This is part of our weekly series of posts summarizing startup news from Brazil in English.
–Startupi is doing a survey of investors in Brazil to gather information about the state of investing for an upcoming report and analysis. The survey contains twelve questions regarding business in the past year and a half. If you have not received a survey and wish to contribute your thoughts on the state of investing in Brazil, email Startupi’s editor Diego Remus at: diego at startupi dot com dot br.
–JáComparou has received support from Argotec and members of Gávea Angels. JáComparou provides comparisons of mobile phone plans and other telecomm services so consumers and businesses can pick the best plans for their needs. Full story.
–Saver’s Club is a discount/offers startup modeled after Sam’s Club in North America. Saver’s Club will provide a venue for businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and retail stores to offer special discounts to club members, who pay an annual membership fee. The site is expected to launch in July. Full story.
–Mountain do Brasil – a division of Mountain Partners – is a relatively new fund in Brazil. It is specializing in early stage investments and incubation. They have started a series of get-togethers called the Supper Club, in which entrepreneurs and investors from various sectors meet to network in an informal setting. There are no PowerPoint presentations! Mountain Partners is a Swiss fund with investments in more than 120 businesses in Europe and the Americas. Their site is available in English. You can see a video of their recent presentation in São Paulo here (video is in English).
–Valoriza Web has launched a Facebook app called SMS Para Todos (SMS For All) which supports free text messaging between cell phones. Sent messages are not posted to Facebook in any way. Users receive advertising via SMS to support the free service. In their first two weeks since launch they have registered over 600 new users and seen more than 5000 messages sent. Full story.
–Startupi is a media partner in a new startup competition, the Latin America Mobile, Web & Cloud Start-up Challenge. The competition will be offering $200,000 in prizes for winning business plans in various categories. Riverwood Capital, Silicon Valley Bank and Qualcomm Ventures are backing the event. Details (in English) here.
–New research on businesses that serve lower income customers or support digital inclusion and community development has been released. The study was done by ANDE Polo Brasil, Potencia Ventures, Avina, and Plano CDE. 140 businesses were surveyed. The main conclusions were that most were run by people with higher education (78%); relatively few offered services relating to arts, culture, education, technology and healthcare; 96% of the businesses were started with the goal of providing a social benefit, but only half actually measure that in any way; most focus on selling products to low income consumers or other businesses that serve that community and are not dependent on donations or government support. Suggested improvements include increasing encouragment of entrepreneurship among low-income people; making a concerted effort to measure indicators acutal success in companies intending to provide social benefit; developing more low-income entrepreneurial opportunities that are not dependent on NGOs or government grants. Full story.
–Startup Farm is mentoring a new group of entrepreneurs in São Paulo. A slide show in this post gives a brief English synopsis of each of the participating startups.
