By Ray Fernández, Espacio Media Incubator
ENIAX, a startup that orchestrates healthcare patient journeys, was founded in Chile ten years ago. Today, the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) startup operates in more than 8 countries, including Argentina, Spain and Portugal, helping more than 100 million patients.
The healthtech startup is not an isolated case but part of a broader EU-LAC tech startup-corporate cooperation market that is picking up speed and moving into new directions driven by AI, new technologies, market and talent demands, and new legislation and policy.
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SubscribeNew tech and compliance are changing the way the EU and LAC cooperate
Working in this cross-Atlantic cooperation area, new partnerships are expected to come from the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator, funded by the European Union – its 5th open call that took place on June 12.
The EU-LAC Digital Accelerator is on a mission to match and accelerate corporate-startup partnerships across Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.
“There is a very tight relationship between LAC and EU countries thanks to heritage and language, which comes to be very helpful in leveraging deployment,” Aline Gómez-Acebo Finat, Board Member of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and leader of ENIAX, told EU Startups.
Agentic AI, smart mobility, physical AI, and modernization of infrastructure are driving change across both regions, with demand for innovation, services and talent on the rise.
New EU legislation, like the E.U.Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) to take effect on December 30, demands that all products placed in EU markets provide full agriculture and forestry supply chain visibility, including non-negotiable geospatial data confirmed with satellite visuals. This law is expected to open up opportunities for LAC satellite and agri-tech startups.
“Having a real, identified pain point and a narrow but important case to solve is what allows startups to focus and corporations to measure,” said Gómez-Acebo.
EU’s push to sovereign technology is an opportunity for LAC startups
Other EU laws and compliance are heavily pushing for the development of EU sovereign tech. On June 2, the European Commission presented the European Technological Sovereignty Package, a set of measures to strengthen Europe’s capacity in semiconductors, AI, cloud, and open source.
“Talent exchange and corporation networks are definitely a way to co-create and reduce the third-party dependence from tech incumbents like China and the U.S.,” said Gómez-Acebo.
“Europe’s push for digital sovereignty is fundamentally a trust story, and LAC countries are asking the same questions: who controls our data and who can we actually rely on?” Johan Konst, Founder of EUSA PR, a transatlantic PR agency based in Amsterdam, told TNW.
For LAC startups entering the European Union, aligning with this narrative, in cleantech, deeptech, defence-tech or biotech, is one of the fastest ways to build institutional credibility and open procurement doors, said Konst.
“Europe currently relies on non-EU countries for over 80% of key digital products, services, infrastructure, and intellectual property,” Bernardo Saraiva, the co-founder of World Talents, told TNW. World Talents is a global talent mobility platform supporting entrepreneurs, researchers, and investors in establishing themselves within European startup and university ecosystems.
“That’s become a structural vulnerability, and Europe knows it,” said Saraiva.
Collaborative approaches to agritech, clean energy sectors, and fintech are also key, he added.
What LAC startups bring to the table, and how the EU responds
Saraiva said that for years, the (EU-LAC) relationship has been primarily driven by trade agreements and political dialogue. That has changed. Today it is moving towards genuine collaboration in sectors like AI, digital infrastructure, energy transition, and deep tech, and LAC startups are showing growth.
The LATAM startup environment raised $4.1 billion in venture capital across 681 rounds in 2025, a 13.8% increase over 2024.
“Beyond signs of growth, what makes the region particularly attractive is the innovation moat that global giants struggle to replicate,” said Saraiva.
Megacities like São Paulo and Lima operate under extreme density and logistics pressure, serving as real-world testbeds for scalable urban delivery models that European cities are now beginning to confront, Saraiva explained.
Fintech is another area that is scaling. A prime example is Nubank, which transformed financial services in Brazil and today serves tens of millions of customers across Latin America, becoming one of the world’s largest digital banking platforms.
“LAC startups have the agility, market-tested resilience, and domain expertise in sectors Europe is prioritizing, such as climate tech, agritech, financial innovation, and public digital infrastructure,” said Saraiva.
Additionally, Saraiva added that LAC holds a significant share of the world’s biodiversity and natural resources, making it strategically important for global food security and climate resilience.
“For LAC startups, Europe offers what LatAm capital markets still cannot: deep institutional investment and a more competitive venture capital landscape, structured regulatory validation that acts as a global stamp, and access to the EU single market of 450 million consumers, bringing the number to over 1 billion consumers for both regions,” said Saraiva.
What it takes: 7 out of 10 startups fail to liftoff ground
While opportunities exist, the LAC tech startup road into the EU is not an easy one.
MIT Sloan Management Review found that about 7 out of 10 corporate ventures fail to deliver the expected results. Organizations like the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator want to bring that number down (to 3 out of 10).
“Most failures come down to two things: not finding product-market fit, and running out of money before they can,” said Saraiva.
The first is on the founders, and startups should be solving a very specific consumer problem. The second is where policy and governmental initiatives can genuinely help — and where programs like the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator make a real difference by extending the runway for cross-border pilots that would otherwise die at the funding gap between PoC and commercial scale, Saraiva explained.
Identifying pain points and understanding how new technologies can solve these problems to meet market demands continues to be a key cornerstone.
“Tech needs to solve problems step by step, and the first step needs to be significant enough for the corp to be interested in taking the next one,” Gómez-Acebo told us.
