Chile is Taking its Innovation Global
A decade ago, Chile launched its public accelerator program Start-Up Chile, drawing innovators from around the world and energizing its tech sector. The government initiative turned the Pacific Coast nation into a hub for entrepreneurship in Latin America.
Now, many Chilean ventures are looking to grow internationally, and ProChile, the country’s export promotion bureau, is assisting the mature companies through its new GoGlobal program.
German Rocca, ProChile’s trade commissioner in Miami, serves as point man for the program in the United States. He and his team help introduce Chilean entrepreneurs to potential U.S. partners that can offer business services, venture-capital funding and more.
“There’s a healthy tech ecosystem here in Miami, with players looking to help companies from Latin America. It’s a perfect match for us,” says Rocca. “We help the Chilean ventures navigate the ecosystem, because not every partner makes sense for every company coming.”
Chile has become an innovation hub in Latin America, partly because of strong government support for tech in diverse fields from health to education, finance to software. The Start-Up Chile program provides seed capital equity-free. And GoGlobal, launched by ProChile and Chile’s Corfo agency, this year is helping some 40 ventures tap four markets: Peru, Colombia, Mexico and the US — to name just two initiatives.
Also key to Chile’s tech allure: well-regarded universities, the top spot in Latin America on the World Bank’s ranking for ease of Doing Business, plus a plethora of trade agreements that facilitate export, says Rocca.
The small South American country is encouraging tech to diversify from more traditional exports like copper, salmon and wine and to take its innovation global to meet world needs.
Chile’s GenoSur, led by biotech PhD Matias Gutierrez, is among Chile’s success stories in the U.S. market. It’s opening a factory to make Covid-19 test kits near Miami International Airport, expecting to employ 80 people there by January. It’s also starting a Miami area lab to process the test results, including some likely to come from Dominican Republic and other nearby nations, says Gutierrez.
GenoSur took part in last year’s GoGlobal program, and with help from ProChile’s Miami office, set up in the Cambridge Innovation Center (Miami) and incorporated in Florida. It had been exporting DNA test kits to the U.S. market. When coronavirus hit, it rejiggered the kits for Covid-19, sold some one million units in Chile, and with that record, found a U.S. funder to back Florida expansion, says Gutierrez.
Other companies making U.S. headlines: NotCo, which has funding from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and uses machine-learning to make plant-based foods including mayonnaise; Lazarillo, an app for the blind that adjusts voice settings to let smartphones speak GPS directions to users; Cornershop, an app that allows grocery delivery from multiple stores for the same order; Algramo, a smart dispensing system that lets you refill containers with select amounts, without buying new packaging; and Solubag, a plastic-bag replacement that dissolves in water in five minutes.
“The Chilean ecosystem is now mature, with highly-qualified talent with interesting solutions,” says Rocca. “They’re just lacking the bridge to connect these solutions to the right people in the right places.” ProChile is helping Chile’s innovators find those links in the US and beyond.
