Amazon just made a huge bet on London’s tech ecosystem by announcing their new 47,000 sq foot 8-story R&D center opening in Glasshouse Yard (neighborhood?). This puts Amazon squarely in the center of the tech scene in London, and the middle of the startup hub that is emerging there. So my question is, can we get anchor companies to come to Miami and foster it as an R&D center for Latin America?
The fact of the matter is that you cannot just take ideas proven in the US and copy/paste them into the Latin America market. If that were the case, Rocket Internet wouldn’t be hurrying to setup shop in half a dozen countries in Latin America, and getting people on the ground in each one. Miami could be the safe harbor that companies use as their launchpad for developing new ideas and platforms for use in the individually unique markets offered to the south. Miami though offers an opportunity to be more than just a sales center, it could be a genuine R&D center. Protection via US labor and trade laws, yet easy access to each local market (and many locals of these markets already live in Miami).
At the moment the vast majority of activity here is sales when it comes to Latin American outposts for big companies.
Where else could you find people with domain expertise in ecommerce, logistics, and more for any and all of the countries these companies could be serving?
