Chile Aims to Attract Foreign Startups

The government is dangling visas, $40,000 grants, and a business incubation program for new ventures

Santiago: Start-Up Chile has approved 25 projects this year. Jose Luis Stephens/Alamy

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By Nick Leiber

October 21, 2010 at 8:22 PM UTC

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Like so many young entrepreneurs, Stanford University grads Amit Aharoni and Nicolas Meunier had an idea for a business: a website to help Americans find deals for cruise-ship vacations. Unlike many other entrepreneurs, though, they didn't launch their company in Silicon Valley, opting instead to go nearly 6,000 miles south, to Santiago, Chile.

Aharoni, a 30-year-old MBA who spent nine years in the Israeli Defense Forces, and Meunier, 25, a programmer from France with a masters in electrical engineering, are the first participants in Start-Up Chile, a government program to woo foreign entrepreneurs. The goal is to put Chile on the map as an innovation hub. "We wouldn't have come to Chile if it hadn't been for the program," says Aharoni. "It's not something that you might consider naturally."