Today, I'm exploring GridX, a venture capital fund that has developed a company-builder model transforming Latin American scientific projects into startups with global impact.
To date, GridX has raised US$41.5 million across two funds and manages a portfolio of 81 companies throughout Latin America, with 75% co-founded by women. These companies collectively employ 1,000 people, including 700 scientists.
Let’s dive into the story of GridX.
Do You Have a Moonshot Project?
Ask any entrepreneur about their moonshot project for the future, and most will answer "yes." Unfortunately, few ever get the opportunity to pursue it.
A moonshot project is ambitious, exploratory, and groundbreaking. It involves high risk without any guarantee of near-term profitability or benefit. Betting that Latin America will become a hotbed of future biotechnology? That's what I call a moonshot project!
Matías Peire, co-founder and CEO of GridX, didn't grow up dreaming of disrupting the biotech sector from Latin America. In fact, entrepreneurship wasn't part of his original plan—life had other ideas.
Born and raised in Argentina, Matías began his entrepreneurial journey at age 22 with a university friend. It was 2001, and Argentina was deep in an economic crisis. With jobs scarce, his friend's invitation to launch a company became an unexpected opportunity.
They made an unconventional choice that would later prove crucial: rather than simply using technology to build a business, they decided to develop technology itself, focusing on hardware and software niches.
Over the next decade, Matías immersed himself in building the company, evolving from an accidental entrepreneur into a seasoned business leader.
His first venture, 3Way Solutions, focused on developing video appliances for technical monitoring in the broadcast industry, creating hardware and software for head-ends, cable operators, broadcasters, and content generators.
From this company, he launched a spin-off focused on surveillance appliances called Batten. In 2010, he also founded Tecnologus, a company that applied data science tools to scraped IP information, aiming to provide easier access to IP information for SMEs in emerging countries. Though Tecnologus ultimately failed and closed in 2012, these experiences were crucial to his development.
This early experience gave Matías two crucial advantages that would later prove invaluable to GridX's success: a deep understanding of technical innovation and the ability to work effectively with technical experts. As the only business-focused person in a world of engineers—from his co-founder to employees and clients—he learned to bridge the gap between technical expertise and business strategy.
The Long Game: Committing to a 10+ Year Vision
Time has a way of reconnecting us with our younger selves' aspirations. For Matías, the realization hit that beyond financial success, his twenty-year-old self had dreamed of making a meaningful impact on the world. This epiphany led him to explore his next professional chapter, with venture capital emerging as a promising path.
However, to break into venture capital you either need a strong track record as an investor or must bring a unique investment thesis to the table. With limited investment experience, Matías opted for the latter approach—a decision that led him to discover the untapped potential in biotech.
While Latin America possessed all the ingredients to become a major player in the biotech space, very few projects were being built and financed. Intrigued by this paradox, Matías's research revealed several key strengths of the region:
- Latin America boasts excellent universities in science and engineering
- Many Latin American scientists complete part of their education at international universities, maintaining valuable global connections
- The region's scientists regularly publish in prestigious international journals
- The high degree of specialization means Latin American researchers frequently rank among the world's top experts in their specific fields
- Very few companies were emerging from this scientific ecosystem
These factors created perfect conditions for potential investment returns, yet the opportunity remained largely invisible to most investors.
Furthermore, while most biotech investment globally concentrated on therapeutics and new molecule discovery, Matías saw untapped potential in a broader spectrum: from agricultural innovations to industrial bioprocesses, environmental solutions, diagnostics, and personalized medicine.
He found validation of his thesis in pioneering funds like IndieBio (based in San Francisco and New York), whose success was already proving the potential of this new biotech category.
Ready to go all-in, Matías drafted a decade-long plan to seize and execute on this opportunity.
He began with an ambitious three-year learning phase, immersing himself in science and the innovation ecosystem. Through conversations with over 500 people—scientists, startup founders, and investors—he uncovered the fundamental challenge: there simply weren't enough startups for traditional venture capital investment in this space.
Rethinking Venture Capital from First Principles
Rather than abandoning his vision after failing to raise an initial US$5 million fund at the beginning of 2015, Matías applied first-principles thinking to forge a different path. He paused fundraising efforts and instead focused on hands-on exploration to better understand—and solve—the fundamental challenges.
This journey took him across Argentina, from north to south, mapping the scientific ecosystem. He began experimenting by co-founding several projects with scientists, aiming to kickstart initiatives that could demonstrate proof of concept. The plan was to nurture these projects until they could operate independently, then resume fundraising with tangible results to show investors.
Initially, Matías expected scientists to become CEOs naturally, but two major obstacles quickly became apparent:
First, transitioning from an academic mindset to a business leadership role proved to be a lengthy process for most scientists. Second, even when scientists successfully made this transition, they faced a structural market challenge: multinational companies in Latin America conducted little to no R&D in the region, while large local companies preferred to follow innovation patterns from developed markets rather than invest in original research.
Scientific founders now had to simultaneously tackle three daunting tasks: raising capital, selling innovative products internationally, and developing cutting-edge technologies. This combination was virtually impossible for a single founder to handle.
Armed with these insights, and encouraged by his own experience leading technical companies without having a technical background, Matías pivoted his model by the end of 2015.
In 2016 with this new approach focused on connecting scientist with business profiles, hundreds of scientific projects from Argentina mapped and already experience working with 6 of those, he resumed fundraising with a more modest target: US$1 million to test a prototype of this concept.
A breakthrough came when he pitched to Hugo Sigman, an Argentine psychiatrist turned business mogul. Sigman, who had co-founded Grupo Insud—a pharmaceutical and agroforestry conglomerate—with his biochemist wife, saw the potential. He not only invested himself but brought in three additional investors from his network - families from Grupo Bago, Gador and Vicentin. Also, Miguel Galuccio joined the initiative at this moment as a partner and co-founder at GridX, that finally was incorporated as an investment firm.
Despite limited initial capital, Matías successfully recruited two key partners to his vision. María Renner, a biologist with a PhD in Neuroscience from the Netherlands, brought firsthand experience in translating scientific developments into startups. She has since become a General Partner and serves as Chief Scientific Officer. Federico Marque joined as the third General Partner and Chief Operating Officer, bringing valuable experience from his five years at a biotech startup where he had navigated the complexities of bridging scientific and entrepreneurial worlds.
After successfully testing the model with five initial companies in 2017, Matías returned to his investors in 2018 with a larger vision. He proposed raising US$10 million to scale the fund to 30 projects, create a more diversified portfolio and consolidate the team and the model. The initial investors agreed on committing US$5 million and helped secure an additional US$5 million from other sources, bringing the total fund to US$10 million.
Five years after embarking on this venture, GridX reached a more stable stage with a team, processes, and a fund to invest in a growing portfolio.
In 2022 GridX launched its fund II, with commitments of US$30 million from family offices from Latin America, the US and the IDB Lab (their first institutional investor). So far with this new fund GridX invested in 45 new companies and expanded the portfolio to Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Chile and Brazil, besides Argentina and Uruguay where they started. They also added team members in Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay to accelerate the landing process in those countries.
Beyond "Fail Fast": Building Life's Work
Rejecting the 'fail fast' startup philosophy, Matías champions long-term commitment to transformative projects. He believes that when a project embodies a life's passion, persistence becomes the only acceptable path. This philosophy resonates deeply with scientists who have invested 10 to 15 years mastering their specific fields.
This alignment of long-term vision is central to GridX's approach. Matías sees the same unwavering dedication in scientists who've devoted their careers to becoming world experts in their fields, as he does in his own commitment to GridX.
Working with his team, Matías developed a systematic process for matching talent and providing a structured pathway to build innovative businesses.
The first crucial step is identifying compatible talents. For scientists, the primary qualification isn't just technical expertise (although it’s fundamental to have the right scientific credentials) - it's an entrepreneurial drive so strong that not pursuing it would lead to lifelong regret.
Beyond this motivation, candidates must be working with commercially viable technology and show willingness to understand the dynamics of venture capital and business development.
Finding the right business founder presents its own unique challenges too. The ideal candidate must be willing to work in an unfamiliar industry while supporting, rather than directing, the scientific vision. GridX specifically seeks execution-focused leaders capable of building US$100 million companies, rather than visionaries fixated on billion-dollar unicorns. Matías thinks that this new generation of biotech companies will create a different Venture Capital model, bringing likely 10 companies of around US100 million rather than 1 of US$1billion.
Crucially, both founders—scientist and business leader—must be prepared for a long-term commitment marked by significant uncertainty. This shared dedication to the journey is non-negotiable.
Once two potentially compatible founders are identified, GridX initiates a three-month testing period. This crucial phase serves two purposes: it helps scientific founders recognize the value of business expertise in bringing their vision to life, while allowing business founders to discover the vast opportunities within scientific innovation. When these mutual realizations align, true partnership begins to form.
GridX's approach deliberately inverts the traditional venture-building playbook. Instead of identifying market opportunities first and then developing solutions, they begin with breakthrough science and then explore its market applications.
This strategy respects the decade-plus investment scientists have made in mastering their fields—expertise that shouldn't be compromised to fit predetermined market needs.
Moreover, this approach acknowledges the serendipitous nature of scientific discovery. Breakthrough findings can sometimes create entirely new markets, potentially worth billions, that couldn't have been anticipated through traditional market-first analysis.
This science-first strategy comes with a significant constraint: limited pivoting flexibility. As a result, the initial selection process must be exceptionally rigorous and thorough.
Deep tech ventures also require substantial capital investment. This reality demands that the team carefully anticipate future fundraising narratives and gauge global venture capital appetite for specific scientific domains well in advance.
GridX's program has evolved in response to changes in the funding landscape and the unique challenges of biotech and deep tech investing. These sectors demand investors who understand higher risk profiles and can evaluate technological development milestones rather than traditional user adoption metrics.
The program's support structure has also expanded. While GridX previously concluded its involvement after the pre-seed investment (typically six months in), they now support portfolio companies through their seed funding rounds. On average, startups graduating from the GridX program raise seed rounds of US$3 million.
The Vision for Latin America's Scientific Future
This model requires significant investor conviction. Success depends on both the validity of the scientific breakthrough and the scientist's ability to shepherd it from laboratory to market.
GridX's fundamental thesis rests on a powerful observation: Latin America possesses world-class scientific talent that simply lacks the opportunity to realize its full potential.
While Latin American universities face funding constraints for expensive laboratory equipment in fields like nuclear science and aerospace, the last decade has transformed the accessibility of life sciences research. Modern technologies now enable hypothesis testing and validation before significant infrastructure investment.
This democratization of scientific research stems from three key developments:
- The digitalization of DNA sequencing, which has dramatically reduced costs
- The emergence of powerful genomic engineering tools, particularly CRISPR technology
- Advanced interfaces bridging digital and biological worlds, including microfluidic, optical systems, and nano electronics
The model is showing promising results. Portfolio companies have collectively raised over US$100 million from international investors, while GridX itself has secured US$41.5 million across two funds. The participation of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB Lab) as a limited partner provides additional validation of the vision. The portfolio has already achieved its first successful exit.
Looking ahead, GridX envisions a transformed Latin American scientific landscape within a decade. Their goal: engaging at least 10% of the region's scientists—approximately 20,000 researchers—in startups and innovative companies that are leveraging science and biotechnology to revolutionize global production methods.
In a startup world obsessed with "moving fast and breaking things", the most groundbreaking innovations might come from those willing to move slowly and build things that last.
The real disruption might be in having the courage to move deliberately in a world obsessed with speed. Not everything needs to be reinvented - sometimes it just needs to be masterfully refined.
GridX is quietly orchestrating a revolution in Latin America – one built on decades of scientific expertise, measured in breakthrough discoveries rather than quick exits.
Perhaps this patient approach to company building isn't just a regional necessity, but a glimpse into the future of deep tech entrepreneurship worldwide.
