CASE 26

Attendees, exhibitors & solutions

Who this event is for

Industry trends

Key trends shaping this market and its wider industry.

Hotel tiers

A range of accommodation options near the venue and across key areas.

Local transport

Get around the city with these convenient transport options.

Frequently asked

Glossary

1

Startup

An early-stage company designed to search for a repeatable, scalable business model under high uncertainty, usually funded by founders, angels or venture capital rather than by predictable revenue.

2

MVP (minimum viable product)

The smallest version of a product that lets a team test the core value proposition with real users, so learning happens before heavy build spend.

3

Product-market fit

Evidence that a defined group of customers repeatedly chooses and keeps using the product, usually shown by retention, organic referral and shortening sales cycles rather than by opinion.

4

Pitch deck

The short slide narrative a founder or student team uses to explain problem, solution, market, traction, business model, competition, team and ask; in a case competition it is the artefact judges score.

5

Pre-seed and seed round

The earliest priced or convertible financing stages: pre-seed usually funds team and prototype, seed usually funds first go-to-market hires after early traction signals.

6

Venture capital

Professional fund capital invested in exchange for equity in startups with outsized growth potential, structured through funds that raise from limited partners and deploy over a fixed investment period.

7

Accelerator

A time-boxed, cohort-based programme that gives early startups seed capital, mentoring and investor access in exchange for equity, typically ending with a demo day.

8

Incubator

A longer, less structured support environment offering space, services and advice to very early ventures, often without taking equity or without a fixed graduation date.

9

Unicorn

Private company valued at USD 1 billion or more, a label used in the Latin American ecosystem since the region produced its first such companies in the late 2010s.

10

Burn rate and runway

Burn rate is net cash consumed per month; runway is the number of months left before cash runs out at that rate. Both drive hiring and fundraising timing decisions.

11

Cap table

The ownership register of a company showing founders, employees, angels and funds, their share classes and percentages, plus option pools and convertibles on an as-converted basis.

12

Term sheet

The non-binding summary of investment terms between a startup and an investor, covering valuation, instrument, liquidation preference, board seats, pro-rata rights and vesting.

13

Due diligence

The structured review an investor runs before closing: legal entity, intellectual property, contracts, revenue quality, tax, labour liabilities and data protection.

14

Case competition

A format where teams receive a business or startup challenge, work to a deadline and present recommendations to a judging panel, scored on analysis, feasibility, originality and delivery.

15

Cohort

A group of ventures or participants moving through a programme, competition or accelerator cycle together, which shapes peer learning and demo-day timing.

16

Go-to-market

The plan for reaching first customers: channel choice, pricing, sales motion, acquisition cost assumptions and the messaging that makes the product legible to a specific buyer.

17

B2B and B2C

Business-to-business models sell to organisations through longer, multi-stakeholder sales cycles; business-to-consumer models sell to individuals with shorter cycles and different retention economics.

18

Valuation

The agreed or estimated worth of a company, for startups usually negotiated as pre-money plus new money in a round, or benchmarked against revenue multiples of comparable companies.