Although the ecosystem of startups has had to go through various storms in recent months, the technology-based entrepreneurial drive refuses to disappear in the country. This is reflected in the most recent report Colombia Tech Report 2022-2023presented by the firm kpmg.
According to the mapping in the ecosystem, in recent months a total of 1,327 startupsin 31 sectors, which suggests a growth of 19.5%, compared to the 2021 report when the figure reached was located at 1,110 startups. Likewise, new sectors were identified such as Legaltech, SaaS, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Augmented Reality.
(Colombia Fintech appoints its new Board of Directors).
However, when entering the detail of the sectors, the report showed that “roughly more than half of startups are in six sectors”: fintech (15.3%), which brings together 203 companies, retailtech (8.1%), which has a total of 108 enterprises, health tech (7%) made up of 93 companies, deep tech (6.7%) that brings together 89 startups, adtech / Martech (6.7%), 89 companies, and, finally, Business management (6.1%) that integrates 81 companies.
“This growth of the startup sectors in Colombia has led to the creation of new companies, which has boosted the development of the country’s business ecosystem, generating jobs and contributing to its economic growth.”, the report specified.
But the report also presented some surprises this year, since of the 10 most prominent startups in the country only six were maintained compared to the 2021 report and these were: rappi, addi, plazi, frubana, the house and Habiwhile marketing, robinfood, Urban Messengers and liftitThey left the group.
(Ingenio Riopaila Castilla produces 400,000 liters of alcohol per day).
For their part, those that stood out in this 2022-2023 edition of the report were startups bold, Laika, Tulle and Thirty. According to the report, For this selection, criteria such as: the financing raised by the companies, the number of employees and the traffic of their web page were taken into account.
“While it is no surprise to anyone that Rappi (Supply Chain) stays with the first position, it is interesting to find in a brief sectoral analysis, that the top-10 is made up of 40% by Fintech startups and 20% by Proptech startups, which indicates the importance of these sectors in the ecosystem Colombian”, the report stated.
By sectors, the companies that stood out in the Healtech sector were: Saludtools, LentesPlus and 1Doc3. From the Adtech/Martech sector: Fluvip, We are Content and DataWifi. RetailTech: Apparta, Merqueo and Perki. On the DeepTech side, the following stood out: Datagran, Edgeuno and Simetrik. In the Business Management part, there were: Bewe, Sumer and Truora.
The report also analyzed how startups are located in Colombia and for this they divided the country into seven regions: Central, Antioquia, Pacific, Northeast and Eastern Plains, Caribbean, Coffee Region and Amazon.
(Outsourced payment and cloud, two of the banking trends).
Given this, the x-ray showed that the dominance of the Central Region, with almost 60% of the startups in it, is in a single city: Bogota. follows him antioch with just over 21%, almost entirely concentrated in Medellinand Peaceful with more than 8% (concentrated in Calibut also with a certain level of activity in Popayan).
“In the rest of the regions, there are significantly fewer startups, with just over 3% in each of them, except in the Amazon region (approx. 1%), but less centralization is also identified. In the Caribbean Region, we observed two seed ecosystems (Cartagena and Barranquilla), and in the Eje Cafetero region three (Manizales, Pereira and Armenia)”, the report stressed.
Regarding the funds raised, the startups in Bogotá have raised almost 93% of the funds in the ecosystem, while those in Medellín have raised almost 6%.
Another of the lines that the report addressed focuses on the employability of the sector. According to the data, 73.2% of the mapped startups employ less than 20 people. Almost 16% have between 21 and 50 employees, “which indicates that some have passed the initial stages of growth, and reached a level of stability and success in the market”.
(‘We solve working capital for SMEs in 12 hours’).
However, it is noteworthy that only one 4% of the mapped startups have more than 100 employees on the payroll.
“Startups in Colombia have generated employment and contributed significantly to the economic development of the country, however, the gender gap in employment generated by startups is still an important challenge that must be addressed.”, pointed out the most recent ColombiaTech 2022-2023 report.
Colombia on the international scene
Colombia also appears in the report Global Startup Ecosystem Indexproduced by StartupBlink. According to this ranking, the country was ranked number 44cells below very powerful ecosystems such as Indonesia (38) or Malaysia (42).
It also surpasses, by a few positions, entrepreneurial ecosystems
interesting as Croatia (Four. Five), Türkiye (46) or South Africa (49).
(List the initiative for open finance in the country: it would be like that).
To level Latin Americathe country has also been standing out and occupies the number 5 position. Above the national ecosystem are Brazil (1), Chili (2), Mexico (3), and Argentina (4).
There are also countries like Uruguay (6), Peru (7), Costa Rica (8), Panama (9) and finally Ecuador (10).
JOHANA LORDUY
Portfolio Journalist
