Santiago Zavala
Managing Partner at 500 Global
Santiago Zavala
Managing Partner at 500 Global
Mexico City
Overview
Work Experience
Managing Partner
2021 - Current
As a Managing Partner at 500 Global, I continue to lead our efforts of 500 Luchadores, our Spanish-speaking Latin American fund that we started back in 2012. As part of 500 Luchadores we have done over 240 Investments, including companies like Konfio, Clip, Jüsto, Ayenda, and run the Somos Lucha program. As a Managing Partner, I'm also focused creating Portfolio Value in scale.
Partner
2012 - 2021
As a parter in 500 Startups, I've been running most of our efforts in the spanish speaking latin america. From running the Mexico City accelerator program, to doing portfolio support to the 100+ companies we have invested in including companies like Konfio, Clip, Rocket.la, Nubity, Auto Chilango, Yaxi, Mexico Destinos. Building the ecosystem and network around our portfolio companies and generally making sure that nothing catches on fire.
Kauffman Fellow Class 21
2016
The Kauffman Fellowship is a highly sought-after two-year program dedicated exclusively to the world of innovation investing. While working full-time at an investment organization, a class of 30-40 Fellows receive a structured curriculum with an individual development plan, facilitated mentoring, and peer learning and networking – all with a focus on giving back and on one’s responsibility as an emerging leader in the industry. Graduating Fellows join a lifelong, global professional network. As of 2013, Kauffman Fellows have collectively made $6 billion in venture capital investments, sparking growth in hundreds of new enterprises, $15 billion in annually recurring revenues, and the creation of 50,000 jobs.
General Partner
2011 - 2012
Mexican.vc was the first Silicon Valley fund focused on investing in Mexico. We created this fund in April 2011 and operated it for more than a year. Mexican.vc did 7 investments and 1 acceleration process. From those, we graduated Conekta (series A of 6.6M usd round from Femsa), a payment gateway for Mexico.
Software Development
2009 - 2011
During my time working at Innovation Games we developed collaborative serious games that allowed big organizations and governments to allow everyone in the organization to have a real impact in ideation and prioritization of ideas, both for decision taking and for project management. In the tech side, we used Lift/Scala to empower real-time games in the browser with hundreds of people interacting at the same time with sensitive data. We used iOS and mobile development to allow this experiences not only in the browser, but in any device.
Software Development
2008 - 2009
Build 2 products: "Doing.it" - a collaboration tool for small teams based on 140 characters, and "Tikkia" a professional social network for latin american. Lead the development of this two products from zero to production and a little bit of traction.
Mechatronic Engineering Degree
2002 - 2008
I applied a lot of the software development tools and skills that I had already developed in high school. During my stay at ITESM I connected a simple microprocessor to the internet, using both wi-fi and 3G, used artificial intelligence for health research and build awesome robots.
Education
IMT
2004 - 2008
Mechatronic Engineering Degree
2002 - 2008
Investments
Latest Articles
Retos escalando el desarrollo de producto
Talks about CTO recruitment, product development and team organization