After two years of partnership with Christian Serron, Beyond Partners’ founders Jorge Corral and Diego Passadore, closed a chapter full of challenges and milestones by selling Element14 to JARS Capital. Since they joined in early 2022, the company’s revenue doubled as well as the team size, making it much more interesting for an exit. This deal also left a ton of experience for Beyond Partners Consulting, both in the acceleration of the company and in negotiating the deal: a great achievement after five years of existence. We would like to thank all the Element14 team and everyone who made this exit possible, showing that Uruguayan and LATAM talent is truly world-class!! 🚀 Let’s go for more challenges that hold a bridge between Uruguay and the US !!!
The following is a translation to English of the Spanish press release at Forbes, by Adriana Trinidad, on December 19th, 2023, entitled Uruguayan tech firm acquired by American VC JARS Capital.
The company was founded by Christian Serrón in 2012 and was valued at a seven-digit figure. Its market was exclusively the US, and today it reaches millions of users with its digital innovations.
The Uruguayan software factory Element14 (www.e14.io ) was recently acquired by JARS Capital (www.jarscapital.com ), an American investment group based in Leesburg, Virginia, which provides capital, sales, and back-office resources for startups to scale sustainably. JARS Capital has collaborated with dozens of startups focused on Real Estate, providing not only capital and resources but also the extensive entrepreneurial experience of its founders.
For its part, Element14 specializes in empowering large and small companies with quality software, providing MVPs built quickly and capable of allowing product validation. At the time of the acquisition, it had a team of 15 employees, was valued at a seven-digit figure, and its market was exclusively the US.
Element14 has among its clients Simon & Schuster, BMW, Penguin Random House, a former senior staff of the New York Times, and a startup backed by Mark Cuban, investor and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.
Founded and led by Christian Serrón since 2012, with the contribution since the beginning of 2022 of its two partners, Jorge Corral and Diego Passadore (also partners of the business consulting firm Beyond Partners), the company today reaches millions of users with its innovations. digital. The experience allowed the company to gain the trust of renowned companies in Silicon Valley.
The acquisition by JARS Capital of Element14, in a process that took between five and six months, will make it possible to achieve the objective of having a development center in Uruguay with high-caliber talent in the construction of custom software, the businessman estimate.
Element14 is a former JARS Capital vendor, to whom it has provided services on multiple projects over the years and, in fact, Serrón explains to Forbes Uruguay, it was a growing client.
“We were not looking to sell, but they put the idea on the table and given the good relationship and years of trust, we found it interesting to explore the proposal,” says Serrón.
“We had already developed products for three startups financed by them and we were all delighted. The idea of buying seduced us a lot, but it is clear that we did not want to sell just for the money, but rather to get to know the business culture of the buyers. Fortunately, we are very aligned,” he assures.
The Tech partner of Startups
The experience and talent acquired when working on the development of custom products, mainly in the initial phase, when an idea must be translated into a technological product, is one of Element14’s main strengths. From there, the ability to develop MVPs arises, a minimally viable product that allows market testing and has something tangible to obtain new rounds of financing.
The company develops MVPs for two types of clients: those highly technical who know the process and delegate product development to optimize time; and entrepreneurs who start from in-depth knowledge of a business area and seek to develop a technological solution capable of compensating for shortcomings through software, but do not know how to develop that product.
According to the engineers, the task is not easy, but good results are achieved from the team work made up of professionals with different knowledge and years of experience.
“Our strength is not only in engineering but also in being able to accompany and ask assertive questions about the product, knowing why it is made and even suggesting changes if we do not agree with the vision. We have one foot in the technical and another foot in understanding the client and their business model,” says Jorge Corral.
And now what?
Christian Serrón remains in the company with the executive position of CPO of JARS Capital and director of Element14, and Jorge Corral and Diego Passadore continue with their business consulting firm Beyond Partners, now with the experience of having made an Exit.
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