Latin America is quickly becoming a startup hot-spot as sealed by the recent arrival of Geeks on a Plane, the generally fruitful economies of Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil that have been only slightly phased by the worldwide economic downturn, and startup communities like Start-Up Chile, Palermo Valley in Argentina, and CulturaE from Medellín, Colombia. Many Latin American startups are now bursting onto the global scene, becoming funded by well-known VCs/angels, and becoming acquired by some of the world’s largest companies.

As mentioned in a recent The Next Web article, Junar, a Start-Up Chile participant and startup comprised of Argentineans, Uruguayans, Chileans, and Costa Ricans, was ranked among the top 10 up-and-coming Latin American startups to watch. A web-based data dashboard service,Junar has excelled and grown rapidly having received funding from international venture capitalists, including from two Chilean firms, Aurus Tecnologia and Austral Capital. They have also participated in the prestigious MIT $100K competition and the Launch Conference, where, this year, they officially launched Junar to the world.

Joining Junar on the Latin American startup stage is a startup that is taking similar strides in development and internationalization. Called Welcu, this is a startup founded in Chile that is a white label event planning service with easy application integration that is looking toward Silicon Valley for their next growth boom. It was recently announced that Dave McClure, co-founder of Geeks on a Plane and of the famous 500 Startups accelerator program, has chosen to fund Welcu alongside Groupon Latin America’s founder, Oskar Hjertonsson, who acts as an angel investor.

In the recent Start-Up Chile application round, it was similarly apparent that the startup fever has hit Latin America after having received copious applications from regional entrepreneurs. At the end of the process, the second highest amount of applications received was from Argentina, with Brazil closely trailing–totaling 24 selected startups (nearly 22%) hailing from Latin America (nations including: Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Venezuela).

According to The Next Web, other Latin American startups to keep an eye on are: BuscaPé (Brazil), PagosOnline (Colombia), Vostu (Brazil), Mentez (Brazil), Eventioz (Argentina), Restorando.com (Argentina), Smowtion (Argentina), Movile (Brazil), and DeskMetrics (Brazil).

Reblogged with permission from Start-Up Chile