• Startup Campus, a project promoted by CORFO and Fundación Chile, will be a physical space for collaboration between the public and private worlds that will catalyze the success of startups that use science and technology as an engine for innovation and development, articulating the support offer for dynamic entrepreneurship in Chile. 
• During the first five years of execution, it will support 200 startups with high growth potential, who will have access to high-tech infrastructure such as laboratories and advanced equipment; support programs for the different stages of the entrepreneur’s life cycle; and contacts with potential investors and corporate clients, among others. 
• Startup Campus will have a strategic location in downtown Santiago in a mixed-use project developed by Territoria that will maintain and remodel the former Enel Tower (Santa Rosa 76). 

After 14 years since the creation of the first public accelerator in the world, Start-Up Chile, as part of a public policy of the State to improve the country’s productivity and competitiveness, stimulating innovation and supporting business development, the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric, announced this Tuesday in La Moneda, the creation of a scientific-technological entrepreneurship hub in the country with an investment of 11 million dollars. 

The “Startup Campus” project, promoted by CORFO and Fundación Chile, will seek to be a flagship initiative of the Government to contribute to the strengthening of the entrepreneurship ecosystem, the development of applied research in productive and strategic sectors for the country, with a clear focus on contributing to the missions of Fair Decarbonization, Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Change and Sustainable Productive Diversification.   

It is a physical space for collaboration between the public and private world that will catalyze the success of startups that use science and technology as an engine for innovation and development, articulating the support offer for dynamic entrepreneurship in Chile.  

For José Miguel Benavente, executive vice president of CORFO, “Startup Campus is part of the process of an evolving public policy to support entrepreneurship that began many years ago. What we are launching today is a tremendously important milestone in which entrepreneurs who require laboratories and infrastructure to develop projects based on science and technology oriented to clean technologies in all its dimensions, can physically meet. We are proud of the agreement we have reached with Fundación Chile to carry out this initiative. We hope it will be a model and attractive not only for entrepreneurs in Santiago but also in the country and Latin America”, he said.  

In the first five years, “Startup Campus” will support 200 startups with high growth potential, contributing to the validation and development of their technologies, the incorporation of advanced human capital, increase in sales and search for financing. The impact on the ecosystem will be even greater with a long-term view considering the installation of capabilities that can be replicated and amplified.     

This will be an open meeting place for all the actors that converge in the ecosystem of innovation and technological entrepreneurship in Chile and Latam, such as startups, corporations, investors, government, academia, among others who want to collaborate in the development of groundbreaking technologies to solve the most urging challenges facing humanity today.   

It should be noted that CORFO and Fundación Chile conceived and designed this initiative by analyzing and taking into account international experiences and models that to date have managed to demonstrate a positive impact on the ecosystems in which they are inserted as Boston, New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Helsinki, Singapore, among others. In its initial phase, several institutions were also convened to a working group to add knowledge and promote collaboration, among them: Endeavor, Banco Estado, Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, Hub Apta, Bci, Carey, and The Venture City. 

The implementation of this project will position Chile as a benchmark in Latin America and will allow startups to: accelerate their development cycle through access to laboratories and advanced equipment for the exclusive use of the entrepreneurs; robust and complementary support programs for the different stages of the entrepreneur’s life cycle, through the articulation of existing national and international suppliers in key areas such as financing, technology validation, commercial traction, internationalization, among others. 

Startup Campus will also allow them to foster innovation in an environment conducive to collaboration, experimentation and iteration; significantly reduce costs by sharing infrastructure; increase the visibility and recognition of startups among potential investors and customers, providing a seal of credibility that facilitates access to private capital and market entry; and finally, promote collaboration between entrepreneurs and corporations, thereby accelerating the transfer of knowledge and the market entry of new technology. 

Pablo Zamora, executive president of Fundación Chile, said that “we are very pleased to have fostered the generation of a new public policy related to the creation of an innovation ecosystem based on science and technologies to support dynamic entrepreneurship. Startup Campus is a very ambitious initiative that we hope will be replicated country-wide in different subject areas and will allow, in some way, to help entrepreneurs who use science and technologies to shorten the entrepreneurial journey, generate capabilities and promote them with investors, thus increasing the interaction and speed of growth of this type of companies”. 

Revitalizing the historic center of Santiago

Startup Campus will have a strategic location in an accessible sector with good connectivity in downtown Santiago, in a mixed-use project that will maintain and remodel the former Enel Tower (Santa Rosa 76), revitalizing its surroundings and promoting urban development and recovery. 

The venue was chosen after pondering multiple locations, considering a strategic, technical and financial analysis. According to the results, the decision was made to incorporate Territoria, a developer of urban projects, as an ally of the project, and install Startup Campus in their Santa Lucia Campus project. 

Territoria, widely recognized for its sustainable and integrated projects within the city, will provide corporate, commercial and operational support during the different stages of the Startup Campus implementation process, going from startup to scaling.  

The project will cover a total space of 3,850 m2. Its infrastructure will be composed of five types of facilities: co-work, auditorium, private offices, life sciences laboratory and hardware, materials and electronics prototyping laboratory. 

“Campus Santa Lucía is an innovative mixed-use project that combines spaces for entrepreneurship (co-work, auditoriums and laboratories), residential, and green areas in downtown Santiago. In line with the projects that Territoria is developing such as Mercado Urbano Tobalaba (MUT) and Campus Santander, it has high sustainability standards. This project aims to contribute to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem of the country and the region, promoting a space conducive to the development of new ideas and business growth. Startup Campus does just that, to be part of and promote this ecosystem”, explained Ignacio Salazar, general manager of Territoria.