freelancers work on projects such as social media posts, news stories, and blog posts. The platform provides content in over 35 languages, while connecting businesses with freelancers in the target country. Platform pricing starts at USD 2.3 cents per word.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, the platform served over 80,000 clients, including eBay, Otto and RVshare. The company also had 100,000+ registered freelancers on the platform as of October 2024.

Textbroker

Procurement Freelancers provides freelancers for procurement functions such as sourcing/category management, quality control and assurance, and advisory. Its algorithm calculates the relevance between experts' skills and client briefs by scoring criteria like skills, experience, and language. It prioritizes search criteria based on user preferences to deliver the most accurate match.The platform is free to use for freelancers, while clients purchase subscriptions to hire and manage freelancers at no added cost.In March 2019, the company acquired Dragon Sourcing, a procurement and sourcing service provider.Key competitors: None under coverage. (The platform connects enterprises with procurement-based freelancers)

Procurement Freelancers

Kolabtree is a UK-based freelancer marketplace connecting businesses and scientists. The platform provides businesses with skills such as data analysis, product development, scientific consulting, desk research, and other science related services within 24 hours of receiving business requests.Kolabtree also provides concierge services for writing, with fees ranging from USD 2,000 to USD 4,000, depending on the timeline. Similarly, its concierge services for statistical analysis are priced between USD 250 and USD 625, also based on the timeline.The company generates revenue via a 20% service fee charged to the freelancers based on the total project invoice.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, Kolabtree served over 3,200 businesses including notable enterprises such as NASA, Volkswagen and Moderna. Further, the platform had over 20,000 scientists and experts as of October 2024.Key competitors:&nbsp;None under coverage. (Kolabtree offers a freelancing platform connecting enterprises with scientists).

kolabtree

Codersera is a freelance marketplace for enterprises to find software engineers. The company claims to provide the top 1% of developers through its five tier vetting process. The platform’s freelancers cover a spectrum of developer and data science technologies such as iOS, Android, Python, and Java. Additionally, freelancers provide SaaS platform development, testing and QA services and migration away from legacy systems.Key customers and partnershipsAs of October 2024, the platform had over 20,000 vetted freelancers and 100+ clients on its platform.

Codersera Inc

Upwork is an online labor marketplace that assists in engaging freelancers and businesses in discovering direct labor arrangements for both short and long-term projects. Upwork’s roots date back to 1998 and 2003 when online talent marketplaces Elance and oDesk were founded. In December 2013, Elance and oDesk announced its merger with a combined freelancer base of over 8 million (5 million from oDesk and 3 million from Elance). Subsequent to the merger, Elance-oDesk continued to report losses and required a bailout package of USD 30 million from Benchmark Capital in November 2014. The company was rebranded as Upwork in May 2015.&nbsp;Unlike Fiverr, Upwork encourages freelancers to develop a profile focused on specific expertise, helping them build a niche reputation. Fiverr, on the other hand, allows freelancers to offer a wide range of services through individual gigs, enabling them to market multiple skill sets simultaneously. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16664">February 2023</a> Upwork expanded its offerings to include full-time hiring for businesses with features such as finding, vetting, hiring, onboarding, and paying professionals for full-time work arrangements.&nbsp; Additionally, in&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24502">December 2023</a>, Upwork launched Chat Pro, a GPT-4-powered app in beta, to enhance work efficiency. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35568">October 2024</a>, Upwork introduced&nbsp; Uma, an AI assistant, the Business Plus plan for Expert-Vetted talent, Featured Jobs, and Boosted Profiles. At the time, the company also announced a 21% workforce&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/35569">reduction</a> aiming to save USD 60 million annually.Upwork also offers several solutions to streamline hiring: Talent Scout, connecting clients with pre-vetted freelancers; the Work Marketplace and Project Catalog for easy hiring; and the Virtual Talent Bench, which helps businesses build and maintain a network of freelancers for ongoing collaboration.The company generates revenue via a 10% project fee charged from clients, and freelancer subscriptions priced at USD 20 per month.In&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/03/upwork-ceo-on-ipo-day-we-do-not-incentivize-for-less-pay-for-freelancers.html">October 2018</a>, Upwork listed on the NASDAQ to raise approximately USD 187 million. In FY2023, Upwork generated USD 689 million in revenue (up 11% YoY). The company guided FY2024 revenue between USD 760 million to USD 780 million, representing 11.7% YoY growth at the midpoint. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) stood at USD 0.13 in FY2023, compared to a loss per share of USD 0.69 in FY2022.Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;The company recorded 868,000 active clients as of August 2024, with notable clients including Microsoft, Airbnb and NASDAQ, among others.In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/33129">August 2024,</a> Upwork partnered with Beeline to&nbsp;integrate its talent pool into Beeline’s vendor management system (VMS), offering access to over 10,000 professionals across 125+ categories. Previously, in&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.upwork.com/news-releases/news-release-details/upwork-partners-catch-expand-freelancers-access-benefits">January 2022</a>, the company partnered with Catch to offer freelancers access to personal payroll and healthcare benefits.&nbsp;

Upwork

Platforms that provide expertise in specialized areas such as law and scientific research.

Platforms that provide expertise in writing, translation, and editing.

Platforms that provide marketing expertise across email, SEO, and social media marketing functions.

Platforms that offer expertise related to web, mobile and software development with freelance developers fluent across major programming languages.

Platforms that focus on offering expertise in design and creative functions such as photography, video editing, and animation.

Platforms that offer expertise across multiple verticals such as design and creative, web, mobile and software development, finance, and marketing.

Solutions use AI/Ml for to match freelancers with clients and to vet freelancers

Some solutions introduced by players in this hub are using a B2B SaaS model

Torre

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