Colombia has witnessed a magnificent transformation in the last decade, especially in major cities where security has improved and investment and business growth has increased.
Holding Latin America’s fourth-largest economy when measured by GDP, Colombia is also experiencing some of the fastest growth of any country in Latin America. In terms of Venture Capital (VC) investment, Colombia has counted 28% year-on-year (YoY) growth and received $1.24 billion in total in 2021, making for 50% YoY growth.
With an economy that is finally getting its footing after years of internal war, the work landscape is in turn growing in both breadth and diversity—making for many noteworthy companies that are coming into their own in 2022. Let’s take a look at The Bogotá Post’s top 15 places to work in Colombia.
Platzi
Platzi is a booming online education platform that offers classes on marketing, programming, business, design, language, and much, much more. As an application that can be downloaded onto a variety of devices, users can learn at all times with courses available in the palm of their hand.
The company is on a mission to transform the economies of Colombia (and other countries in LatAm) by training the next generation of technology professionals, helping to provide more opportunities through skill development.
Users can choose the categories they are most interested in learning and customize them through a variety of features. Platzi has also recently joined forces with Duolingo, one of the world’s most popular language-learning applications, and is accepted by 3,000 universities around the world—serving as a facilitator for access to study at an international level.
Their educational alliance to strengthen the teaching and certification of students in Latin America will help bolster not only the regional community, but also boost the success of this rapidly accelerating company.
Frubana
Revolutionizing both the restaurant and agriculture world in LatAm is Colombian-based Frubana, where a restaurant can find all of the different foods it needs from a wide selection of different suppliers.
Connecting customers with the best providers in the countryside and city through technology across seven cities, and with more than 60K monthly clients. The app facilitates more than 2,000 orders by city, and assists in the sale of over 5.4K tons of food per month.
Changing the game for how the food industry sources its ingredients, it’s no wonder that this growing startup has been able to raise more than $102Mil in funding. For those who want to work at this up-and-coming company, there is a whole spectrum of jobs available from procurement, to finance, to logistics, to product.
With over 300 employees and 9.8K deliveries per month, this company is on the up and up and has space for talent across the board.
HABI
Brynne McNulty Rojas
HABI is the first platform in Colombia where you can sell a house online. Working in a unique way that is separate from the traditional real estate agency—rather than looking for someone to buy your house, this company is actually the buyer!
They purchase apartments in less than 10 days and in cash, remodel them, and then put them up for sale at a competitive price.
This allows sellers to sell their current house to buy another, allowing for the capacity to obtain the liquidity they need to find the home of their dreams and achieve great real estate investment opportunities.
Currently, they cover over 27 cities in Colombia, buying houses and apartments in neighborhoods with high turnover and appreciation.
HABI also offers personalized and free support and professional advice, in addition to assuming the costs of notary rights and registration of the sale.
With more than 550 real estate experts, they have also expanded to Mexico to continue our mission and provide tools that facilitate real estate transactions with easy, secure, and agile processes.
Source Meridian
Source Meridian is a development software company that works to solve many of the most challenging problems in the healthcare space using big data analytics, healthcare technology, artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare interoperability, and real-world evidence.
Their staff of international software engineers and data scientists work with clients to analyze their content models and business processes, helping to laser-focus their clients’ development in technologies specific to the health care and life science industries. By leveraging state-of-the-art innovation Source Meridian is able to materialize new products and streams of revenue for its clients, keeping them at the forefront of their industries.
In short, Source Meridian builds products for customers that use the technology of tomorrow rather than the technology of today by analyzing and questioning existing business models to remain on the cutting edge. The company is based both in the US and Colombia, with offices located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Medellín, Rionegro, and Cali.
For those in Colombia who are looking to start a career in health tech, this company is a great place to do so.
Feelenials
Feelenials is a Colombian-based company that is using AI to help businesses decipher their employees’ facial expressions and understand how they are feeling. This is helping companies to keep up with recently evolving expectations for better implementations in regard to employee mental health.
The company looks to contribute to the well-being of people by understanding their emotions from the individual to the collective, while always emphasizing the importance of ethical and responsible use of emotional AI. It does this by measuring the collective emotions that influence the organization in an objective and anonymous way.
Companies can download the software and customize it according to their individual needs, checking the emotion analytics at any time—helping them to make more accurate and informed predictions for their future.
Businesses are the sum of their parts, and their employees are the heart of organizational behavior. With this innovative software, companies can take strategic actions to manage and improve the emotional environment.
With technology now a part of our everyday lives and growing in prominence every day, this company is a great one to get in on the ground floor with.
Polymath Ventures
Polymath Ventures is a venture studio helping to build large and transformative companies for the emerging middle-class in Latin America. Based out of Colombia, the company’s efforts are focused around using human-centered design to develop scalable technologies and business models that solve the largest and most urgent problems of the middle class in LatAm.
Polymath believes that solving the problems of the middle class empowers and transforms the lives of the people who are part of it, and by proxy generates the social and economic boost that the region needs. Looking to build companies from scratch rather than funding them, this company hopes to help build an equal, stable, and prosperous overall society.
For those looking for a transformative experience, building extraordinary companies with exceptional people, Polymath is a great company to get on board with. They welcome disciplines of all kinds to build and scale impactful companies for Latin America’s middle class.
Chiper
Leaders at Chiper, from left to right: Jose Bonilla, CEO; Carolina Garcia, CRO; Oscar Sarria, COO; Ricardo Ocampo, CFO
“Tiendas” are the heart, soul, and food supply resource for pretty much every neighborhood in Colombia.
Chiper is a network that connects stores directly with producers and handles all logistics from supply to shelf—helping tiendas to remain relevant despite the changing times.
The company has a promise to deliver goods in less than 24 hours and allows owners to handle their business operations straight from the platform.
Here, tienda proprietors can find the best prices on more than 3,000 products and buy at the manufacturer’s price to earn more on each order.
Allowing Colombian tiendas to transform their business, the app gives the capacity for every shopkeeper to differentiate themselves from other stores by being more efficient.
What is better, the app is free, so for those who are interested in helping to evolve the food industry in LatAm, or just keep their beloved tienda on the corner alive and well, this is a great company to work for.
Addi
Addi is an app looking to revolutionize digital commerce by building the best digital shopping experience in LatAm through technology. A point-of-sale lending startup, Addi lets its borrowers apply for credit at the moment of purchase.
Similar to layaway and credit plans that already exist in Colombia, the company takes this model a step further by helping to remove the troublesome requirements that are typically involved to use these plans.
To date in some cases, Colombian shoppers have to have three people vouch for a borrower before a store will issue a credit or agree to a layaway plan. Historically, only the wealthiest clientele in Latin America received anything resembling this kind of trust with financial loans.
The difference between an Addi loan and layaway is that an installment payment plan doesn’t charge interest. There are some installment plan charges, but even still, they are cheaper than taking out your typical loan.
With LatAm clocking in as the fastest e-commerce growth of any region during the pandemic—totaling an estimated $80B and expected to double by 2025—those who want to get in on this escalating industry should watch Addi.
Bitlabs
Bitlabs is a company looking to solve the big problems in the world that blockchain can provide for, testing many ideas in parallel to try and come up with the most innovative answers.
Helping to build blockchain companies from the ground up—they believe that when there is potential, there is promise, and by recruiting a great team they can then help find the best ways to leverage those individuals and grow a successful business.
Based in Medellin, Bitlabs boasts a world-class technology team and is already well-known for designing brands and solutions. Residing at the intersection of art, design, and technology—the company is on a mission to explore how blockchain can revolutionize industries.
The founder of Bitabs also started HashHouse Club, a successful social space for investors, developers, and other people involved in blockchain. With approximately 400,000 Bitcoin transactions daily as of January 2021, people looking for a budding career in one of the most buzzworthy and cutting-edge industries should look no further than Bitlabs.
Vozy
Vozy is the first company in Latin America that powers neuronal text-to-speech technologies in Spanish with more than eight different accents from the region. Allowing users to have fluid conversations and boost customer experiences, they are revolutionizing the way companies interact with customers using Voice Assistants and conversational AI.
They believe that every conversation is important and holds the opportunity for success. They pursue their innovations in the belief that voice is capable of making life easier for human beings and that a good experience can change the course of a business forever.
A voice AI platform is designed to improve people’s performance, they provide sophisticated solutions to optimize customer interactions and drive real productivity for enterprises.
Vozy aims to contribute its capabilities to participate in the digital transformation of companies in the LatAm region—the company invites innovative movers and shakers to be part of the digital revolution.
Ubits
Ubits is a platform geared at helping companies find training for everyone in the company. From entry-level to executives, they have more than 750 courses with an innovative methodology in four academies and 15 business categories.
Their courses are adapted to each student, with content for all business areas in technical skills (such as Big Data, Digital Marketing, Excel, etc.) to soft skills (communication, leadership, adaptation to change, etc). With more than 400 internationally recognized experts in their industries, their trailblazers include coaches, bestsellers, company directors, entrepreneurs, and many more.
With offerings that are multi-device and an interface that is designed for you to enjoy the learning experience, users can study from anywhere.
Even more customizable, “playlists” with the courses users want to see are possible, helping to carve personalized routes to an individual’s training plan thanks to a metric panel that showcases progress. For people across talent disciplines, this company has many opportunity offerings.
MUY
MUY is a food technology company (foodtech) that is based on its own technology model and can be integrated throughout the entire value chain. Offering both quality and “flavorful” experience, this is an innovative app that puts the data behind the food industry right in the palm of the hands of those who are the stakeholders in it.
Using artificial intelligence to predict the volume of demand and reduce food waste in its cloud kitchens, their structure is based on data management, strategic dynamics, and term and business efficiency. The startup hosts a network of cloud kitchens and physical dining locations throughout Colombia and Mexico serving up more than 200,000 dishes per month.
The company was founded by Jose Calderon, the previous owner of the Colombian food delivery network Domicilios, which was acquired by DeliveryHero.
Raising a $15M Series B funding round, there is no surprise in the amount of growth the company has seen in such a short time. For those interested in the foodtech space, this is a great company to work for.
Simetrik
Simetrik Leaders: Alejandro Casas co-founder CEO & Santiago Gomez co-founder COO
Simetrik is a company that automates repetitive data reconciliation processes without any coding knowledge needed from the client user.
Allowing businesses to import their data by allowing them to upload data from any system used by the company makes it simple and easy.
With more efficient data incorporation, companies can keep the information updated through manual upload from computers or automatic connections. Simetrik executes companies’ configuration by using a spreadsheet-like interface, creating both custom reports and dashboards with the results of each business’s reconciliation.
Finding any inconsistency or error in your transactional processes as soon as it happens, Simetrik can then update processes automatically, freeing a company up from repetitive tasks forever.
For those interested in data, Simetrik has job openings for many different niches, including. DevOps Engineer, Account Executive, and Operations Support Analyst.
Liftit
Liftit is Latin America’s premier technology platform for automating and executing last-mile truck deliveries.
By implementing technology, it is the first company in LatAm dedicated to solving logistics problems within the region’s shipping infrastructure. Liftit provides the necessary tools to meet the particular needs of the LatAm industry, the company makes it fast, flexible, innovative, and safe to ship.
With a combination of route optimization, real-time monitoring, and service scheduling, the company facilitates the largest network of professional logistic operators in Colombia. With more than 2,000 drivers already employed, the company’s growth keeps its need for new drivers also steadily growing.
For a career that allows both freedom and flexibility. Liftit provides. What is more, people who get in on the ground floor of this company can be a part of a huge paradigm shift occurring in the LatAm shipping industry.
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
