Narayan AmmachchiHarvard Business School is set to conduct a case study on Chile’s startup acceleration program.
The study will shed light on all features of the program, known as Startup Chile, trying to figure out what type of hurdles the Chilean government faced in its bid to help budding entrepreneurs turn their ideas into products or services.
Launched in 2010, Startup Chile is a seed accelerator funded by the Chilean government. Its objective is to turn Chile into the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Latin America by attracting global entrepreneurs to bootstrap their business ventures in the South American country.
By the end of 2015, the program had generated as many as 1,200 startups from 72 countries. Though the government spent a large sum of money, the program hasn’t had a strong impact on the Chilean economy.
Largely due to a lack of domestic venture capitalists, a large majority of the program’s participants left the country after six months of mentorship, according to the Brookings Institute.
In addition, some of the startups it incubated got acquired by larger firms with operations elsewhere in the world. Such startups include Cruise Match, Entrustet, WeHostels, Comenta.TV, Flipter and Nina’s Box.
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