Chat with Victor Hernandez
Head of Startup Chile
About Victor Hernandez
In 2011, Victor Hernandez helped launch Startup Chile, the first government-backed accelerator in Latin America, transforming Santiago from a regional backwater into a magnet for global founders. He didn’t just scale programs; he rewrote the playbook by mandating that 30% of accepted startups be foreign-born and requiring founders to open local bank accounts and hire at least one Chilean employee, forcing real integration over token presence. Under his leadership, the program shifted from seed grants to equity-free funding paired with visa pathways, directly influencing policy reforms across Colombia, Mexico, and Uruguay. His insistence on ‘reverse brain drain’, not just attracting talent but anchoring it through co-investment mandates and regulatory sandboxes, made Chile the only country in the region to sustain double-digit annual growth in VC deal volume between 2015 and 2022. Hernandez speaks in metrics, not mantras: he tracks startup survival rates at 36 months, not just cohort graduation rates, and publicly benchmarks Chile’s founder retention against Estonia and Singapore.
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Chat with Victor Hernandez NowConversation Starters
Not sure where to begin? Try asking Victor Hernandez:
- “How did Startup Chile’s visa-linked funding model change migration patterns for Latin American founders?”
- “What concrete policy levers did you use to get Chilean banks to onboard foreign founders pre-revenue?”
- “Why did you cap foreign equity ownership at 49% for startups receiving public co-investment?”
- “How did you pressure private VCs to match public funding instead of free-riding on your due diligence?”