María Isabella Muñoz Méndez

Invest in Bogota has enhanced the local entrepreneurial ecosystem by improving coordination among stakeholders, forming strategic partnerships, and positioning the city as the gateway to the region.

What measures has Invest in Bogota taken to support the local entrepreneurial ecosystem?

Two years ago, Invest in Bogota took a significant step to advance support for the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. One prominent challenge in Bogotá’s ecosystem was the sheer number of public and private players involved in assisting entrepreneurs without any effective coordination among these stakeholders. When entrepreneurs aimed to expand, they lacked clarity on where to seek resources, be it financial or technical support, or participation in programs. To address this, our initial focus was on data to facilitate informed decisions for international investors. We began publishing quarterly reports that brought together diverse players and highlighted financial activities in the city, and these reports have grown to become a valuable resource. Bogotá’s entrepreneurial landscape is thriving and attracting substantial capital, making it a noteworthy player in the global investment arena. Second, to boost entrepreneurship in the company, we launched a new platform called Scaleupbog with a website that publishes resources such as events, reports, information, data for all the different programs and credits, and incentives offered by the local and national governments. The greatest thing about Scaleupbog is that it has a strategic partnership with Finnovating, an international matching platform, which hosts more than 50,000 entrepreneurships and more than 8,000 investors from all over the world, with the purpose of making Bogotá’s entrepreneurship ecosystem visible at an international level and facilitating the growth of Bogotá’s entrepreneurs through the investment of foreign capital funds. accelerators, corporate angel investors, and others. Scaleupbog connects people, talent, suppliers, and the public and private sectors altogether. When there is perfect alignment between public policy and the private sector, magic happens.

How does Invest in Bogota plan to make capital the gateway to the Latin American market?

The city has numerous attributes of a city that make it the platform to grow and expand into Latin America. Bogotá’s economy has been growing faster than that of Colombia and Latin America in the last five years. This growth instills confidence in international decision-makers, underscoring our city’s stability and economic progress. Additionally, our strategic geographic location in the heart of the Americas plays a pivotal role. We have thoroughly transformed El Dorado Airport into the region’s top airport for both cargo and passenger traffic. This achievement means that while being centrally located is advantageous, our superior connectivity sets us apart. One area where we have to improve and are working hard on is tourism. In November 2021, Invest in Bogota added the Greater Bogota Convention Bureau as its new business line. This new line is responsible for attracting world-class meetings and events to the city. This has been an amazing process and will spur even more activities in the city.

What major indicators is Invest in Bogota using to measure impact in investment in the city?

This is a difficult thing to define in terms of the KPIs that are relevant to our work. However, some of the indicators that are the most relevant to us include the number of investments that we bring to the city on an annual basis. For example, we have determined that Invest in Bogota is a key part of the investment decision process of one out of every three investments by international investors coming to the city. We also track the number of companies that decide to enter and open operations in the country or expand their existing operations. All these ultimately contribute to the city’s GDP. In addition, we will also start tracking the Greater Bogota Convention Bureau, our new business line. We will measure the number of events we bring to the city and the additional businesses that they will bring. Finally, we also measure the employment that we generate in the city. In the end, as an investment promotion agency our ultimate goal is to positively impact the city in a socioeconomic way.