Fledgling startup Redeemy is the solitary Colombian representative at A-tech conference in Aruba at the end of this month. The company will now have a chance to pitch to investors in the island to grow their company beyond their three-person crew in Bogotá.
As with the other startups chosen, Redeemy has its ambition in improving social projects by opening new funding channels for social organisations. “We want to have banks and their customers play a key role in strengthening social entrepreneurship,” CEO and computer scientist from Venezuela Manuela Ortega told The Bogotá Post, “we want to to create a platform that makes the financing of important social causes viral.”
Leonel, Manuel and Mayra of Redeemy working from their co-working space in Bogota. Photo courtesy of Redeemy
The idea behind the platform is to use credit card points–rather than simply ‘likes’–to help fund social projects. It is their hope to form a system whereby points from every credit card purchase in Colombia goes towards the project of the person’s choosing. The projects can range from the environmental to solutions to urban problems.
Born out of Scotiabank Colpatria’s first ever hackathon, Redeemy wants to share in the growing concept of “social entrepreneur”, whereby a profit incentive could work alongside social causes. In this case, the startup believes that projects can ‘redeem’ credit card points via banks to further their goals.
“Many small organizations still have no presence in the digital world,” Ortega said, “These organizations will find in our platform a simple tool to showcase their social projects, share them in the digital world and obtain financing for them too.”
However, Redeemy themselves know they are at the very start of their journey and have much further to go before their platform a reality. Which is why they’ll be putting their best foot forward as they make the case in Aruba, an island frequented by Colombian tourists just off the coast of Venezuela.
With chemist and (Ruby/Java specialist) Mayra Rodriguez and engineer Leonel Oliveros hailing from Venezuela as well, Redeemy represents a new generation of Venezuelans making their way within the Colombian ecosystem.
“It’s our first time in Aruba. We hope we can be successful there,” Ortega said modestly. They still have a website to launch and a pitch to set up; all from their coworking space at Bogotadev. With the conference being held on October 25, they’ll have just over a week to redeem themselves.
This article first appeared on LATAM.tech.
