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from tennis to revolutionizing the world of finance in Latin America

At the start of the movie Match point (Woody Allen, 2005) we can see a fixed shot of a tennis court where a match is taking place. Without looking at the players and only focusing on the swing of the ball over the net, a monologue begins that helps to synthesize the story I want to tell you.

Con Il Trovatore de Verdiin the background, a voice in off emerges to narrate a metaphor between life and a specific moment of a tennis match: “He who said luck is better than talent knew the essence of life. People are afraid to admit that much of their life depends on luck. It’s scary to think how many things are beyond our control.”

“In a tennis match there are times when the ball hits the edge of the net and for a fraction of a second it can go forward or fall backwards. a little luck goes ahead and you win, or it doesn’t and you lose”. At that moment, the image freezes and we see the ball floating over the net without the viewer knowing its final destination.

[Opinión: ¿Cambiarán los ‘unicornios’ nuestro problema de globalización?]

Eduardo Della Maggiora (Santiago de Chile, 1980), the protagonist of this story, knows very well about the dose of luck that are needed to achieve a dream. But he also knows the talent it takes to persevere and bring an idea to fruition. He conjured luck and talent in a powerful combination, capable of pushing the ball to the other side of the court and winning the game. In addition, he knows a lot about tennis, to the point of having dreamed during his adolescence of becoming a professional player.

They are sports dream collapsed quickly by a family event that marked his life forever: the death of his father. This is how rackets suddenly became ornamental objects to be replaced by books, mathematical formulas and hours and hours of study in the classrooms of the Catholic University of Chile, where he graduated as an engineer. Years later, he began working in the financial sector as an executive at JP Morgan.

Despite having achieved her professional goals with successful promiscuity, Della Maggiora decided to give her life a 180 degree turn trying to answer a question that due to its complexity led him to get out of the comfort zone: “If today were the last day of my life, how could I measure my life?”

Then began a process of internal reflection at his 35 years in the offices of JP Morgan with the Big Apple at his feet. Suddenly, the spell appeared in a kind of epiphany. “One way to measure my life would be to understand how I am using my time and energy to make an impact in other people’s lives. What am I doing today to make an impact on other people’s lives?”, he asked himself.

After giving up the comforts of his job at JP Morgan in New York and spending six months in Africa volunteering with children in the region as a math teacher, Della Maggiora volvió to Chile with a suitcase full of experiences that allowed him to address the problems caused by child malnutrition from an innovative approach, combining personal well-being and his passion for sport, with a positive impact on the community. Somehow this could answer her motivational question. The idea was planted and no turning back was allowed.

This is how he was born in the year 2020 Betterflya plataform InsurTech (insurance technology). The hypothesis of his project was clear: human beings are designed to help. The epic consisted of turn healthy habits into food for underprivileged children or in environmental interventions in crisis.

The business model was disruptive, as it put people’s lives at the center based on prevention, protection and purpose. The instrument was life insurance, but seen as a profitable opportunity in life. Della Maggiora calls him the effect Betterflythat is, “a daily healthy habit can transform not only your life and that of your family, but also those of other people in vulnerable communities.”

Set and match for the first triple impact unicorn in Americaa, because it is not only revolutionizing the market, but also its conception and operation have a direct impact on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): zero hunger; Health & Wellness; responsible production and consumption; climate action; life of terrestrial ecosystems and alliances to achieve objectives.

Its business model worked, so much so that last February it became the first Latin American social unicorn with B certification and a $1 billion valuation. The young company today has more than 4,000 corporate clients (70% of users are SMEs) and a team that grew from 30 people to more than 650 in just 18 months. In addition, Betterfly’s social impact has translated into more than 30 thousand children who have benefited with food programs in various countries, more than half a million trees planted in different places and billion liters of water collected for communities with water problems.


III IBERO-AMERICAN FORUM OF OPEN INNOVATION day 11 from Tad on Vimeo.

Della Maggiora was one of the more than 25 panelists who participated in the work days within the framework of the III Ibero-American Forum of Open Innovation held on July 11 and 12 in Madrid. An event carried out jointly by the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), el Council of Ibero-American Entrepreneurs (CEIB) and the Ibero-American Federation of Young Entrepreneurs (FIJE) with the support of the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) at the CEOE offices in Madrid.

During the event, Della Maggiora also announced the landing of Butterflies in Spain hand in hand with Guillermo Sánchez (CEO Flexoh) thus making the Atlantic leap to become a unicorn with the Ibero-American seal.

Ibero-America today has more than 1,000 companies valued at a billion dollars and, in the last 4 years, 40 unicorns have emerged, that is, 40 private capital companies valued at a billion dollars. This vertiginous escalation has meant that the value of the Latin American entrepreneurial ecosystem has multiplied by 32 during the last decade.

Betterfly has contributed to boom Iberoamerican entrepreneur with a little more talent than luck so that the final destination of the ball falls to the other side of the track so that the winners of this luck are the companies and society as a whole. Della Maggiora’s company is one more example of a new relationship between companies and Ibero-American society.

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