Andrés Barreto - Merging Latin America and the US
Andrés Barreto is a Colombian-American entrepreneur with several interests that stretch across Latin America and the United States.
Leading young innovator
TOP
* The TR35 is an annual list published by MIT Technology Review magazine, naming the world’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35.
About Andrés Barreto
Early Life and Education
Andrés Barreto was born in 1987 in Colombia to an engineer and a dentist. When he was 12, Barreto moved with his family to the United States. They settled in Florida where Barreto completed his education. While studying at the University of Florida, he started his first business with the intention of helping Latin America become more financially independent.
Career
During 2005, while he was studying, Andrés Barreto created an online platform for sharing notes and homework, and launched a PR agency to help companies in the US reach Latin America.This was the start of Social Atom Group. The following year Barreto started the on-demand music streaming service Grooveshark along with three co-founders.
The company became a finalist in the 2011 Mashable Awards, but was shut down due to copyright issues in 2015. In 2008 Barreto started the technology media portal PulseSocial – now known as the Latin American version of TechCrunch. The entrepreneur is also an active investor in several tech companies as the founder and partner of Social Atom Ventures. Other vested interests include: Onswipe, Endeavour and Cloudomatic.
Philanthropy and Personal Life
Along with several colleagues from Onswipe, Barreto supports a non-profit company called Coderise which is dedicated to teaching underprivileged children how to write computer code. Outside of his business interests, Barreto spends time at home in New York City and explores his hobbies that include extreme sports and adventure travel. He was awarded with the TR35 Awards in 2012 by the MIT Technology Review and was included in the Top 30 Under 30 by Inc. magazine.
More Investors from the Americas
Patrick Chung
Patrick Chung is Managing General Partner of Xfund. Prior to Xfund, Patrick was a partner at NEA and led the firm’s consumer and seed investment practices. He is a director of 23andMe and Philo, and led investments in Guideline, Halo Neuro, IFTTT, Landit, Nebula Genomics, NewtonX, Rock Health, ThirdLove, and Zumper. Past investments include Segment (acquired by Twilio), Kensho (acquired by S&P Global), Plaid (almost acquired by Visa), Pulse (acquired by LinkedIn), Loopt (acquired by Green Dot), GoodGuide (acquired by Underwriters Laboratories), Ravel Law (acquired by Lexis-Nexis), Xfire (acquired by Viacom), and Xoom (NASDAQ: XOOM).
Julio Vasconcellos
Julio Vasconcellos is a Brazilian/American angel investor and entrepreneur focused on investments in eCommerce, SaaS and mobile industries.
Reid Hoffman
Reid Hoffman is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of LinkedIn. He is also a Partner at Greylock Partners, a venture capital company.
Christine Tsai
Christine Tsai, a Guam business executive who co-founded and heads 500 Startups, a global company on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs.
James Hare
James Hare is an investor and entrepreneur with a strong interest in technology, particularly machine learning, digital platforms and e-commerce.
Barbara Corcoran
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is a billionaire entrepreneur, and a well-known television and media personality, with an ever-growing portfolio in small businesses.
Arya Bolurfrushan
Arya Bolurfrushan is an angel investor, focused mainly on seed stage investments. Based in New York, in the United States, Bolurfrushan is the Chief Executive Officer and member of the board at Bolurfrushan International, a global investment and insurance brokerage and philanthropic organization.
Val Babajov
Val Babajov is a US-based serial angel investor and entrepreneur. He is the founder and managing partner of VoiVoda Ventures and the founder and president of SoftAvail, Inc. and an angel investor with Band of Angels, one of the original groups of angel investors in Silicon Valley.
Charlie Songhurst
Charlie Songhurst is a US-based but British-born individual angel and advisor who has personally invested in around 500 companies throughout his career, predominantly in Europe.