American Internet startups

As a new year begins, here comes the time to refresh our list of the most promising Latin American startups. It’s worth noting that this isn’t about who is going to IPO next, as we decided to limit ourselves to somewhat early stage names.

While they are still in their first years of existence, most of them have graduated from one of the region’s leading accelerators, which helped them get funding from international investors to finance their growth.

Check out our list of 10 startups to look out for below, in alphabetical order:

Agent Piggy

Agent Piggy is a financial education platform for kids, which hopes to teach them how to manage a budget in an entertaining way. Already available in Spanish and English, it launched its Portuguese version at TNW Conference Latin America in Brazil last August.

Earlier this year, it was also the winner of TNW Startup Awards’ Chilean edition. It has participated in acceleration programs at Founder Institute, Start-Up Chile and Wayra, which selected it as one of the companies it introduced to international investors during its Global Demo Day in Miami last month.

Bandtastic

and its impact on the Peruvian tech scene.)

ComparaOnline

Service comparison startup ComparaOnline was the first Chilean startup to receive investment from the Latin American VC firm Kaszek Ventures last May. In total, it has raised over US$5 million so far.

A few weeks ago, we also learned that ComparaOnline’s CEO Sebastian Valin would be joining the Endeavor Network. As you may know, Endeavor’s focus is to foster growth by supporting high-impact entrepreneurs in emerging countries, and the fact that it its global selection panel selected ComparaOnline confirms that the company is definitely a name to watch in 2013.

Cumplo

We have recently labelled Chilean startup Cumplo as “one of the most groundbreaking startups in Latin America.” Its purpose? Democratizing finance through P2P lending. By mid-December 2012, over million had been distributed via its platform.

While its model went under administrative scrutiny, it has the right team to overcome these hurdles; its co-founders Nicolas Shea is the founder of Start-Up Chile, of which Boudeguer was the executive director before he left to create Cumplo.

Runner-up: Lenddo, which currently operates in the Philippines and Colombia, and grants loans based on community trust.

Descomplica

Brazilian e-learning startup Descomplica has recently closed an investment round from Peter Thiel’s Valar Ventures, Brazil-focused Valor Capital Group and EL Area, 500 Startups, and Palo Alto-based Social+Capital Partnership.

In other words, it is well placed to surf on the online education boom in Latin America, and more specifically in Brazil, where it helps students prepare for major entrance examinations.