Photo by Socialatom Group
Photo by Andrés Barreto on Facebook

Andrés Barreto

Founder & Investor

Socialatom Group

POSITION

Founder & Investor

COMPANY

Socialatom Group

COUNTRY

Colombia

Website

Socialatom Group

SCENE

Business

SOCIAL

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter

What makes Andrés Barreto a Global Shaker?

Andrés Barreto, known as the Latin Mark Zuckerberg, is a founding partner of Socialatom Group, a private investment and advisory firm in New York with an economic development impact focus on Latin America. Through Socialatom Group, he has invested in or had a developmental role in over 45 countries. He founded media outlet PulsoSocial and computer programming non-profit Coderise, co-founded music web-streaming service Grooveshark, business web app store Cloudomatic, mobile publishing platform Onswipe and AtomHouse, is a general partner at Firstrock Capital and an investor and board member at Socialatom Ventures.

He strongly believes that entrepreneurs should follow their passions and interests instead of just trying to predict market trends.

“The reason why it’s better to solve your own needs than market research or trends, is because normally in entrepreneurship almost everything goes wrong, always,” he said in an interview with The Intern Group. “And if almost always everything is going wrong and you’re doing something you’re not passionate about, then that is more likely to lead you to quit. But if almost everything is going wrong and you’re passionate about the problem you are solving, you’re going to plow through it, stick with it and then be successful in year eight. Then for those eight years, even though those people know that you suffered, you felt like you were doing something meaningful, because it was a problem you were passionate about solving.”

While studying at the University of Florida, Andrés founded Grooveshark, a web-based music streaming service. Although the company disbanded in 2015 after a legal battle with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, the service gained 30 million users worldwide and had a song catalog with over 15 million entries, giving Andrés his first taste into the world of entrepreneurship.

Andrés has been listed among several influencers throughout the business and technology sectors, including BusinessWeek’s Top 25 Under 25, MIT Tech Review Top 10 Innovators Under 35 and Inc Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30.

Tags: Investment and Funding, Latin America

Last updated: June 4, 2019