Showcase & Visibility
Educate privately, convene publicly
Deep tech takes 6% of LATAM tech funding and the region runs six competing convenings. Educate the roughly 40 active funds privately, and consolidate the events into one flagship.
The rationale
Deep tech took US$536m of the US$8.8bn that flowed into LATAM tech in 2024, about 6%, third behind fintech and energy, on a total that includes debt and is not comparable to equity-only VC trackers. The audience able to change that is small. Hello Tomorrow’s 2025 mapping identifies roughly 40 VC funds active in the region; the IDB counted 65 with at least one deep tech investment in 2023, a different inclusion rule rather than a decline. Off the radar sits capital with no exposure at all, including long-accumulated wealth tied to oil, agriculture and mining in regions such as southern Argentina.
Two instruments, one private and one public. Privately, structured investor education for VCs, corporate venture arms, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, covering capital requirements, R&D timelines, exit strategies and sector-specific success metrics, and built on named proof points rather than theory: companies that secured follow-on rounds, entered regulated markets, or commercialised a breakthrough. The stated objective is a new class of regional angels. Publicly, one flagship forum in place of the current spread of demo days and national summits, with exhibitions, keynotes and investor roadshows and a deliberate invitation strategy that seats international LPs and strategic corporates.
The weak point is return evidence. The only regional ROI figure that exists is SOSV/IndieBio’s 72% gross average return on its LATAM deep tech portfolio between 2015 and 2023, and the report’s own recommendation 20 calls it a single-manager statistic not directly comparable to global benchmarks. Education built on it collapses in the first serious diligence conversation. Until the $1 test and a regional IRR series exist, the defensible pitch is the endowment, the growth rate and the price, with the return evidence labeled as pending rather than presented as settled.
The evidence
What it unlocks
One stage instead of six, and a nameable list of roughly 40 funds moved from unaware to educated, with the return evidence flagged as still missing.
It has been done before
Europe, the EIC corporate-startup collaboration program
Since 2017 the European Innovation Council, working with Hello Tomorrow, has run structured matching between deep tech startups and large corporates. Its July 2025 review reports more than 1,500 startup-corporate engagements involving over 120 corporations, and puts CVC-backed startups at a 1.24% bankruptcy rate against 2.58% without. It is a convening function with a published count attached, which is what separates it from a season of unmeasured events.
First moves
- 0–6 months
Publish the investor curriculum and run two cohorts
Release a four-module syllabus covering capital requirements, R&D timelines, exit paths and sector KPIs, each module anchored on a named regional proof point, and run it for two cohorts, one of family offices and one of corporate venture arms.
LADP coalition secretariat + LAVCA + national VC and family-office associations - 6–18 months
Merge the calendar before merging the event
Get the existing conveners to publish one shared regional calendar and a single co-branded investor track with pooled sponsorship and a common invitation list, ahead of any attempt to consolidate the events themselves.
Existing summit conveners + IDB Lab + Pacific Alliance and Mercosur secretariats - 18–36 months
Launch the rotating flagship on an annual KPI release
Hold the first pan-LATAM flagship in a rotating host city, anchored on an annual KPI release covering deals, pilots, grants and cross-border expansions, with an invitation strategy that seats international LPs and strategic corporates.
LADP coalition secretariat + leading funds and accelerators + host-country development agency
How we would know it worked
- Standalone national deep tech convenings in the region, counted annually against the six named in the report, falling as the flagship absorbs their investor tracks.
- First-time deep tech investors, counted as funds or family offices writing a first deep tech cheque within 12 months of completing the curriculum, above 10 per year.
- International LPs and strategic corporates attending the flagship, from the registration list, above 50 in the first edition.
- Deep tech share of LATAM tech funding, from the annual regional market review, rising from the 2024 baseline of 6%.
What could go wrong
The flagship becomes a seventh event
Six convenings already compete for the same speakers, sponsors and week of the calendar, and launching a flagship without retiring anything adds to the fragmentation it was meant to fix. Contain it by making co-branding conditional on conveners folding their standalone investor track into the flagship, and by rotating the host city among them so no convener loses its franchise.
Educating investors on a number the report itself disowns
The program’s headline return evidence is one manager’s 72% gross average return, which the report says is not comparable to global benchmarks. Teaching it as a regional ROI figure will be caught. Contain it by printing the single-manager caveat inside the curriculum, and by treating the regional IRR and $1-test work as a stated dependency rather than an afterthought.
Who acts
Rests on
02 Metrics & Success Stories A deep tech KPI framework
15 A Pan-LATAM Forum One flagship, one annual KPI release
14 Research & Visibility An open data commons and a funding catalogue
16 Extended Funders Mapping A versioned registry the community can audit
20 The $1 Test What a dollar committed to LATAM deep tech actually returned
The data behind it
In 2024 deep tech outgrew every other tech vertical in LATAM, by funding and by equity.
As published in the report, September 2025.
SourcesSling Hub & Itaú, LATAM Startup Market 2024 in Review; Dealroom.co, Deep Tech Overview: Latin America
Methodology: YoY 2024-over-2023 growth (Sling Hub) plus CVC 4× (Dealroom, ledger #76/#127). Two cycles old; refresh to FY2025.
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Deep tech funding growth | +219% |
| Equity funding growth | +189% |
| Overall tech rebound | +37% |
| Corporate VC growth (2020–24) | 4× |