Google CEO Funds Chilean Startup Welcu

For the first time, Tomorrow Ventures, Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s investment firm, has chosen to finance a South America based startup– and they just happen to be from Chile.  Welcu, a corporate event management service for brands and agencies, is a SaaS that aggregates tools such as Twitter, Foursquare, invitations, ticket sales, etc. to provide information in real time to better administer the lifecycle of event planning.

Funding for selected innovators ranges from $300,000 – $500,000 and is based on the criteria that the startup has a proven management team with a successful track record, a unique product/service with large market potential, businesses that can add substantial value, and that have technology as a key component to their business model.  The venture capital firm, created in 2009, has financed and advised 22 projects, all but two from the United States, one is from India, and the other, Welcu, is the only Latin American representative.

Headed by the Santiago based team of Nicolas Orellana, CEO and founder, Sebastian Gamboa, Jonatan Flores, Carolina Orellana, and CFO Christian Henriquez, Welcu is growing strongly with a portfolio of 15 clients, 40 held events, 6,000 registered users, and 200,000 invitations sent.