2011 Was an Amazing Year

Last week I was one of many speakers at a BRNewTech event, the meetup organized by Bedy Yang, Flavio Pripas, IN Hsieh and Marco Fisbhen.

Each of us were asked to speak about 2011 and make predictions about 2012.  Below are my notes about 2011:

• Kudos to Bedy, Flavio and Marco for creating BRnewTech — it is not the only startup community in Brazil but it is the biggest.  It serves the critical role of providing community for entrepreneurs, investors and other members of the ecosystem here.
• Honestly, things changed so much and so rapidly in 2011 that it is hard to remember 2010.  2009 is a distant dream.  As recently as 2010, many people questioned where there was a place for venture capital in Brazil, in part because they questioned whether there were enough entrepreneurs.  That now seems like a ridiculous concern. Anyway, 2009 and most of 2010 was about private equity.  2011 has been about venture capital.
• I estimate 3x the number of investors and 3-5x the number of entrepreneurs in the market this year over last year.  That's incredible.
• 2011 marked the year that the Brazilian ecosystem completely integrated with the American ecosystem — prior to 2011, they were two distinct ecosystems, now investors and entrepreneurs overlap in a very thorough way.
• 2011 was the year of the clone.  In prior years, many businesses were similar or derivative to businesses in the States but they were organic/native to Brazil.  In 2011, most new businesses were exact copies of businesses in the States or Europe.