Why a Venture Studio?
Latin America has big problems, and neither governments nor traditional aid have been able to solve them alone. Social enterprises use the market to make impact scale and last.
But building that kind of company here is hard. Impact startups serve markets that are complex, underfunded, and overlooked. They take longer to find product-market fit. And nobody wants to fund that wait. Traditional investors think their market is too small or their business model is too capital intensive. Impact investors need to prove that doing good and making money can go together, so they come in later, when the risk is lower. So most impact startups never get built.
That's the gap Fundamental exists to close.
We build social enterprises from scratch, and stay with them through the hardest early stages. We bring together the tools, people, and capital that impact startups need to survive and grow: a proven venture-building methodology, shared services, an extended team and staged funding designed for each phase of growth.
Our Thesis
Micro and small businesses are everywhere in Latin America. But because they operate in informal and traditional markets, most companies don't bother building for them. The numbers don't look attractive enough.
We see it differently. These overlooked businesses are exactly who we build for: the corner store owner, the plumber, the small farmer, the hairdresser, the waste collector.
We create startups that give micro and small businesses the tools they need to grow:
- Financial services
- Marketplaces & value chains
- Productive assets & tools
- Training platforms
When small businesses grow, their owners earn more, hire more, and create social mobility for the people around them. That's the impact we're building toward.
Our Verticals
We focus on three key areas that we know matter most. Sectors where small businesses keep the economy running, but have been left behind by traditional solutions.
Financial Inclusion
Millions of workers and micro-businesses drive the economy without access to the resources that could help them grow. We build startups that change that, giving them better ways to work, earn, and access money.
Regenerative Agriculture
Small farmers feed the country but rarely get a fair deal. We build startups that connect them to better markets, resources, and support, so they can earn more while taking care of the land.
Circular Economy
What looks like trash is often an untapped opportunity. We build startups that turn waste into value and help supply chains become stronger and more sustainable.
How We Build Ventures
24–36 months
Our ventures get access to the studio's shared capabilities like Management Support, Tech Development, Go-To-Market Strategies or Microfinance for their clients. As we build, we follow a clear, repeatable playbook to take ventures from idea to scale within 24-36 months:
Exploration
Analyze the industry, map its value chain, and identify the most pressing problems and market opportunities.
Ideation
Recruit an entrepreneur and together design and validate first business concepts.
MVP
Launch, test, iterate, and grow the venture until it achieves Product-Market Fit using our venture validation framework.
Spin-Out
Build the scalable version of the venture and transition it into an independent company.
Scale
Grow the venture to break-even, scale its impact, and pursue a partial exit to recycle capital into new ventures.
Funding each stage
Unlike traditional startups, impact ventures often need patient capital to develop viable business models that serve underserved communities. We use philanthropic funding in the early stages to test and validate a venture's business and impact model. Once proven, we bring in impact and commercial investors to help the venture scale and eventually become financially independent.
Philanthropic capital
Philanthropic capital funds the early work: exploration, ideation, and MVP.
Impact and commercial investment
Once a startup finds product-market fit, it transitions to impact and commercial investment to scale on its own.