LatAm List – Rebus Tech, a Colombian event tech startup, recently raised $415K from Angel Ventures, Magma Partners, Enlaces, Quake Capital, and Avalancha Ventures, along with angel investors across Latin America.
Founded in 2017 by Juliana Villalba and Jose H. Berrio, the Colombian startup addresses a key issue for event organizers: revenue generation. Rebus helps event organizers boost attendee engagement through upselling, resulting in an increase in revenue by up to 45%.
Similar to the airline industry, which not only sells tickets but also offers upgrades and hotel packages, Rebus allows attendees to tailor and enhance their experience by adding products and services created by the event organizer throughout the event lifecycle.
Juliana commented, “Jose and I were speakers and experience consultants for many events in Latin America, and that’s how we identified the main challenges of the industry […] We decided to combine my expertise in organizing events with Jose’s tech and product design background to create a simple solution for upselling and creating epic experiences for event attendees. We want to become the primary ancillary revenue experts in the world and help the event industry create and monetize upsell experiences throughout the event lifecycle and convert attendees into buyers.”
Rebus currently offers its services to event organizers in Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama, Guatemala, and Mexico and plants to expand its operations to Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Dominican Republic, and the US in 2020.
“Juliana and Jose are inspiring and relentless founders. The support Angel Ventures has received from the Xcala platform allowed us to organize a syndicate of angel investors from across Latin America and invest together in Rebus to back Juliana and Jose. This is a truly cross-border seed round in a regional startup with global potential,” said Greg Mitchell, Regional Director at Angel Ventures, a seed fund based in Peru.
With this investment, Rebus will fund its expansion into Mexico, which has a $700M market and is ranked 10th in the world in the number of events. Rebus will also focus on product development, operating recently signed pilots, as well as consolidating its sales and marketing strategy abroad with this round of investment.
Read more on this press release.