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Ingenio celebrated its 25th anniversary with leaders from the entrepreneurial ecosystem and unveiled new strategic directions
LATU’s business incubator marked a quarter century of history alongside national authorities, graduated entrepreneurs, and other members of Uruguay’s startup community. It also announced a renewed model focused on artificial intelligence, the bioeconomy, and financial services.
With a packed venue, Ingenio celebrated its 25th anniversary on August 20 at the Los Ombúes building at LATU's Innovation Park, under the motto “To innovate is to do.”
The event was much more than a commemoration: it also served as the stage from which Ingenio presented its new strategy for the future, with a renewed model centered on artificial intelligence and three sector-specific specialization verticals.
25 years of measurable impact
Since its founding in 2001, when Uruguay did not yet have an entrepreneurial ecosystem and the terminology to describe what was being built was only beginning to emerge in the country, Ingenio has supported more than 250 projects and contributed to the creation of nearly 120 companies that are still active today. Companies that emerged from its incubation process generate more than 2,100 direct jobs, operate in more than 100 countries, and reach an estimated annual turnover of over US$ 145 million.
“Ingenio was a strategic and bold bet. It was not born when the path was clear or when everything was in its favor, but earlier, precisely when it had to be built,” said Lucila Arboleya, President of LATU, during her opening remarks. “Today, we are not only celebrating the continuity of an institution, but also Ingenio as a foundational milestone in the innovation ecosystem we know today. It is a commitment that projects Uruguay as a country that creates companies, develops technology, and competes globally.”
The Minister of Industry, Energy and Mining, Fernanda Cardona, was also present and highlighted the initiative’s strategic value: “I believe Ingenio is one of the strategic examples that exist in Uruguay. When no one here was talking about startups, this was an absolutely strategic public incubator that truly generated this entire reality and this ecosystem.”
In this regard, the minister emphasized the convergence of the different actors that make up the community surrounding Ingenio: “Here there is academia, there are solid companies well known in Uruguay, there is a network, a fabric of relationships that knows each other, knows how to export, knows how to work, knows how to generate innovation, knows how to create markets and deliver on them. That is also a hallmark of Uruguay; they trust us, and part of that ecosystem is Ingenio, it is LATU.”
The new model: AI + 3 verticals + 1 open category
One of the central moments of the evening was the announcement of Ingenio’s strategic direction for the coming years. LATU’s President presented a renewed model that seeks to move from a generalist incubator to one with a defined focus, connected to the country’s capabilities and comparative advantages.
The new framework is summarized as AI + 3 + 1: artificial intelligence as a cross-cutting axis throughout the incubation process, three specialization verticals, and one open vertical to preserve flexibility for projects that fall outside those categories.
The three priority verticals are:
- Industry and production: robotics, sensors, predictive maintenance.
- Bioeconomy: food safety, traceability, precision agriculture.
- Fintech (technology applied to financial services): an area in which Uruguay already has companies competing globally and a network of leaders who can serve as mentors and investors.
This model is also supported by Ingenio’s recent integration into Latitud, LATU’s R&D foundation, which connects startups with the concrete needs of national industry.
“Ingenio helped build something that did not exist. Today’s challenge is different, but it has certain similarities. It is about identifying where we can differentiate ourselves and helping to build it before it becomes obvious to everyone,” Arboleya concluded.
Stories that helped build the ecosystem
The evening included a panel featuring four Ingenio graduate companies that illustrated, through their own trajectories, the value of incubation.
Paula Martínez, founder of Marvik, an AI-specialized software development company that now employs 200 people and works with clients such as Microsoft and Mercado Libre, highlighted the role of the entrepreneurial community in the early stages. Meanwhile, Raúl Garreta, founder of Tryolabs, announced during the event itself the acquisition of the company by Qubika, and recalled that the experience also gave rise to MonkeyLearn, a spinoff that had its own market exit in 2022.
The other panel participants were Paula Gallotti, from DVelop, a company with 80 employees that continues to operate from the LATU Innovation Park 17 years after its incubation, and Juan Manuel Rodríguez, from OrderEat, which digitalizes cafeterias and school dining services in more than 600 schools across Latin America.
The panel agreed that Ingenio’s differential value was not limited to the concrete services of mentoring or infrastructure, but rather to a more intangible asset that is harder to quantify: being the first to believe in them.
The conversation about the future: AI, country, and ecosystem
Toward the end of the evening, there was a conversation between Ximena Aleman, co-founder and co-CEO of Prometeo, an API banking infrastructure company graduated from Ingenio with a presence in 110 countries, and Pedro Arnt, CEO of DLocal, a payments company that from Uruguay expects to process more than US$ 70 billion in payments this year.
The dialogue addressed the role of incubators in an already mature ecosystem, the importance of verticalization, the conditions needed for Uruguay to continue generating technology companies with global scale, and the challenge posed by artificial intelligence.
An ecosystem with a future
In closing the event, Rosana Fernández put the focus on entrepreneurs, the heart of Ingenio: “They are the ones who get up every day, take risks, and live with uncertainty. We accompany them. The companies that are incubated today will probably be the ones that, in 10, 15, and 20 years, will be part of these panels.”
With 25 years completed and a clear roadmap for the years ahead, Ingenio closes this anniversary with the same conviction with which it began: that innovating, above all, means doing.
About Ingenio
Ingenio is the business incubator of the Technological Laboratory of Uruguay (LATU), founded in 2001 with the support of the IDB-MIF and ORT University Uruguay.
It is the country’s first technology-based business incubator and is part of LATU's Innovation Park, where startups, companies, academia, and public and private institutions coexist.
Through their ongoing commitment, LATU and Latitud transform knowledge into impact, with quality, safety, and sustainability at the service of Uruguayan industry and consumers. They drive innovation to generate tangible results that contribute to the country’s development, strengthening the economy and cooperation between the public and private sectors.
