Perspectivas Globales program has $100K for new startup in P.R.
Accelerator program for emerging companies, Perspectivas Globales in Mayagüez, has opened the call for Puerto Rican entrepreneurs and technologists to participate in its 2020 New Startup Competition, which will grant $100,000 in seed funding for a new company to be founded by the competition’s winners.
During the competition, participants will begin to define what their new company could be, centered around their choice of topics selected from a list that will be provided by Perspectivas Globales, organizers said.
The new company resulting from the competition and founded by its winners, will go on to develop and distribute products or services for sale both inside and outside of Puerto Rico leveraging advanced technologies, innovative platforms, and solutions created from their Mayagüez headquarters.
“Our interest is to boost technology-based business opportunities around investable ideas, since we know the strong talent that is coming from the universities of Puerto Rico. We want to harness and channel that creativity into innovations that will enhance and contribute to the local economic development of Mayagüez and all of Puerto Rico,” said José Meléndez, founder of Global Perspectives, an initiative of DRMTES LLC and RC Hospitality.
“We believe $100,000 for a new company could be the largest amount in seed investment offered through competition to develop new businesses in Puerto Rico,” he said.
The teams must be composed of between one and three people who do not have an active company at the start of the competition.
Winner support will include aspects of product development, prototyping, marketing, operations and other functions.
The competition will begin accepting applications today, when topic areas will also be announced. The final selection will be based on the recommendations made by a selection committee composed of entrepreneurs, investors and other resources, the organization said.
“We applaud all the efforts that strengthen the culture of entrepreneurship of our Island and we urge everyone who has an idea within the guidelines of the call to give the opportunity to participate in this competition. It is in this way that the local business ecosystem is strengthened,” said Moraima De Hoyos-Ruperto, director of the Business and Economic Development Center of the of the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez campus attached to the School of Business Administration, an entity that collaborates with Perspectivas Globales in promoting the competition.
