Business Incubator Financing and Financial Services in Chile

Business incubation in Chile is still in its nascent stages, with approximately 20-25 incubators supported primarily by a coalition of government and universities. Chilean business incubators tend to capitalize on regional resource strengths and have a strategic focus on high growth, high innovation, high impact businesses as a result of a government mandate to focus on developing business with high potential for economic development and job creation. The government’s efforts to organize risk capital for early stage ventures to fill market capital market gaps and its support for angel networks as well as incubator funding are noteworthy. This paper provides an overview of the business incubation landscape in Chile, with special emphasis on incubator sponsorship and funding, services (both tangible and intangible) provided by incubators to their client firms, and the associated roles of government, academia and industry/incubator networks in fostering the growth of new ventures by creating a fertile environment for entrepreneurship.