Latin America’s AI builders are no longer waiting for the world to come to them. From day one, they are selling to US small businesses, Spanish banks and hospitals across the region.
The region’s large companies are ready to buy. According to the IBM Institute for Business Value, 69% of Latin American executives expect their organizations to have AI agents taking autonomous actions by the end of 2026, Contxto reports.
The money is following. LAVCA data cited by Ecosistema Startup put venture funding at $1.8 billion.
The lines on the map are blurring too. Mexico City’s Hi Ventures now backs Latin American founders building in the San Francisco Bay Area, and about half its portfolio is based there, Crunchbase News reports. A founder can grow up in Lima, raise money in Silicon Valley and hire engineers in Medellín.
The ten founders and executives below come from Peru, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Chile. Each is building a company, or a regional operation, that sells well beyond its home market.
Some are Y Combinator alumni chasing US customers. Others run engineering hubs that ship AI products for US enterprises, or are building platforms for Spanish-speaking doctors. Here is who to watch in 2027.
José Murillo, Co-Founder, Primero (Mexico)
Murillo grew up in Mexico City and worked at Robinhood before founding Primero, he told General Catalyst. In August 2026 Primero raised a $12 million seed round co-led by Kaszek and General Catalyst.
Its Primia platform connects large companies’ fragmented legacy systems to AI agents. Customers include Kimberly-Clark de México and SmartFit, Contxto reports. Primero plans offices in Mexico City, Madrid and Bogotá.
Nicolás Camhi, Co-Founder and CEO, Vambe (Chile)
Vambe automates sales and support conversations on WhatsApp, Instagram and other chat apps. In December 2025 it raised a US$14 million Series A led by Monashees, SiliconANGLE reported.
The money is funding expansion beyond Chile and Mexico, into Colombia and Brazil, per Techgist Africa. Camhi’s pitch is that agentic AI pays off fast when it is applied reliably to the conversations businesses already have.
Alfredo Salkeld, Co-Founder, Upfirst AI (Peru / United States)
Born in Lima, Salkeld moved to the US at age two and now lives in Florida, he told The Small Business Safari podcast. Upfirst builds an AI receptionist that answers calls, qualifies leads and books appointments for small businesses around the clock.
Its own data makes the case for the product. Nearly a quarter of the calls it answers, 23.9%, come in outside business hours, Salkeld has said. The AI resolves 77% of calls without transferring them, according to Sociable. With support for more than 35 languages and integrations with tools such as Clio, Upfirst is built for a global small-business market.
Luis Guillermo Pardo Fonseca, CEO, Kognia (Colombia)
Kognia is betting on what it calls cognitive AI: agents that reason through a problem instead of following a script. Pardo explains it with a telecom case. When a customer disputes a missed discount, Kognia’s engine checks the CRM, validates the contract, reviews billing and issues the fix on its own, Ecosistema Startup reported.
Its Alan product line covers customer experience and process intelligence, alongside voice and text agents. Kognia’s site cites cuts of up to 60–95% in process time. Its client logos include Spain’s Banco Sabadell, Endesa and Telepizza, alongside Colombia’s Colsubsidio and Salud Total. In healthcare, Sociable reports that its agents have cut administrative timelines from months to a couple of weeks.
Julián Torres Gómez, CEO and Co-Founder, Ontop (Colombia / United States)
Torres co-founded Ontop in 2020 and became CEO in July 2024. The company lets businesses hire and pay workers in more than 150 countries, Emprendedor reports. It competes head-on with Deel and Rippling.
Ontop also shows what AI can do for operating discipline. According to Ecosistema Startup, it shrank its commercial team from 60 people to 18 and still grew revenue 25%. In March 2026 it partnered with BVNK to launch USD stablecoin accounts for its workers.
Manuela Gutiérrez, Operations Leader, 360 Health Data (Colombia)
360 Health Data launched Coralia Health in 2025, a clinical knowledge platform built for Spanish-speaking physicians. Its embedded AI assistant, Salus, helps doctors find and validate medical evidence without having to adapt research from other regions themselves.
Gutiérrez leads operations and has been the company’s public voice in the region. She argues that better clinical decision tools in Spanish can help narrow Latin America’s health inequalities. She also contributes to Forbes and Entrepreneur on AI and healthtech, according to The Org.
Héctor González, Senior Vice President of Delivery, Gorilla Logic (Colombia, Costa Rica)
González joined Gorilla Logic as a Scrum Master in 2016. He rose to lead delivery across its engineering hubs in Costa Rica and Colombia, per RocketReach. The firm builds AI-enabled software for US enterprises.
Its Gorilla Logic Construct platform packages AI workflows and modular agents drawn from real client work.
Nearly 40% of its clients are private-equity-owned, the company says. It reports a 50% increase in delivery speed on one medical affairs platform.
José María “Chema” Rancano, Latin America Lead, Slalom (Mexico)
Rancano built Slalom’s Mexico operation as general manager and now leads the firm across Latin America, according to Slalom. The Seattle-based consultancy opened global technology centers in Mexico and Colombia. By September 2025 it was nearing 400 people there, ahead of plan, he told Consultancy.lat.
The goal was never labor arbitrage, Rancano has said. Slalom puts its Latin American engineers directly onto global project teams. They work on data and AI projects, including tools that interpret legacy COBOL code, for retail and financial services clients.
Víctor Laguna, Founder, PathPilot (Peru / United States)
Laguna is a Peruvian engineer who worked at Yahoo and Facebook. He also co-founded Peru SV, a community of Peruvians in Silicon Valley tech. He launched PathPilot in 2024 after getting into Y Combinator, Forbes Perú reported.
PathPilot sells ready-made AI agents for financial services. They handle customer contact, credit risk analysis and transaction monitoring. The company has contracts with three banks, a Latin American betting company and a US fintech.
Nicolás Abad, Founder, Telepatia AI (Colombia)
Telepatia builds an “AI Doctor”: a clinical copilot and scribe for Latin American hospitals. In June 2026 it raised a US$33 million Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz, bringing total funding to US$42 million, Dealroom reported.
The platform has processed more than 5 million consultations across more than 20 institutions. Palantir’s Shyam Sankar and Nubank’s David Vélez sit on its board. Abad has said his father’s death motivated him to tackle the region’s healthcare gaps.
Christian Struve, Co-Founder and CEO, Fracttal (Venezuela)
A Venezuelan entrepreneur with a postgraduate degree from Stanford, Struve is the co-founder and CEO of Fracttal, a maintenance-management platform used by more than 1,500 customers across 60+ countries, founded in 2015. The company uses AI and connected asset data to help organizations predict failures, optimize maintenance, and manage industrial operations. In January 2026, Fracttal raised $35 million from Riverwood Capital to accelerate its international expansion, according to Contxto.
Constanza Gómez-Mont, Founder and CEO, C Minds (Mexico)
Gómez-Mont is the founder and CEO of C Minds, a Mexico-based innovation firm working at the intersection of AI, technology and environmental sustainability. She has become a prominent voice on ethical AI in Latin America, advocating for technology that supports biodiversity, climate resilience and inclusive economic development. In 2026, she was recognized by The Sociable among its leading voices in ethical AI, thanks to her work, including initiatives focused on biodiversity and AI governance across Latin America.
Its initiatives include NaturaTech LAC, which advances innovation for biodiversity and natural capital across Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as projects focused on technology for conservation and ocean protection.
C Minds works with a global network of public, private, academic, and impact partners to develop new models of collaboration and accelerate solutions that benefit both people and ecosystems.
Adrián Figueroa, Co-Founder and CEO, Routina / Flexio (Puerto Rico)
Figueroa is the co-founder and CEO of Flexio and Routina, building software for healthcare operations and medical distribution, tackling one of healthcare’s less visible problems: the logistics behind getting medical supplies where they need to be.Routina uses AI to help medical distributors manage complex supply chains, inventory, and operational workflows.
According to Latam Tech, Surgical Solutions plans to run its entire Cardinal Health portfolio through the platform, giving Routina a role in managing one of healthcare’s most complex logistical networks. A Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus, Figueroa previously founded Dame un Bite, which he sold in 2015, before moving deeper into technology and healthcare logistics.
Disclosure: This article mentions a client of an Espacio portfolio company.
