http://idcee.org/p/uwe-horstmann/ Uwe Horstmann participated in the IDCEE 2013 Panel "Starting online business and investing in Brazil: what lessons are there to learn for tech entrepreneurs and investors in CEE?" Uwe studied business administration at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendar / Germany. He has been working with Berlin-based startup incubator Rocket Internet (mostly known for its ventures eDarling, Zalando and CityDeal / Groupon) since 2007. Since 2009 he served as its managing director, focusing primarily on international rollouts. He is also a judge in business plan competitions held by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. He is a regular lecturer in Entrepreneurship at his alma mater WHU and a researcher in the same field embedded in his PhD studies at RWTH Aachen. At Project A Ventures, Uwe focuses on product management, internationalization and interim management. After having served with the United Nations in the war-torn regions of Eastern and Central Africa, he discovered his passion for humanitarian logistics and remains active in this field until today, working e.g. as a strategic consultant to Oxfam, trying to bring learnings from the private sector to the NGO space. Pic's are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idcee/sets/ More @ http://idcee.org Follow us on: YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialIDCEEChannel Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IDCEE Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/IDCEE-3940138 Twitter: https://twitter.com/idcee_eu Google+: http://gplus.to/idcee Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/idcee/collections/

1. Project A internationalizes online businesses from
two central hubs
Project A’s current locations
Berlin
Sao Paulo
• Track record in rolling out online
businesses internationally
• Good experience in internationalizing
businesses from a central hub
• e.g. easy to hire native speakers of all
European countries in Berlin
• Less friction by keeping operations
close together
Berlin Office
Berlin Office
European expansion
from central hub:
• Central team and
+100 functional experts
• Already serving many
European countries
Sao Paulo Office
Sao Paulo Office
Latin American expansion
from central hub:
• Central team and
+10 functional experts
• Starting to rollout Brazilian
ventures across Latin America
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2. Our Brazilian office …
• Opened in Sao Paulo in June 2012
• Main focus: Shared Services and Business Development
• Currently 11 functional experts
in the areas of Finance, HR, Business Development, Online
Marketing, Venture Management and Facilities
Brazil
• Two ventures launched:
Epicerie and natue (see below)
• Adoption of Project A’s European business
“Wine in Black”
• Shopping community for wine
• Launched in April 2013
• ~20 FTEs in IT/product
management, customer
service, operations, online marketing and sourcing
• Very strong team led by Ari Gorenstein (Master in Wine &
Logistic and experienced wine importer)
Olivier Raussin
Managing Director
LatAm
Marcos Leal
Business Development
Milena Hama
CFO
Pablo Del Vecchio
CTO
• Online shop for wellness
products (e.g., natural food,
sports supplement, vitamins,
slimming products, etc.)
• Launched in December 2013
• ~30 FTEs in IT, marketing, procurement, operations,
customer care service and onsite content creation
• Business synergies with “Nu3” (e.g., global potential
suppliers, TI, etc.)
• Unique team led by Fabio Katayama (MD, Harvard Business
School, consulting) and Priscila Capellato (former Rocket
Internet founder, consultant)
local adaption of European models (very strong MoM growth curve)
Next step: pure Brazilian plays
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