Chain reactions. Ripple effects. We see them in action when an internet platform or app becomes a new way of conducting commerce, or videoconferencing technology becomes a new way of delivering healthcare. Entire industries are created and everyday life transformed.
In this blog, we look at how innovation, investment, and ingenuity have transformed Latin America’s financial sector and how the same phenomenon is taking place in healthtech and biotech, with blockchain technology driving many of these new developments. You’ll find recent research, what we’re discovering in the marketplace, and insights from recent VOCES Latinoamérica expert interviews.
If you’re seeking business opportunities and inspiration for 2027 and beyond, read on.
A “Transcendental Moment” for Fintech—and Business
We’re written about it, and you’ve seen it. For over a decade, much innovation and investment in Latin America has focused on commerce: real-time digital payments, neobanks, platforms that help underserved small businesses thrive and AI-powered solutions behind the scenes, to name just a few examples.
What’s next? Smart contracts. Operating at the convergence of blockchain, automation, and law, these instruments have the potential to transform Latin America’s financial ecosystem, as well as how business gets done.
“A new way of executing decisions, obligations, and controls”
The simple definition of what smart contracts are, “self-executing pieces of code,” insufficiently communicates their many advantages: direct contact between buyer and seller or lender and borrower, automation-driven speed of execution, and peace of mind thanks to the blockchain’s use of encryption and immutability to secure transactions and preserve data integrity.
Smart contracts drive value through reducing a lender’s exposure to risk, “which should, in turn, lower the overall financing cost of the trade agreement,“ writes International Banker.
They save money after a deal is signed as well. Imagine smart contracts in action for projects with multiple parties, significant amounts of capital, and complex schedules, like the infrastructure, mining, and manufacturing projects taking place across Latin America. Automating the release of funds based on pre-determined milestones not only increases transparency, it decreases delays.
“An operation could embed programmed rules for payment, delivery, clearing, guarantee release, or record updates,” Belisario Castillo Sáenz with Banco Aliado and Signature Regional Law Firm in Panama told us. “This can directly impact cross-border payments, international trade, supply chain finance, bank guarantees, and digital letters of credit.”
“It is not just adopting a technological tool, but a new way of executing decisions, obligations, and controls,” Sergio Tertusio, another interviewee, explained, drawing from his experience an international consultant in digital transformation and governance.
Oliver Muñoz, a Panama-based expert in financial services, blockchain, and the securities markets, calls this “a transcendental moment” for Latin America.
A few of the entrepreneurs and investors building Latin America’s smart contracts future
In Argentina, businesses can turn to SpaceDev to build a contract, Rather Labs to review it, and Koibanx to facilitate payments. They can also look to Uruguay’s Zircom, which helps companies implement blockchain as well as AI and cloud solutions.
Some of these innovators are already integrating with the larger digital financial ecosystem Cifrato’s “AI for accounting firms” connects directly to Colombia’s tax authority. Brazilian fintech UnblockPay, which builds infrastructure for cross-border payments, is pursuing a stablecoin license from Brazil’s central bank.
Regional entrepreneurs are just a few of the players capitalizing on Latin America’s “transcendental moment.” In June, global giant Blockchain.com announced a dedicated cross-border liquidity solution for Brazil. The platform will allow Brazilian businesses to move and settle funds internationally with fewer constraints than traditional banking systems. Designed for cross-border supplier management, payroll, treasury flows, and commerce, the solution promises to enable “near real-time settlement while improving visibility and operational efficiency.”
Healthtech and Biotech Follow a Similar Path
Latin America has long been home to thriving pharmaceutical activity. Global giants like Bayer and GSK operate alongside local leaders such as Roemmers, Gador, and Laboratorio Elea. As with the financial sector, a convergence of trends has moved this activity online, and transformed business as usual.
Virtual care unleashes a new ecosystem
When the COVID pandemic forced quarantines and lockdowns, entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers alike began to see, and tap, the power of virtual care. Telemedicine adoption grew exponentially between 2019 and 2021, then spurred transformative thinking about what a healthtech company is and does.
One example is Alice, among Fast Company’s most innovative Latin American companies for 2024. This Brazilian platform connects pregnant patients to virtual and on-the-ground prenatal care specialists and resources. Another Brazilian company, digital prescription platform Mevo, has been using venture funding to expand its services in exam scheduling and patient support.
In Argentina, Osana Salud launched in 2019 with a vision of enabling affordable, accessible healthcare for everyone in Latin America. Today the healthtech is internationally recognized for digitalizing and automating high-touch clinical workflows and engaging patients through multiple communication channels.
TRAINFES in Chile brings rehabilitation directly to the homes of stroke and spinal cord injury patients. Available remotely as well as in clinics, electrostimulation therapy activates paralyzed muscles and promotes motor relearning.
In 2020, Index Ventures made its first Latin American investment with Mexican healthtech Sofía Since then, this provider of app-based telehealth services has branched out into health insurance, helping patients cover as well as consume care.
Customizing clinical AI for the region
Like everywhere, AI has been a big part of Latin America’s healthtech story. From algorithms that sharpen diagnostic imaging to generative AI that accelerates radiological reports, clinical history summaries, and patient triage, local entrepreneurs are developing homegrown solutions and making this technology their own.
“Natural language processing in Spanish and Portuguese has improved dramatically, enabling AI systems to be genuinely useful in the Latin American context.” writes Lima-based Davix Healthcare, citing embedded clinical AI as a top trend to watch.
In Brazil, Maggu AI supports front-line pharmacists with product recommendations and care instructions at their fingertips. 1DOC3 in Colombia uses common platforms like WhatsApp to reach patients in remote areas and AI and other technologies to improve wait times and reduce the costs associated with speaking with a doctor. In Mexico, Unima builds AI tools for healthcare professionals, and expansion-focused Uruguayan startup metaBIX Biotech uses AI to analyze air samples for emerging pathogens.
Industry leaders worldwide have been paying attention. South Korean biotech Noul is one example, signing a memorandum of understanding with the Latin American Confederation of Clinical Biochemistry (COLABIOCLI) to promote AI-powered diagnostic technologies across the region.
Latin America rises as a life sciences leader
Finally, scientific founders across Latin America are demonstrating that frontier science can be done at globally competitive costs.
In July 2026, the RedCLARA network showcased innovations from its BIO II IT+AI Testbed: Teams from Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Colombia: early detection and drug resistence in breast cancer, bioremediation in mining areas, and repurposing a popular cough medicine for liver disease.
Months before, in December 2025, Argentina’s Sinergium Biotech started preclinical testing of mRNA vaccine technology that would strengthen regional preparedness for pandemics and escalating disease outbreaks. It’s among the first mRNA vaccine technologies to be assessed in Latin America.
As terms like probiotics and prebiotics move from the lab to everyday life, Latin American biotech companies have been finding their place in this booming sector. Liva Company in Chile is developing and scaling microorganisms for supplements and other food products. In the province of Rosario, Argentina, BioClé is working to make supplements for gut health more effective through more precisely targeting intestinal cells.
In our VOCES Latinoamérica interviews, we talked to one of these innovators in-depth. Anastasia Gutkevich of Bifidice, which harnesses scientifically proven microorganisms during digestion to actively participate in regulating the immune system. “The microbiome is one of the most promising platforms to do so because it sits right at the intersection of nutrition, immunity, metabolism, and environment.”
In the process of developing its main offering, Bifidice developed proprietary stabilization technology, BifiGut,® that protects these microorganisms from oxygen and pH changes during industrial processing and gastrointestinal transit.
Security, Traceability, and Interoperability Are Innovation’s Next Chapter
Blockchain technology promises to take all of these companies, and countless others, to the next level.
We’re already seeing this technology in action in Latin America in the stabilization and cold-chain logistics technology behind BiFiGut and NanoFreeze, a Colombian company keeps food, medicine, vaccines, and more from perishing during transport and storage in rural areas. And these are just two examples of how the technology behind smart contracts can be used in biotech commercialization.
“The rapid evolution of digital health technologies has created an urgent need for secure, transparent, and interoperable data management systems,” declared a study published in the November 2025 issue of Blockchain in Healthcare Today.
Here are the findings. “Blockchain enhances healthcare by improving data security, ensuring traceability, facilitating interoperability across platforms, and enabling real-time data sharing in clinical and research environments. It also supports regulatory compliance and patient-centered data ownership.”
In daily operations, biotech and healthtech companies can use blockchain technology:
- For shipping and samples, verifying origin, storage, handling history, and governance
- In clinical trials, logging trial results, protocol compliance, and patient consent
- secure storage and governance of genomic sequencing data
- For joint ventures, streamlining data-sharing, materials transfer, and agreements between private and academic labs
One area that’s particularly well-suited to blockchain technology is contract manufacturing, especially for advanced therapies such as cell and gene therapies, biologics, and regenerative medicine. “Think of these therapies like the Formula 1 cars of medicine—expensive, highly engineered, delicate, and requiring special facilities. Not every manufacturer can handle them,” writes PharmaTradz, calling out seven of these companies in Brazil, four in Mexico, three in Argentina, along with facilities in Bolivia, Peru, and Uruguay.
Next Steps for Your Business
Whether you’re interested in fintech, healthtech, or biotech, there are two ways to incorporate smart contracts into your Latin America business strategy:
- Use them in your business to streamline operations and manage risk
- Invest in the companies and technologies shaping the market
Whichever path you take:
Familiarize yourself with national and regional regulations
Juan Diehl of Argentine law firm Marval, O’Farrell & Mairal discussed such frameworks with Latin Counsel. “The Argentine legal framework has progressively shifted from an initial absence of specific regulation—and, in some cases, restrictive approaches applicable to financial institutions and payment services providers—towards a more structured and functional regulatory model.”
“Argentina’s regulatory treatment of virtual assets reflects a gradual institutionalization of the ecosystem, seeking to integrate blockchain-based activities into existing regulatory frameworks while allowing room for innovation,” Diehl noted.
Watch how stablecoins, tokens, and cryptocurrency are treated in a specific jurisdiction—as acceptance here may open doors for blockchain technologies overall.
If you’re in life sciences, are you familiar with Argentina’s Resolution 197/2026? Under this 2026 update to the nation’s intellectual property legislation, biotech innovations now fall under general patent law for assessment. Similar to what the country’s first legally binding smart contract did for fintech and smart contracting, this move makes Argentina more attractive for biotech innovation and investment.
If you’re considering projects at the intersection of life sciences and technology, acronyms like ANVISA (Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency) and ANMAT (Argentina’s National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Devices) should become part of your business conversations.
So should regulatory developments outside of America. If it passes, Europe’s proposed EU Biotech Act will streamline regulation and enhance coordination, scale-up and manufacturing on the other side of the Atlantic, impacting the competitive and investment climate for Latin America.
Understand that the overall landscape is complicated—and a work in progress
“Internationalizing biotech isn’t simply about exporting the same product,” Gutkevich explained. “It means simultaneously internationalizing science, regulation, intellectual property, manufacturing, and the commercial model.”
Especially in biotech, every aspect of this mission is complex and evolving, she shared. “Regulatory frameworks vary wildly by country. Chile, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and the United States do not speak the exact same regulatory language.”
“Some countries have taken important steps, there are regulatory sandboxes, guidelines, and pilot projects,” Muñoz told us specific to smart contracts. “But a complete framework that provides certainty from token issuance to trading and custody does not yet exist in the region,”
Establish guardrails and an advisory team
Whatever sector you’re operating in, “smart contracts do not eliminate the need for a framework agreement, a formal trust, banking documentation, due diligence, or the intervention of trustees, banks, custodians, auditors, or regulators,” Sáenz cautioned, predicting that the most viable model right now will be hybrid, “traditional legal contracts combined with blockchain infrastructure and automated rules,”
When putting smart contracts into action, Tertusio emphasized the value of “setting boundaries: maximum automatable amounts, prior validations, compliance checks, legal reviews, technological audits, and early warnings—along with pause or escalation mechanisms when necessary.” This guidance extrapolates to blockchain applications in the health and science world.
Mind—and help mend—the training gap
As the people and companies featured in this blog demonstrate, biotech innovation and fintech innovation alike run on brainpower. But more education, more broadly administered, is needed to truly make these new technologies take off, for healthcare professionals, in areas like AI and data analytics, around topics like regulatory modernization, and beyond.
We’ll be exploring talent and workforce development in our next blog. In the meantime, get to know, and connect with, regional academic institutions and consortia. Two of many examples include the Latin American Genomics Consortium (LAGC), which conducts groundbreaking research in areas such as psychiatry and mental health, and the Latin American Consortium for Lung Cancer Research (CLICaP) which both invests in regional research projects and conducted training sessions across Latin America.
The Latin American subcommittee of the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine (ADML) also offers educational workshops throughout Latin America on topics such as decentralization and point-of-care testing.
Be a Part of Innovation’s Next Chapter
Especially in life sciences, much of this work is in the early adopter phase. With venture capital still representing less than 5 percent of biotech investment in Brazil, for example, “there’s still a lot of room for growth,” Thomas Carolla of investment management firm 10b Partners told Agência FAPESP, the news service of the São Paulo Research Foundation.
Where is investment and partnership most needed? In our interview, Gutkevich shared the biggest challenge of building Deep Tech from Latin America. “We have to prove two things simultaneously: that the science works, and that where the science comes from shouldn’t matter.”
“A US-based startup with intellectual property, preliminary data, and good researchers often gets the benefit of the doubt. A Latin American startup has to show up with the science, the product, sales, independent validations, regulatory approval, and preferably an already operational market.”
Opportunity lies in working with Latin America’s many promising entrepreneurs to create such a foundation, as an investor, partner, connector, customer, and advocate.
In fintech, “Latin America remains a region with massive structural opportunities in financial inclusion, payment digitalization, credit, financial infrastructure, and tokenization,” said Mariano Francisco Biocca, executive director of the Argentine Fintech Chamber. “Investors are not just looking at individual companies, but at the opportunity to participate in the complete overhaul of the regional financial system.”
Developments in life sciences and healthtech offer the same transformative potential. “We have the opportunity to generate our own microbiome science and develop interventions tailored to our populations,” Gutkevich says of her own company’s innovations. “They ask us: Why should this technology come from Chile? My answer is the exact opposite: why not?”
For health, wealth, and the technology that drives both, this is a transformational moment in Latin American business. Experienced advisors can help you navigate it. Contact us today.