GEN in Chile

GEN began working in Chile in 2008, when the country joined the inaugural edition of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) alongside 76 other countries. Since then, Chile has participated in every annual campaign. In its early years, GEW Chile was anchored by Endeavor Chile, which promoted and hosted large-scale activities across the country—including the Endeavor Experience Patagonia, one of the largest national events staged anywhere during Global Entrepreneurship Week. 

From the outset, the campaign received strong backing from the national government: Minister of Economy Juan Andrés Fontaine publicly linked Chile's ambition to become a developed economy with fostering creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, while successive economic ministers, including Pablo Longueira, continued to support the initiative as it grew.

Over the following decade, GEW in Chile expanded into a nationwide celebration organized by a broad coalition of ecosystem players rather than any single host. CORFO (Corporación de Fomento de la Producción), the country's economic development agency, together with leading universities and business schools—including Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD), the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile through its Anacleto Angelini Innovation Center, and the Universidad de Chile through OpenBeauchef—organized events, hackathons, and networking meetups each November. Ecosystem hubs and incubators such as Start-Up Chile and Unetec, together with regional communities in Valparaíso and Concepción, carried the campaign well beyond Santiago. 

More recently, GEW Chile has been coordinated by Gianni Romani, professor and founder of Atacama Angels, the first business angel network in northern Chile, reflecting the growing role investors now play within the country's entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Shaping entrepreneurship policy

Chile has been an active contributor to GEN's international policy community through Start-Up Chile and CORFO's participation in Startup Nations, GEN's global network of policymakers working to improve conditions for entrepreneurs.

Nicolás Shea, who played a central role in the creation of Start-Up Chile, helped position the program as a global reference for government-backed entrepreneurship support. At the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2014 in Moscow, he shared Chile's experience with one of the world's pioneering public startup accelerators as it gained international recognition.

Through successive Start-Up Chile Executive Directors—including Sebastián Díaz, Sebastián Vidal, Rocío Fonseca, and Tadashi Takaoka—Chile has remained an active contributor to GEN's policy dialogues and peer-learning exchanges, sharing lessons in startup acceleration, public innovation, and entrepreneurship policy. This institutional engagement has continued through CORFO, whose Vice President, Dr. Jose Miguel Benavente, participated in the Startup Nations Ministerial at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2025 in Indianapolis.

Chile's collaborative approach to innovation has also been reflected in GEN's regional convenings. At the GEN Latin America gathering in Puerto Rico in 2024, Francisca Contreras represented Fundación Chile, showcasing the country's model of ecosystem development built on collaboration among public institutions, research organizations, universities, investors, and entrepreneurs.

Connecting Chilean startups to the world

Chile has been an active participant in the Entrepreneurship World Cup (EWC), GEN's global startup competition launched in 2019, which provides founders with free training, mentorship, global visibility, and the opportunity to compete for more than $1 million in annual prizes.

To date, ten Chilean startups have advanced to the EWC Top 100: Yu-Track (2019), ServiSenior (2020), Aintech (2021 and 2022), Altum Lab, HKN Ingeniería, and Innspatial Technologies (2022), Bruna (2024), and BIO-CO2 and ComexPoint (2025). Their innovations span fintech, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, mining technologies, industrial innovation, and logistics, with several—including Bruna, Altum Lab, and HKN Ingeniería—emerging from Antofagasta and Chile's mineral-rich north.

At the Entrepreneurship World Cup 2025 Global Finals in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, ComexPoint, founded by Luis Contreras Espinoza, secured a place among the world's Top 100 startups, further demonstrating Chile's growing international competitiveness.

Chilean ecosystem leaders also participate in GEN's global knowledge communities, including GEN Space, helping connect local expertise with international conversations on entrepreneurship and innovation.

Building entrepreneurial and investor communities

Beyond competitions, GEN has supported entrepreneur-led communities and investment networks throughout Chile.

Startup Huddle Santiago, one of GEN's newest chapters in Latin America, is organized by Pablo Pérez Leiva, CEO and founder of Innspatial Technologies, itself an EWC Top 100 company. Through monthly peer-driven sessions, founders receive practical feedback from experienced entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors while strengthening connections across the local ecosystem.

Chile's investor community has also become an increasingly important part of GEN's work. During Global Entrepreneurship Week 2024, leaders from GEN's Global Business Angel Network (GBAN) led investor-focused programming in the country as part of GEN Invest's efforts to strengthen early-stage capital across Latin America. This work complements the growth of homegrown investment communities such as Atacama Angels, reinforcing Chile's emergence as a hub for angel investment and startup finance.

A nationwide ecosystem with global connections

From the early success of BioFiltro—the Universidad de Chile water-treatment innovation that won GEW's Global Cleantech Open Ideas Competition in 2011—to today's founders advancing artificial intelligence, mining technologies, biotechnology, logistics, and climate innovation, Chile has built one of Latin America's most mature and internationally connected entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Today, GEN continues to work alongside public institutions, universities, entrepreneur support organizations, investors, and founder communities throughout Chile. Through longstanding collaboration with organizations such as CORFO, Start-Up Chile, Endeavor Chile, Atacama Angels, and regional ecosystem leaders across Santiago, Antofagasta, Valparaíso, and Concepción, GEN helps connect Chilean entrepreneurs and ecosystem leaders to global markets, investment opportunities, policy dialogue, knowledge exchange, and international partnerships that enable innovative companies to start, grow, and scale.