South America
Continent / region · #18 region by EV
Enterprise value · 2015–2025
South America grew 25.3× since 2015
Combined enterprise value of every tracked startup headquartered in South America that's still operating today — public and private companies combined, totalled by founding-year cohort.
Adjacent regions by EV
Startup funnel
South America's power-law funnel
From the first cheque written to a $10B+ outcome. Each arrow shows what fraction of companies at one stage graduate to the next, tracked by founding cohort.
* C→Unicorn and Unicorn→Decacorn rates are derived from current counts (no founding-cohort data); the four mid-funnel rates use Dealroom's cohort tracking.
Notable companies
Top private companies in South America
Up to 20 names per tier from Dealroom's tracked dataset. Decacorns are valued $10B+, unicorns $1B+, thoroughbreds have crossed $100M in revenue.
Academia
South America's academic flywheel
Companies founded by university alumni or spun out of research, plus the institutions producing the most founders tied to South America.
Vs. similarly-sized ecosystems
How South America stacks up
Peers chosen from other continents / multi-country regions, sized closest to South America by combined EV. The scatter plots growth × current size — outliers in the upper-right are ecosystems compounding fastest.
Top overview
Top regions — combined view
Top regions globally ranked by combined EV. South America's row is highlighted.
| # | Ecosystem | Combined EV | 5-yr EV growth | Unicorns | VC invested | Tracked startups |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | World | $44.1T | 5.8× | 3,634 | $444B | 288.9K |
| 2 | North America | $31.5T | 6.8× | 2,136 | $290B | 122.2K |
| 3 | Asia | $8.9T | 4.0× | 916 | $85.5B | 74.2K |
| 4 | EMEA | $4.6T | 4.7× | 857 | $84.1B | 89.8K |
| 5 | Europe | $3.8T | 4.4× | 689 | $67.9B | 75.5K |
| 6 | European Union | $2.3T | 4.4× | 410 | $37.3B | 48.5K |
| 7 | Nordics | $581B | 5.1× | 105 | $8.2B | 8,196 |
| 8 | South America | $502B | 11.3× | 69 | $4.7B | 8,638 |
| 9 | Oceania | $368B | 10.6× | 51 | $5.4B | 5,662 |
| 10 | Central Eastern Europe | $193B | 5.2× | 58 | $2.3B | 7,162 |
| 11 | MENA | $142B | 12.4× | 33 | $5.9B | 4,435 |
| 12 | Africa | $73.6B | 10.7× | 14 | $1.7B | 4,526 |
Sector concentration
Where South America punches above its weight
Sectors in which South America's share of the global unicorn pool is bigger than its overall share. A 5× over-index means South America is 5× more represented in that sector than in the global average. Source: top-hub aggregation across the 18 simplified sectors.
Premium analytics
What we don't show on this page (yet)
Sector breakdowns, founder origins, AI-talent leaderboards and live deal flow are gated to logged-in Dealroom users. Book a demo to access the full South America dataset — or see a sample on the Dealroom app.
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Live company-by-company deal flow, full cap tables, founder pedigrees, hiring signals and revenue trajectories.