Storybook: Boca Raton
 

Francisco Cornejo and Daniela Vega created Storybook App, which is a parent-child wellness and sleep app that combines stories, music and relaxation techniques (such as meditations and massage) to help parents share high quality time with their children (ages 0-12) before bedtime, improving emotional health and sleep.  

Originally from Ecuador, the founding team is now based in Miami and are parents themselves. What started out as a personal solution for Francisco and Daniela has turned into an app that has been downloaded by over 1.8M parents. Thanks to them, parents are bonding twice as much with their children and successfully putting their children to sleep 4x faster.

Storybook's content provides foundational education for children of all races and ethnicities to garner cultural consciousness, understanding, respect, and tolerance.

"Being among the first recipients of the Google For Startups Latino Founder Fund has been extraordinary for the Storybook App. Putting the funds aside, just by being part of their portfolio we have been approached by many investors and strategic partners. We went to raise close to 1m USD as a direct consequence of it. We are confident that working close to the Google for Startups team will make a profound impact on the future of Storybook and allow us to keep helping millions of children worldwide to improve their sleep and emotional health,” said Cornejo.

Coally: Ft Lauderdale

Andrés Joya is the founder of Coally, an on-demand platform that connects qualified young professionals in Marketing and Web Development areas with companies and standardizes deliverables through a set of step-by-step instructions provided by the platform. 

When companies want digital services, such as marketing, digital or software development, Coally is there to help. By developing a process that guarantees service quality composed by detailed instructions delivered through videos, standardized deliverables and a validation webpage, Joya has created a platform that is well positioned to understand the needs of companies and young professionals alike.

"The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund is a pivotal milestone for CoAlly. It means we have the means to follow through in our commitment to support and provide positive social impact to Latinx graduates both in the US and Latin America, and that is all thanks to Google. It also means the support, commitment and desire to impact recent latinx graduates both in the US and Latin America from an organization like Google. This investment in us will enable us to scale up our efforts to offer young professionals a transformative experience and be some of the first to embrace what we see as the "Future of Work." said Joya. "The bulk of Google's $100K contribution will be invested in improving CoAlly's machine learning model, front (UIUX), and backend. In addition, we will allocate a portion of the funds to marketing and drawing in more business clients."

Headshot

Navigate Accelerator: Miami

Pedro Sostre is the founder of Navigate Accelerator,  a new type of accelerator program for early stage entrepreneurs that utilizes a subscription-based marketplace business model. 

The program provides early-stage entrepreneurs with a Startup Toolkit software platform, connects them to trained advisors, and provides the structure and platform to create effective, long term relationships.

“The Google for Startups Latino Founder Fund is breathing life into so many founders like us and others that are being overlooked by the VC startup world. Their support will be critical in helping us reach our next milestones and having a major impact in our space,” said Sostre.

Headshot

Pivot: Miami

Alvaro de Jesus, is the founder of Pivot, a B2B Marketplace that matches the right brands to the right brick and mortar store. Their direct-to-retail approach allows stores to stock their businesses without purchasing inventory and it gives brands full visibility into their performance inside their stockists. 

Pivot is on a mission to change the wholesale model to a Direct-to-Retail model.

“The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund gives us the opportunity to be part of a community of Latino founders facing similar challenges, and an opportunity to expand our network and receive mentorship from the Google team to help us grow and have a greater impact on others,” said de Jesus. 

Headshot

People Clerk: Miami
 

Camila Lopez created People Clerk, which helps its customers throughout the small claims court process disputes under $10K such as security deposits, auto accidents, and contracts. 

People Clerk’s mission is to create a more accessible legal system for those of different social, economic, or cultural backgrounds.

"With the support from Google to accelerate our growth, we can start to shift the current status quo and bring access to the legal system to millions of consumers. The same way we at People Clerk are bringing equity to the legal system, Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund is bringing equity to the startup space," said Lopez.

Headshot 

Globalfy: Orlando
 

Diego Sampaio created Globalfy, (formerly Company Combo) as a one-click solution to do business in the U.S. Its platform is designed for global digital entrepreneurs growing an e-commerce or tech company in the United States.

"Being selected by the The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund is an important step in our scaling process," said Sampaio. "On top of using the financial resources to expand our customer base faster, we will be able to learn a lot from mentors and expand our networking."

Headshot

Wisecut: Miami

Ivo Machado is the founder of Wisecut, a SaaS platform for streamlining video editing using AI and Voice Recognition to automatically create compelling videos.

"The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund means an extra stamp of approval to us. We've been delivering quality and innovation for thousands of video creators and educators, and we are stoked that it's getting noticed by great partners like Google. Researchers say that In 2022, 82% of the consumer internet traffic will be video, and 51% of YouTube users use YouTube videos to learn new things, but not everyone knows how to or has the time to edit videos. With Wisecut, content creators can stop wasting hours in the editing room and create more videos for less. And with our upcoming API, schools and universities can edit thousands of recorded classes quickly and effortlessly. Our vision is that everyone will be able to share their voice through engaging videos and in a few clicks. We hope that Google's program will help us get closer to that vision,” said Machado. “The support will be used to help drive additional investment, new hires, and sales.”

Headshot

Moneta Tech: Miami

Alejandro A. Alvarez  is the founder of Moneta Tech, a pilot to be the final frontier between the fiat and digital currency by enabling cash consumers to digitally save their spare change in the cryptocurrency of choice.

Alejandro A. Alvarez is a 23 year old entrepreneur from Caracas, Venezuela. After going to college for one year, Alejandro decided to drop out in order to pursue his entrepreneurial dream and turn it into reality. He is currently the CEO of Moneta Tech and can't wait to see what happens next.

“The Google for Startups Latino Founders Fund means a great deal to us. Not only would it help us establish as the first and only service that digitally issues spare change from cash transactions but the support we will get from Google, it is going to transform how we go to market and land partnerships with prestigious franchises,” said Alvarez.

Headshot