Costa Maya: The Latest Buzz In Mexico Real Estate Investment

You’ve seen pre-planned suburban communities-now imagine a pre-planned 57 mile long strip of Caribbean coastal paradise. Just as planned communities are built with the purpose of providing the ideal suburban living atmosphere, the Mexican government has plans for the Costa Maya to become the next great ecotourism spot in the Caribbean. Similar project in Cancun and Playa del Carmen have already proven wildly successful for both Mexican tourism and real estate investors. Already in the early stages of the game, the Costa Maya is showing all signs of the same level of success.

The reason that this picture perfect tropical paradise has remained untouched by human development for so long is that prior to the government renovation there were no area-wide resources such as electricity and sewage. Like other now popular places in Mexico, what was needed to spark growth was a government initiative to bring power, water, sewer, and telephones to the entire area. Banks in Mexico don’t provide generous, low interest loans for property as they do in the US, meaning that most of the population was unable to afford the land or develop on it. Today, the Costa Maya is the last 57 mile stretch of virgin Caribbean coastal property anywhere in the world.

For investors, the fact that this project is currently in its infancy means massive opportunity in terms of Mexico real estate investment. Plots of raw, Caribbean beachfront property that are today selling for around $60,000 are expected to reach the $1million dollar mark in 15-20 years. Like Cancun where property values rivaled that of the average American car just 30 years ago, the Costa Maya region needed only a kick start to begin its surge or growth.

It’s not common in real estate investment to come across so much undeveloped territory-especially untouched, coastal property on the romanticized Caribbean Sea. To put things into perspective, the Costa Maya has more miles of beachfront than Orange County in California and just 13 fewer miles of beachfront than Los Angeles County. Such types of real estate investment opportunities are no longer available on the densely populated coast of the United States. When it comes to Mexico real estate investment, the opportunity to own a residential beachfront lot in a developing area is, for now, still a real opportunity.

In just the past several years since the government put its revitalization project into action, the price of real estate in the Costa Maya has already doubled. Those keen on the trends of Mexico real estate investment got in early, but with so much raw and undeveloped land, there still remain pristine coastal lots up for grabs. High end resorts and businesses have already begun to crop up around Majahual, a once sleepy fishing village just north of Belize.

Additionally, cruise ships are porting in Majahual, the road running south from Cancun has been repaved and the local airport has been renovated. Now flights come in directly to Majahual from Cancun, meaning the once four hour drive south from Cancun is just a short plane ride. It’s not only Mexico real estate investment that is exploding here. Entrepreneurs that want to tap into this growing tourism hot spot can pick and choose a slice of the market right now in this early stage of development. A Mexico real estate investment in the Costa Maya means essentially following the investment strategy of the Mexican government and it’s proven success in building entire, thriving tourism centers from the ground-up.

Eventbrite Closes Series C Round of Funding From Sequoia Capital

Eventbrite announced that it has closed a Series C round of funding from Sequoia Capital, with partner Roelof Botha (previous backer of YouTube) joining as director. This brings the company’s total funding to over $8 million. Previous investors include Bebo co-founders Michael & Xochi Birch, Jeff Clavier, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, former PayPal founding executives, David Sacks and Keith Rabois, prolific Silicon Valley angel, Ron Conway, and Flixster co-founders Saran Chari and Joe Greenstein.

“Eventbrite exhibits many of the same traits that were present in many of the wonderful companies Sequoia Capital has been in business with: passionate and driven entrepreneurs, addressing a large underserved market, and organic growth driven by a laser-like focus on the customer experience,” said Roelof Botha, partner, Sequoia Capital. “Events are an enormous market where organizers are relegated to using mostly manual tools to promote and monitize their offerings. By providing them with a simpler, more economical model, Eventbrite makes the event experience more successful for planners and rewarding for attendees. This is an exciting time for the company and we’re thrilled to be involved in the growth of what we see as an industry-disrupting offering.”

Evenbrite is an event planning marketplace that optimizes the planning and hosting of events, giving organizers a simple, automated way to sell tickets, organize events and promote these gatherings through social media platforms.

“With Eventbrite, we’ve branched out from the ‘old world’ model of ticket registration and democratized it, empowering anyone with the ability to sell a ticket to an event and bring people together,” said Kevin Hartz, CEO and co-founder of Evenbrite. “We see a massive opportunity here in terms of the socialization and optimization of events and are excited to play an enabling role in making this happen.”

The company was founded in 2006 by Kevin, along with his wife Julia Hartz and Renaud Visage. Kevin was previously co-founder and CEO of Xoom Corporation, an international money transfer company that provides services to over 40 countries worldwide. He has also been an active early stage investor and advisor to startups including PayPal, Flexilis, Boku, Milo, Yammer, AdNectar, Flixster, Trulia, Tokbox, Geni, Tripit, iControl, Three Rings, and Friendster.

This round of funding validates significant company success to-date, highlighted by consistent triple-digit year over year growth, 3 million monthly uniques, and projected ticket sales of over $100 million in 2009. A vast number of different event types can leverage Eventbrite, from fairs and festivals, to fundraisers, workshops, reunions, conferences or special holiday events. Customers to date have included notable names such as TechCrunch, Craigslist Foundation, Kiva, PayPal, and LA Times.

About Eventbrite

Eventbrite is an online events marketplace where tens of thousands of individuals, businesses and organizations of all sizes manage, promote and sell out their events. With over five million registrations to date and over ten thousand new events published every month, Eventbrite is bringing explosive growth to the events industry by making it easy for anyone to host a successful event. With a suite of free and easy-to-use online tools, Eventbrite empowers event organizers with everything they need to create a professional online presence and to effectively promote their events on the Web. Eventbrite collects a fee only if you sell tickets, and free events are totally free. As the World’s Marketplace for Events, Eventbrite proudly serves event organizers from almost every industry, as well as thousands of non-profits, universities, libraries and faith-based organizations from all over the world. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA and additional information is available at www.eventbrite.com.

About Sequoia Capital

Sequoia Capital provides venture capital funding to founders of startups who want to turn business ideas into enduring companies. As the “Entrepreneurs Behind the Entrepreneurs,” Sequoia Capital’s Partners have worked with innovators such as Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Larry Ellison of Oracle, Bob Swanson of Linear Technology, Sandy Lerner and Len Bozack of Cisco Systems, Dan Warmenhoven of Network Appliance, Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo!, Jen-Hsun Huang of NVIDIA, Michael Marks of Flextronics, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen of YouTube, Dominic Orr and Keerti Melkote of Aruba Wireless Networks, Jonathan Kaplan of Pure Digital and Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin of Zappos. To learn more about Sequoia Capital visit www.sequoiacap.com.