Colombia’s tech ecosystem is growing, but now faces the challenge of scaling

Colombia’s entrepreneurial ecosystem grows its number of startups by 9.3% to reach 2,295. While growth has slowed compared with last year, the trend reflects a transition toward ecosystem maturity. Challenges such as scaling and profitability are becoming increasingly important to the ecosystem’s continued growth, according to the ‘Colombia Tech Report’.

Colombia is going through a new phase in the evolution of its entrepreneurial ecosystem. After several years of accelerated growth, the country is now entering a stage marked by consolidation, business maturity, and greater demands from investors and markets. Growing quickly is no longer enough on its own: the priority now is to build sustainable, efficient business models with a real capacity to scale.

These are the main conclusions of the Colombia Tech Report 2026 report, which analyses an ecosystem of 2,295 active startups, 9.3% more than the previous year. Although the pace of growth is lower than that recorded in previous years (24% in 2024), the figure confirms the strength of a sector that continues to gain relevance within the Colombian economy.

Against this backdrop, Bogotá reinforces its position as the dominant core of the Colombian startup ecosystem and one of the most relevant Spanish-speaking hubs in Latin America, home to 46% of startups and 80% of capital.

The ecosystem’s evolution shows that success is no longer measured solely by the number of new companies created, but by their ability to generate value, attract investment, and establish themselves in increasingly competitive markets. Investment is a good reflection of the moment the Colombian ecosystem is experiencing, with 131 deals recorded in 2025 worth $857M between capital and specialised debt.

However, one of the major challenges the Colombian ecosystem faces in order to keep growing is for its companies to access more advanced stages more successfully. Only around 10% of startups move from the seed stage to Series A within 36 months.

One of the features of the ecosystem’s evolution is that access to resources has become more selective. Investors prioritise companies capable of demonstrating profitability, operational efficiency, and solid business models over those that only show high growth rates.

Another differentiating element is the fact that debt ($476M) exceeds equity ($381M).

“Debt is becoming a new milestone for startups in Latin America, and we believe this market will grow exponentially in the coming years”, notes Eduardo González, Country Manager of BBVA Spark in Colombia and Argentina.

If there is one common element running through practically every technology sector, it is artificial intelligence. This technology has become the main driver of transformation in the global ecosystem, and Colombia is no exception.

Globally, between 40% and 50% of venture capital is currently being channelled into AI-related initiatives. Nevertheless, the opportunity for Colombia does not lie in competing in the development of large foundational models, but in applying these capabilities to specific sectors where the country already has well-established strengths.

The combination of artificial intelligence with financial services, health, energy, agriculture, or enterprise software is generating new opportunities for entrepreneurs and technology companies. Increasingly more Colombian startups are incorporating automation, predictive analytics, and advanced data processing capabilities to improve the efficiency of their products and services.

In addition, artificial intelligence is transforming the way companies are built. Increasingly sophisticated tools make it possible to develop products with small, highly specialised teams. As a result, a new business model is emerging around ‘tiny teams’: smaller organisations that are nonetheless capable of reaching productivity levels similar to those of much larger companies.

This reality is changing investment criteria. Today, funds place more value on the ability to generate revenue per employee than on headcount, favouring projects that manage to grow with agile structures and controlled costs.

The Colombian ecosystem is also seeing how new technology trends are driving new sectors and a reconfiguration of priorities when it comes to building companies. In this respect, for the first time, the SaaS (Software as a Service) model has become the leading category in the ecosystem, accounting for 27% of the startups identified, an increase of 16 percentage points compared with the previous year.

The rise of this segment responds to several factors. One reason is that the model makes it easier to develop scalable digital solutions, particularly as AI adoption accelerates. Furthermore, it is a mechanism that offers the possibility of generating recurring revenue through subscriptions, a model that is especially attractive to investors. The integration of artificial intelligence into SaaS solutions emerges as one of the sector’s main trends.

“The ecosystem’s growth is increasingly being measured not by the number of companies, but by their ability to sustain scale, efficiency, and resilient business models”, notes González.

Despite this leadership in the number of companies, capital continues to concentrate in Colombian ‘fintechs’. The financial technology sector accounts for 20% of Colombian startups and attracted more than 500 million dollars in 2025, equivalent to 59% of all investment allocated to startups in the country.

Fintechs in Colombia maintain a prominent position in Latin America thanks to the advance of open finance, the digitalisation of financial services, and the growing demand for payment, credit, and financial infrastructure solutions. However, the sector faces two key challenges: a lack of market trust and complex regulation. “Colombia has the potential to become a regional benchmark across all fintech verticals: payments, lending, infrastructure, crypto, and more. To achieve this, it will be key to keep evolving on regulatory matters and to build solutions tailored to Latin America”, explains Eduardo González of BBVA Spark.

Experts believe that Colombia has the potential to become one of the leading regional benchmarks in financial innovation, especially in areas such as digital payments, financial infrastructure, open finance, and embedded services.

Beyond software and finance, other sectors are starting to gain prominence. The ‘healthtech’ segment is consolidating as one of the areas with the greatest potential and already accounts for 9% of the Colombian ecosystem, driven by the need to modernise health systems and improve access to medical services.

Colombian healthtech in Colombia stand out for their ability to develop digital diagnostics, prevention, and remote care solutions. Likewise, the application of artificial intelligence to diagnosis and medical prevention is shaping up to be one of the trends with the greatest transformative potential in the coming years.

On the other hand, ‘energytech’ is emerging as one of the country’s major strategic bets. Colombia currently leads regional investment in energy technology with 99 million dollars (58% of Latin America’s ‘cleantech’ capital) and has particularly favourable conditions for the development of renewable energy.

As the report highlights, the real opportunity lies not only in physical infrastructure, but in the development of software capable of optimising power grids, storage systems, and distributed generation. The energy transition thus opens up a new space for technological innovation with international export potential. The combination of sustainability, digitalisation, and energy efficiency places this sector among the most promising for the coming decade.

Another factor that will shape the future of Colombian entrepreneurship will be the internationalisation of startups. The country already has companies that have managed to expand beyond its borders and compete in regional and international markets. Some examples are Habi, Addi, Bia Energy, Simetrik, and Cobre.

Experience shows that the startups with the greatest growth capacity are those that are born with a global vision from their earliest stages. In a context where capital is increasingly concentrated in certain international technology hubs, Colombian companies need to combine local talent with strategic connections in larger-scale markets.

At the same time, the ecosystem is beginning to identify new opportunities in sectors such as agritech, biotechnology, and technologies applied to industry. These are areas where Colombia has competitive advantages linked to its biodiversity, its natural resources, and its capacity for innovation.

The current landscape reveals a more demanding, but also more solid, Colombian entrepreneurial ecosystem. Artificial intelligence, operational efficiency, sector specialisation, and internationalisation have become the main growth engines for the country’s startups.

Far from the stage in which success depended exclusively on raising funding, technology entrepreneurship in Colombia is now entering a phase where the quality of business models, the ability to generate value, and business discipline will make the difference.

With more than 2,000 active startups, leading sectors in expansion, and a growing capacity to develop competitive technological solutions, Colombia is positioning itself to consolidate its role as one of the most relevant innovation ecosystems in Latin America.