Our partnerships bloom, Gen.7 gets ready for Demo Day and more on our March updates!

Whether you’re in the Northern or Southern hemisphere, March marks the beginning of a new season. And for our Gen.7 startups it comes in the form of being less than a mile away from reaching the end of a journey that kicked off last November.

Over the course of almost 20 weeks, we’ve seen them bloom within the local ecosystem and onwards to bring their innovative solutions — which range from disrupting the retail, food, and wellness industries — to the international market. Now the time has come to showcase the results on the long-awaited #P18DemoDay, coming April 3rd! Keep scrolling down to save your spot. We’ll be expecting you.

As for parallel18, we continue to work hard to make this year a memorable one. So to keep up the streak, during the last week of February our Operations Manager, Eduardo Padial, along with our Startup Executive, Laura Delgado, flew to London.

The trip was part of the come-alive of our partnership with Google for Startups who gathered up a vast group of startup programs in their HQs located in the English capital. Learnings, take backs, contacts and lots of new ideas have been gathered and we’re already witnessing the outcome and how it translates into more opportunities for our companies.

Furthermore, our Business Development Manager, Cristina Tamayo, has carried the first edition of the P18Connect Corporate Innovation School curriculum at Puma Energy, one of our corporate partners. It is efforts like these that enrich our relationships with the extended entrepreneurial community, while it brings more connections and opportunities for our startups. Which, at the end of the day, is our ultimate goal.

Now, as part of this monthly update, we’d like to make an announcement that brings us joy but also a bittersweet feeling. Parallel18’s first employee, our friend, and Outreach Manager, Marie Custodio has accepted a job offer elsewhere and March will be her last month with us.

During the last four years, Marie poured all her heart and passion into the creation, development, and growth of P18. Now she goes on to take an important step for her professional career. One that will surely open up new great opportunities that will continue to positively impact the island’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We wish her all the very best in her new endeavor. Needless to say that the P18 doors will always be open for her.

Lastly, as we get ready to say goodbye to Gen.7, the judging process for our upcoming cohort is ongoing. Results should be expected by early April and Gen.8 is set to start on May 18th! But while that happens, we’ll keep moving forward and you can support us by staying up to date with us and spreading the word about what we do. Coming up next are some further updates for a start!

Highlights in a nutshell

• #P18Alumni Entregameds, BrandsOf, Sunne Labs and Agrobeads alongside #pre18ners Watric, AffiBox and INSU Health Design got featured in an article by Forbes, which highlights the innovation revolution taking place in Puerto Rico. Read it here.
• ClassPass, the world’s leading platform in the fitness and wellness training market, announced the acquisition of Gen.1 #P18Alumni Clickypass, the main sports platform in Argentina.
• CINCO Engineering, Dokimi, Inc — owning company of Levely and EduSynch — and Datawifi are now part of our P18Ventures’ follow-up fund portfolio! For further details click here.
• Gen.2 #P18Alumni Quotanda it’s dramatically expanding its student services with the acquisition of Careerscore. Read the news here.
• Gen.7 #P18Startup The Live Green Co celebrated the leap year by opening its 100th point of sale in Chile. Furthermore, they launched a pilot with Salcobrand!
• Gen.1 #P18Alumni SamyRoad holds the sixth spot on the Financial Times’ fourth annual list of Europe’s fastest-growing companies in its Advertising category. Check out the whole list here.
• Gen.7 #P18Startup Agtools made it to Forward Fooding’s FoodTech 500! Explore the list here.
• To carry out our Corporate Innovation School’s mission at Puma Energy, local #P18Alumni from BrainHi, BrandsOf and BUREA have used their experience as founders of innovative ventures to impart creativity inducing “Founder Talks”.

YOU’RE ALL SET! A lot has been happening, as usual, but this is about it, for now! If you’d like to keep up with us, remember to stay tuned to our social media for further updates as the month passes by or subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

We’ll see you soon! Stay awesome, folks. :)