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- StarMedia (stylized as starMedia) is a Latin American Internet brand, co-founded in August 1996 by Fernando Espuelas and as the first pan-regional Internet portal for Spanish and Portuguese speaking audiences. During the dot.com boom of the 1990s, StarMedia raised the first dollar of venture capital for a Latin Internet company, and then did the first IPO in the sector, while becoming one of the top 10 biggest sites on the Internet, measured by audience, and is the only one not in English. Under Espuelas' leadership, StarMedia launched a massive marketing effort to attract the very first Internet users, advertisers, and e-commerce companies across the Latin world. Called the "Espuelas Effect" by leading Brazilian news weekly Exame, StarMedia was the catalyst for the Internet industry throughout Latin America. While Espuelas was CEO, Starmedia was the leading Latin portal, serving over 25 million Spanish and Portuguese speakers every month across the Latin world. In total, StarMedia raised over $500 million in a series of private and public offerings, reaching a market capitalization of over $3.8 billion at its peak. According to the Harvard Business School Case StarMedia: Launching a Latin American Revolution, by 1999 StarMedia was the Latin American market leader. StarMedia is now owned by France Telecom subsidiary Orange, serving "more than 24 million" Hispanic Internet users per month, according to company statements in 2008. In 1996, Espuelas envisioned the portal that would “unite” Latin America: Starmedia. "With the Internet, we're talking about a fundamental shift in the power structure from the institution to the individual," Espuelas said. After a frustrating year and a half of approaching venture capitalists to invest in his vision, only to have them uniformly refuse, many avowing that Latins "did not like technology" and would never use the Internet, the company went on to raise $2.5 million in 1997. It was the first venture capital ever invested in a Latin Internet company. Over the next 4 years, the company raised over $500 million in investments, including capital from Chase Manhattan Bank, GE Capital, eBay, the Hearst Corporation, Intel Capital, NBC and David Rockefeller. According to the New York City Investment Fund, "[Espuelas]...spoke about the impact, similar to that of economic integration on European nations, that his business would have unifying Latin American people separated by national borders. A board member interrupted him. It was David Rockefeller, retired head of Chase Manhattan, brother of Nelson, and a longtime pillar-the pillar-of corporate involvement in New York City life. Rockefeller wanted to hear more. He invited Espuelas to his office." "It was the most exciting thing in my life," says the entrepreneur. He recalls how the meeting went: "I didn't close the sale with him until I showed him a map of Latin America without any borders. He said, 'Oh, that's good.'" Rockefeller and the Fund became investors in StarMedia, which moved its headquarters from Connecticut to the city and quickly grew to more than 700 employees worldwide. Espuelas tells this story at a reception that New York's corporate elite was throwing for Rockefeller's 86th birthday. He introduces Rockefeller as his "shareholder, partner, and inspiration." "They have managed to come up with a pretty big capital raising at the intersection of two of the most volatile investment themes in America: the Internet and Latin America," said Lanny Baker, an analyst of on-line media industry for Salomon Smith Barney in San Francisco." In 1999, the company went public on the Nasdaq, the first Latin Internet company to do so, eventually reaching a market valuation of over $3.8 billion USD at its peak. Starmedia had over 1,200 employees in 18 offices across 12 countries in the Americas and Europe. Today, Starmedia is France Telecom's single largest Internet operation in the world, according to company statements. StarMedia, acquired by France Telecom in 2002, is a free-to-web global service connecting Spanish-speakers through the Internet as well as providing consumers relevant and extensive information and services. StarMedia has local operations in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and throughout the United States (Los Angeles, Miami and New York) (en)
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