Purpose-driven entrepreneurs push forward ideas that benefit humanity. At the Bravo Family Foundation, we strive to equip young entrepreneurs to start, run, and grow technology-enabled businesses that help build a more just society.
GOAL
The Rising Entrepreneurs Program (REP) provides entrepreneurs with knowledge, access, and capital to create a more inclusive and sustainable ecosystem for tech companies in Puerto Rico.
MODEL
The Rising Entrepreneurs Program (REP) backs startups ready to launch or scale sales.
REP provides small cohorts with a deep immersion experience that develops their business skills and shows them how to lead high-growth, efficient enterprises.
Topic areas span product development, sales, marketing, operations, and organizational design. Participants also receive practical guidance related to fundraising, including how to develop a winning pitch and communicate with investors. Finally, REP offers founders the opportunity to receive mentorship from a global network of investors, companies, and senior executives in the finance, software, and technology-enabled services industries.
The application process happens once a year, and applicants who match the program’s criteria are reviewed by an independent committee that select the top 10-15 participants. Participants also have access to the program’s dynamic office hub, outfitted to support learning, collaboration, and success.
BENEFITS
Inspiration & Mentorship
Work in a collaborative learning environment with direct access to high-quality, motivated mentors.
Solid Business Know-how
Acquire in-depth operational and financial knowledge to build and run a profitable business.
Opportunity & Access
Connect with a network of local and global experts that can and offer expert guidance.
Ongoing Support
Establish relationships with people who will continue to sustain your development as an entrepreneur.
LEADERS
Participants receive support and mentorship during the program’s stages from a global network of investors, companies, and senior executives from various industries. Teams also get access to the foundation’s Mayagüez-based team, including two faculty-in-residence who, on a daily basis, follows up on their learning progress and supports them.
Among these mentors, which are adjusted every year to ensure the best possible fit with the incoming cohorts, are REP leaders from current Thoma Bravo portfolio companies, stateside advisors from the Thoma Bravo network at large, and highly accomplished local leaders and founders.
Thoma Bravo is one of the largest software investors in the world, with more than US$127 billion in assets under management as of March 31, 2023. Through its private equity, growth equity and credit strategies, the firm invests in growth-oriented, innovative companies operating in the software and technology sectors. Leveraging Thoma Bravo’s deep sector expertise and strategic and operational capabilities, the firm collaborates with its portfolio companies to implement operating best practices and drive growth initiatives. Over the past 20 years, the firm has acquired or invested in more than 440 companies representing over US$250 billion in enterprise value (including control and non-control investments). The firm has offices in Chicago, London, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
For more information, visit Thoma Bravo’s website at thomabravo.com and Twitter @ThomaBravo
ALUMNI

Driven by an inner fire to create, innovate and succeed, entrepreneurs are key agents of large-scale global change.
Motivated by an urge to solve problems, they improve our lives with innovative products and services that raise our standard of living, create jobs and trigger economic growth and prosperity.
- 2022
- 2021
- 2020
Cohort 2022

Aware
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Aware is an app that provides situational awareness for women. The B2C app gives women who enjoy going out, information about the safety of a place or area and the people at that location. The information is based on the experiences shared by other users. The app alerts users when they enter an unsafe area, recommends protective measures, offers a live virtual companion, and prompts them to share information about people and places. Users can also upload photos to identify potentially dangerous people.

Barras
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Barras produces and markets a premium soap made with natural ingredients only. The B2C e-commerce startup created a formula for soap that combines five vegetable oils with natural minerals and skin-safe scents. Unlike other soaps, Barras’ soap does not irritate the skin nor trigger allergies, and it fits into a normal skincare routine.

Cuela
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Cuela connects coffee growers with coffee-loving consumers. The B2C e-commerce startup promotes local specialty coffee growers and roasters, positions Puerto Rican coffee among the finest in the world, and enables trade between the brands and coffee lovers living on the island and abroad. Through its subscription model and e-commerce platform, Cuela has become the main distribution channel for most local specialty coffee growers whose brands are not for sale in supermarkets or online stores.

Door It Yourself
- Construction
- San Juan
Door It Yourself set out to solve three problems: the number of people, amount of time, and money that it takes to install a door. The B2B/ B2C startup designed a door hinge that allows a person—homeowner, handyman, contractor, interior decorator, anyone—to install a door by themselves, without requiring help. The hinge design makes it possible for users to install a door in less time than it would take them to install it using a standard hinge but at a fraction of the cost.

Guariké
- Agriculture
- San Juan
Guariké is empowering farmers to transform agriculture through technology. The B2B startup’s product, Yukeio, is a farm management information system comprising five software applications that help users perform all management functions in one place. Farmers and ranchers often struggle to manage their daily operations and administrative tasks, which makes it more difficult for them to manage their production and harvest their crops on time. Yukeio enhances traceability and improves operations.

Gama
- Healthcare, Telehealth
- San Juan
GAMA is using the power of tech to enhance education delivery to children with special needs at home, schools, and clinics. Telecubes, the B2C/ B2B startup’s audio-visual software platform, enables multiple teams to manage, report, analyze and share student progress with a minimal investment. Telecubes features individualized programs, personalized behavioral data collection, synchronization with video timeline for accurate visual feedback, video on demand, and real-time reports, tags, and streaming.

Guilty
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Guilty is a B2C online clothing rental and resale platform. The platform targets working women who often feel that they have “nothing to wear” even with a closet full of clothes. Social media exposure and a more casual dress code at work have made it necessary for women to add variety to their wardrobes. Buying new clothes to be worn a handful of times is too expensive. With Guilty, women can rent clothes, use them and return them—and also buy them—thus continuously refreshing their wardrobes.

Inmigración virtual
- Legal tech / virtual legal services
- San Juan
Inmigración Virtual provides accessible online immigration services for Hispanics. Traditional law practices charge high legal fees to cover overhead and other expenses. Few have websites in Spanish, and most immigration forms are in English. Usually, an attorney does not get involved with clients until the end of the process. To tackle these and other issues, this B2C startup developed a virtual practice headed by attorneys who provide legal and immigration services tailored to Hispanic immigrants.

Libros787
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Libros787 is an online bookstore that sells books mostly written by Puerto Rican authors. Typically, the buyers are Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics in the US. These readers lack choices when it comes to buying books from companies that represent Hispanics and understand their culture. This B2C startup wants to become the top source of Spanish-language books for sale and offer Puerto Rican and other Hispanic authors a platform that helps them sell their books to buyers anywhere in the world.

Murmuratto
- Software
- San Juan
This B2B startup offers software designed to increase employee engagement, inclusion, and productivity. Murmuratto comprises idea management software, organizational culture consulting services, and project management. It aligns idea gathering efforts with company vision, goals, and needs through a local network or web-based software accessible through Wi-Fi-enabled devices, allowing employees to submit ideas in seconds. Murmuratto replaces ineffective archaic suggestion boxes and spreadsheets.

Omics Global Solutions
- Healthcare
- San Juan
Omics Global Solutions is tackling diabetes kidney disease with prevention. The B2B startup has developed an ELISA test, INNOVATIO ND2, that identifies the risk of developing diabetic nephropathy (DN) in Type 2 diabetes patients up to four years in advance. It is the first diagnostic and prognostic test for this condition in the world. Currently, 80% of DN patients are diagnosed at stage V- extremely late. Omics is marketing the test primarily to endocrinologists, clinical labs, and diabetic patients.

Piezas Rush
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Piezas Rush provides appliance parts and services via an e-commerce platform, targeting consumers and businesses equally. Piezas Rush helps homeowners extend the life of their appliances by giving them access to a quick and reliable way to find repair parts and services, accessories, and appliance cleaners. The only of its kind in Puerto Rico, the platform connects distributors, technicians, and homeowners and offers 24-hour delivery or same-day pickup as well as installation by vetted technicians.

Seed Law
- Education (EdTech)
- San Juan
B2C startup Seed Law provides an educational online platform for the Latin music industry. Music entrepreneurs, producers, and independent artists often lack the knowledge required to navigate the industry successfully. They do not fully understand the music business, contracts, copyright law, music royalties, and other aspects of the industry. As a result, millions of dollars in royalties go unclaimed. Seed Law’s platform makes it possible for users to launch, grow and protect their music business.

Tasty Smart
- Food & Beverage
- San Juan
Tasty Smart produces 100%-vegan baked goods that are as indulgent as they are healthy. The B2C/ B2B startup is tackling a common problem: the lack of tasty snacks available to consumers seeking healthier options. People tend to believe that if something tastes good, then it’s bad for you, and if it tastes bad, then it must be good for you. With its plant-based, gluten-free products, Tasty Smart wants to prove that you can have the best of both worlds: a smart snack that is both tasty and healthy.
Cohort 2021

ABEXUS Analytics
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Countless companies ignore valuable information or spend large sums of money for advice that’s answerable by their own data. Meanwhile, many marketers lack data insights to make informed decisions beyond their intuition. To address these issues, ABEXUS developed two marketing analytics products. Profile Finder takes user-provided profiles and finds similar profiles throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Profile Generator uses clients’ data to build detailed customer profiles for each datapoint provided.

Beauty 911
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Beauty 911 was designed for professional women and others who don’t have time to spend hours in a beauty salon waiting to receive a basic service. It’s an online platform that allows users to search providers in the area and book appointments (up to two hours before) to receive the services they need at home, the office or the location of an event. Beauty 911’s marketplace comprises numerous providers that specialize in a variety of services, such as hair styling, makeup, manicures and pedicures.

Findit
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Findit is an online platform that allows real estate professionals and homeowners to post unlimited property listings on its website at no cost and that automatically matches the properties with potential buyers or renters. Findit’s competitors usually charge listing fees, limit the number of listings and require users to have a real estate license. Findit also offers a premium plan for a monthly subscription that includes access to property market value data, property rankings and professional profile.

Fitverz
- Construction
- San Juan
Poor lifestyle choices and habits are driving healthcare costs up by about 8% a year, urging employers and healthcare plans to invest more than $50 billion annually in wellness programs designed to lower the health risk of employees and increase retention. Fitverz is a platform that connects employees with wellness providers and tracks their habits. Every activity is tracked, providing companies with utilization data for business intelligence and profiling data for better retention strategies

Kiwi Financial
- Agriculture
- San Juan
Kiwi Financial helps underbanked Hispanics and those with checking accounts but little or no credit to build credit. These customers usually rely on predatory lenders to cover recurring and unexpected expenses. The company offers affordable short-term unsecured installment loans and credit builder loans that enable users to save and build credit. Unlike traditional financial institutions, Kiwi Financial can approve customers using alternative data without relying on traditional credit scores.

LICK
- Healthcare, Telehealth
- San Juan
LICK is a direct-to-consumer startup that designs and sells environmentally friendly pet-related products such as pet apparel, accessories and wellness products. The business is founded on a data-driven hybrid ecommerce structure that relies primarily on an online infrastructure while leveraging partnerships and a lean pop-up model to deliver experiences that highlight the brand. Its direct-to-consumer model helps it control distribution, connect with consumers and quickly incorporate product feedback.

PsychConnection
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
PsychConnection is a tech company focused on providing easy-to-use affordable technological solutions for clinical practice. The company developed Mente Serena, a mental health web-based app, one-stop-shop solution that enables mental health professionals to update their practice and take care of their patients while saving in overhead and administrative costs. Unlike most of its competitors, PsychConnection’s business model is focused on the therapist as the customer rather than the patient.

Sirena Patterns
- Legal tech / virtual legal services
- San Juan
Sirena Patterns merges fashion and technology to create a platform that helps fashionistas and entrepreneurs build a solid fashion business regardless of their location or fashion education. The company sells printed and digital patterns, sewing notions, fabric and sewing kits and offers online courses on a variety of fashion and sewing topics. Sirena Patterns is the only bilingual company on the island that provides patterns in PDF and printed formats, and that offers online courses and free tutorials.

Uva Group
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Uva! is a delivery company that connects customers to small- and medium-sized merchants. Users can order food, groceries and other retail products through the Uva! mobile app or website and have them delivered easily to their location in an average time of 45 minutes. The company also provides a new sales channel for merchants that they can use to expand their reach and digital footprint. Uva Group has developed a second product called Uva Fleet that can connect any sales process to Uva’s fleet.

WATRIC Energy Resources
- Software
- San Juan
Through a customer discovery and market study process, WATRIC Energy Resources discovered three main reasons why houseplants die: underwatering, overwatering and lack of care. Most solutions to this problem focus on water reserves that require users to remember to refill the reserves and mobile apps that send notifications that users regularly ignore. WATRIC created an automatic watering planter using condensation technology that turns moisture in the air into liquid water to maintain plants hydrated.
Cohort 2020

BookSloth
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
BookSloth is building a platform designed to enhance reading and facilitate book discovery and connections between like-minded book lovers. Users can discover new books, customize their shelves, compare and recommend books to other readers, follow users and join book clubs. Publishers can target their ads and track campaign performance. BookSloth can work with creators in all the stages of book publishing, from authors and publishers to reviewers and bloggers.

CINCO
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
CINCO is quality management software designed for the life sciences industry. The web-based software uses Quality Risk Management to assess, organize, analyze and trace quality information on specific risks related to patients and drug products. It provides paperless traceability of every critical-to-quality aspect of a drug or medical device to enable transparent quality decisions at every moment. It also provides data visualization and reports to support audits from regulatory agencies.

FiberWolf
- E-comerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
FiberWolf performs security assessments and provides managed security services such as monitoring, incident response, training, firewall management and cyber security intelligence. It specializes in MSSP, UNIX Systems, cyber security, high-performance and availability systems. and cloud disaster recovery. The company plans to develop a product (Deepmind) that could input all threat intelligence from customers and perform actions based on this intelligence.

Insu Health Design
- Construction
- San Juan
Insu Health Design provides a solution to bio-medicine storage in times of disaster, power outage and travel. Insu Portable is a battery-powered cooling system that maintains bio-medicines at required temperatures for three to five days, potentially weeks, without relying on electricity. It uses strong insulation properties and features an interchangeable and rechargeable battery with a USB port for multiple charging options (car outlet, wall outlet, small solar panel).

Local Guest
- Agriculture
- San Juan
Local Guest is a women-powered startup that offers authentic sustainable tourism experiences, product development and marketing services to key tourism stakeholders. Local Guest works closely with local communities and entrepreneurs to build a new tourism ecosystem based on sustainable development practices. Its marketing services help connect tourism experience providers with travelers seeking transformational experiences.

Momentum Creative Lab
- Healthcare, Telehealth
- San Juan
Momentum Creative Lab created Gardien, a system to alert caregivers when a child has been left in a vehicle. The system uses cutting-edge technology to cover almost every scenario that could lead to such an unwanted event. The company’s latest product, Gardien Daycare, will be re-launched with new features such as a mobile app for parents and a new administrative web console that facilitates the recording and sharing of day-to-day activities.

Pratian’s AgroBeads
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Pratian’s AgroBeads provide slow-release technology that reduces the frequency of irrigation to as low as once a month, helping growers reduce labor costs and avoid high capital investment in infrastructure. The slow-release mechanism enables growers to maximize fertilizer efficiency while reducing water consumption in irrigation. AgroBeads has shown potential to provide higher yield or better quality of agricultural products.

Raincoat
- Legal tech / virtual legal services
- San Juan
Raincoat provides natural disaster insurance policies for home, business or potential loss of income that pay instantly after a loss by automating the pricing, triggering and payout processes. Instead of relying on an adjustment process, which can take years and result in no payout, Raincoat applies data science and numerical modeling to pay based on modeled losses. Customers get paid within 24 hours of an event without having to file a claim or deal with claims adjusters.

Skootel
- E-commerce / Marketplace
- San Juan
Skootel provides scooters that users can unlock and rent using their smartphones. The vehicles are dockless—not limited to pick-up and drop-off stations. Every scooter has a built-in GPS, active LTE connection allowing Skootel to track where and how it’s used. Users end their rides by taking photos of the scooters to show where they parked them. The scooters are inspected, charged and maintained at night and placed at strategic locations based on rider traffic and demand.

Synchrolog
- Software
- San Juan
Synchrolog is a SaaS that monitors errors in web applications by recording user sessions on web browsers, web server logs and detailed error information. Its goal is to increase precision and reduce the amount of time and resources necessary to find, understand and fix errors. Synchrolog provides information that allows developers to replay the session that triggered errors and figure out what happened before, during and after the error.
APPLY
Are you ready to change the world?
The Rising Entrepreneurs Program is an exciting opportunity to level up your business and your entrepreneurial mindset.
“We want to thank the Bravo Family Foundation’s Rising Entrepreneurs Program. Thanks to their support and guidance we’ve had the opportunity to grow our startup and show investors that in Puerto Rico there is an incredible business ecosystem with global potential,”

Afa Juste, co-founder, and COO of Beauty911.
Key dates

“Puerto Rico is historically known for graduating exceptional tech and engineering talent. However, top candidates consistently find attractive job opportunities abroad and not locally. Few entrepreneurs remain on the island, where they confront limited resources, lack of incentives and scant financial support. We want to create an environment that provides knowledge, access, and capital to help leaders start local tech businesses that can thrive and improve economic conditions for their families, communities, and the people of Puerto Rico.”
Orlando Bravo
FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER, THOMA BRAVO