Only one week left to apply for Startup Battlefield Latin America

Startups in Latin America, your time is running out. You have just one week to apply for the inaugural TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Latin America on November 8, 2018, in São Paulo, Brazil. The application page can be found here, and the deadline to fill out an application is Monday, August 6 at 5 p.m. PST.

Just last week we were in Buenos Aires and Santiago to speak with startups, VCs and accelerators about Startup Battlefield. Startup Battlefield is TechCrunch’s premier startup competition, which over the past 12 years has placed 750 companies on stage to pitch top VCs and TechCrunch editors. Those founders have gone on to raise more than $8 billion and produce more than 100 exits. Startup Battlefield Latin America aims to add 15 great founders from Latin America to those elite ranks.

Here’s how Startup Battlefield Latin America works. TechCrunch editors with years of pitch-off experience review all eligible applications (more on eligibility in a moment) and select 15 finalists.

Finalists receive free pitch coaching and will be prepped and raring to go for the main event, which takes place in front of a live audience at São Paulo’s Tomie Ohtake Institute. During three preliminary rounds, five startups per round will each have six minutes to pitch and present their demo before a panel of top VC judges. The judges have six minutes following each pitch for a rigorous Q&A.

Five of the 15 startups will move on to the finals and pitch again to a new set of judges and, out of that final cohort of five, the judges will pick one startup to be the first TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Latin America champion.

The winning founders receive a $25,000 non-equity cash prize and a trip for two to the next TechCrunch Disrupt, where they can exhibit free of charge in the Startup Alley. While there, they might even qualify to participate in the Startup Battlefield.

And then there’s the media coverage — and it’s not just for the winning team. All Battlefield participants benefit from the broad exposure that comes with competing in Startup Battlefield. In addition to the potential interest of the media outlets and investors sitting in the audience, we video all the Startup Battlefield sessions and post them on TechCrunch.com. That’s pretty awesome exposure.

Now, let’s get down to eligibility. All founders must meet these basic requirements:

Have an early-stage company in “launch” stage
Be headquartered in one of these countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, (Central America) Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Panama, (Caribbean — including dependencies and constituent entities), Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico
Have a fully working product/beta reasonably close to, or in, production
Have received limited press or publicity to date
Have no known intellectual property conflicts
Apply by August 6, 2018, at 5 p.m. PST

Now that you know the drill, what’s stopping you from taking your shot? Startup Battlefield Latin America goes down on November 8, 2018, in São Paulo, Brazil, but you must apply by August 6, 2018, at 5 p.m. PST. We want to see you there, so apply right now!