Chile VC Influence Starts to Reach into Silicon Valley
November 18th, 2009Santiago, Chile-based Austral Capital is one of a growing number of Latin American VC firms making names for themselves. Thanks to aggressive support from the Chilean government, the less than two-year old company has funded several Chilean start-ups, including Atakama Labs, which I wrote about earlier today. And it’s also moved quickly to set up an office in Silicon Valley and hired Hiroshi Wald to run the show. Wald said Austral’s Silicon Valley mission is two-fold: help Chilean entrepreneurs succeed in the U.S. market and also find worthwhile U.S. companies in which to invest.
Wald is also the Program Chair of the MIT/Stanford Venture Lab. His prior positions include Managing Director at Competitive Insights and the Zeno Group. He also founded Zingdata, which Knowledge Networks acquired. He said in an interview that he is bullish on Chile and that there are “so few venture firms focused …
