For better or for worse, Chile is often held up as the economic model for Latin America.
In the Lost Decade of the 1970s-1980s, the region was tripping over itself to fall down a spiral of debt and ruin. In the decades of uneven recovery that followed — hailed as “miraculous” in Chile’s case — many countries found themselves looking toward the continent’s first and only OECD member as an example.
Now Chile is drawing attention again, this time for an initiative seemingly at odds with its reputation for stable fiscal management. Six years ago Chile set out to transform itself into the innovation and entrepreneurial hub of Latin America. It was a bold vision, one that required a correspondingly bold commitment from the government. Luckily, that is exactly what it received.
Since 2010, Chile has distributed upwards of $40 million to 1,300 budding businesses from almost 80 countries. As of last summer, those companies had generated roughly 1,600 jobs in Chile and $100 million in outside fundraising. According to the Brookings Institute, some 200,000 Chileans have received benefit in one form or another from government-backed entrepreneurship programs.
Critics say the return hasn’t merited the investment. They say that most of these companies fail without government assistance or leave to set up shop elsewhere as soon as they’ve finished taking advantage of Chile’s generosity, low costs and relatively light tax burden. But the net impact is impossible to dispute: There now exists a robust and growing culture of entrepreneurship where once there was nothing.
The rise of “Chilecon Valley” — as the nascent startup scene is sometimes called — couldn’t have come at a better moment for the country. Chile has weathered the worldwide financial crisis and falling commodities prices better than could have been expected. It has maintained its enviable status as a net-creditor throughout. But the economy has been slowing for some time, and, after years of counter-cyclical stagnation, unemployment may finally be rising as a result.
The means that Chile’s need to incorporate new innovation is approaching something of an existential crossroads. This has raised the stakes on an entrepreneurial experiment that countries across the world have been trying to replicate.
Origin story
More so even than other up-and-coming tech centers, the story of startup entrepreneurialism in Chile is a story of concerted government policy.
In Chile, that policy is formulated, first and foremost, by the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción de Chile (CORFO), which is tasked with promoting economic growth in the country. Established in 1939, CORFO has a decades-long track record of anticipating and encouraging the next stage of Chilean development.
Previously that meant everything from telecommunications to banking services. More recently, promoting small business expansion in some of Chile’s far-flung regions was the priority. Beyond the past decade, the emphasis has been on innovation, and startup innovation in particular.
It helps that CORFO operates under similar constraints to your average startup. In 2014, Chile spent 0.37 percent of its GDP on research and development — less than any other OECD member. CORFO’s innovation annual budget today sits at just $45 million. Those in the private sector who have worked with CORFO say the limited resources have made it resourceful.
The agility with which Start-Up Chile has worked to address serious structural problems is encouraging.
If nothing else, restricted access to funding has forced CORFO to think hard about how best to exert a multiplying effect on the broader startup economy. In 2010, years of consultation and planning culminated in the launch of Start-Up Chile. The accelerator’s twin mandate was to elevate Chile’s international profile and build out a local culture of entrepreneurism.
The project benefited immediately on both fronts from Groupon’s $30 million acquisition of ClanDescuento, which took place the month before CORFO began the rollout of Start-Up Chile. The country’s first major exit, it put Chile on the map internationally and validated the government’s faith in innovation. More importantly, it gave homegrown entrepreneurs something to aspire to.
Start-Up Chile’s debut came at a fortuitous moment for other reasons, too. Europe was in the midst of a recession, from which it has been slow to recover, and the United States was entering a piqued quagmire over immigration, from which it has yet to emerge. The combination made Chile’s open-arms approach all the more inviting to companies the world over.
Inti Nunez, head of entrepreneurship at CORFO
Twenty companies from 14 countries accepted Start-Up Chile’s offer in its first “pilot initiative.” By 2012, 500 companies from 37 countries had graduated from one of its accelerator tracks. While acknowledging some of its obvious shortcomings, The Economist wrote that, according to the goals it had set for itself, the program had “undoubtedly been a success.”
The following year lent credence to that assessment. First, Latin America’s most active early-stage VC fund, NXTP Labs, opened a Santiago branch and started investing in the Chilean market. Then another Latin American fund, Nazca Ventures, raised $15 million to invest primarily in Chilean companies.
That same spring, PayPal acquired Multicaja for an undisclosed sum, citing Chile’s 10 million internet users and growing online consumer habits. In December, Microsoft announced it would be partnering with CORFO to open an innovation center for early-stage ICT companies in Chile. As an initial benchmark, Microsoft said the center would aim to serve 2,000 companies and 6,000 entrepreneurs over the next six years.
The center was only possible because of a law passed a year earlier, allowing CORFO to invest directly in third-party incubators and accelerators. It was the result not just of smart policy, but adaptability.
Ultimately, it’s that willingness to make changes based on performance and shifting conditions that makes the Chilean experiment so promising. CORFO and Start-Up Chile recognized, for instance, that just 32 percent of companies passing through Start-Up Chile wound up staying in the country long-term. In 2015, a new investment vehicle was created to address the apparent talent drain.
The agility with which Start-Up Chile has worked to address serious structural problems is encouraging, but Chile has also done much to assuage the other looming concern investors have when dealing with a government-led initiative: the prospect of political jockeying. Successive administrations have changed, however, Start-Up Chile’s basic mission has remained constant, and its annual funding has gone up incrementally from $7 to $9 million.
Santiago
Today, about one-third of the people in a country that spans more than half the length of South America live in the same central mountain valley the Spanish picked for their colonial capital almost 400 years earlier.
Santiago is big by any measure, but what makes it truly imposing is its size in relation to the rest of Chile, the sheer extent to which it’s concentrated the country’s power and wealth. This is where decisions get made; it’s where business gets done. The buildings are larger, the avenues wider, the infrastructure newer and better maintained. The disparity is especially noticeable when it comes to Chile’s startup ecosystem. By most estimates, about 90 percent of all startup activity occurs in Santiago.
Given that the government is at the center of most of that activity, it’s worth explaining in greater detail how Chile’s public programming works. As Inti Nunez, CORFO’s head of entrepreneurship, explained, CORFO has pioneered a process called the “Startup Journey,” which categorizes a country’s startup ecosystem into distinct sections.
Santiago is more expensive, more chaotic and more polluted than the rest of the country, but … successful companies that start in the region end up migrating there.
In the Startup Journey, CORFO funds more than 50 different distribution points, be they incubators or co-working spaces, and it also employs more than 1,000 mentors throughout the country, with the aim to maximize an entrepreneur’s chances of success. CORFO monitors distribution points’ performance closely, through a system that certifies every step of the acceleration process. As an example, if an accelerator is looking for funding from the government, it needs to obtain a certification to show it is actually producing results.
The most recognized player in Chile’s Startup Journey is Start-Up Chile. Now in its 16th generation, the accelerator brings between 250-300 companies a year to Santiago — out of a pool that has grown significantly with each successive round of applications. Businesses are evaluated along a trajectory and invited to apply to one of three distinct acceleration classes.
Start-Up Chile Executive Director Rocio Fonseca speaking at an event
The “S Factory” gives female entrepreneurs still in ideation a $14,000 grant and 12-week mentorship grounding. Companies ready for “Seed” guidance get $30,000 over six months. Once a business has passed through “Seed” or some other early-stage CORFO training, the approximately $90,000 “Scale” program helps them with funding and to gain traction in Chilean or other markets.
Big international conferences like Seedstars World and MeetLatAm have been coming since 2012 and 2013, respectively. Digital Bank Latam, the venture investment conference, is on its way later this year. NXTP’s Hackathon is one of many regular…
