Voices That Move Capital: What We Learned at FLII Mérida 2026

In February 2026, during the Latin American Impact Investment Forum (FLII) in Mérida, Startup Chihuahua co-facilitated the "Unlocking the Missing Voices" workshop alongside Rising Leaders of Mexico. What was designed as a structured dialogue activity became something far more significant: an unfiltered, evidence-backed conversation where social entrepreneurs shared the reality of building impactful businesses from geographies and sectors that capital routinely ignores. The result was a 35-page research report — 40+ testimonials, five Fishbowl conversation circles, and a rigorous triangulation with three ANDE analytical frameworks — that documents not just the barriers entrepreneurs face, but the structural reasons behind them. This is what we learned. The Market That Doesn't Reach Mexico is Latin America's impact investment leader, with an estimated $1.39–1.72 billion USD in assets under management at the close of 2024. The ecosystem grew from 24 identified impact investors in 2019 to over 130 by 2024. By all measures, it is a maturing market. And yet: 72.3% of investors prefer direct investment, creating severe intermediation bottlenecks. Access concentrates in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey. Investment funds control 59.3% of total activity. The growth in the number of funds has not translated into better access for unconventional sectors and geographies. Capital exists. The infrastructure connecting it to the entrepreneurs who need it does not. Five Conversations, Five Worlds The workshop used the Fishbowl technique: five circles of entrepreneurs, each representing a different sector and geography, responding to the same five trigger questions. The methodological uniformity created a quasi-natural comparative experiment — the same questions, asked to different people, producing strikingly different answers that revealed one shared structural reality. Circle 1 — Waste, Social Arts, Tech: Sectoral invisibility. Waste management has no investment thesis in Mexico. Infrastructure companies are systematically penalized relative to SaaS models. Civil associations are trapped in a fiscal limbo: too formalized for philanthropy, too different for venture capital. Circle 2 — Artisans, Electric Mobility, Tlaxcala: Geographic exclusion. Entrepreneurs from Tlaxcala — a city of 300,000 inhabitants not even on the ANDE diagnostic map — described having to physically travel to Mexico City to be taken seriously. Social enterprise regulation does not exist for their model. Circle 3 — Basic Education, Solopreneurs: Three structural barriers named with precision: solo founders are penalized relative to multi-founder teams; basic education's long-horizon impact is incompatible with 5–7 year fund windows; the pursuit of scalability and return is structurally incompatible with most social impact models. Circle 4 — Corporate Value Chains: Real entry into corporate supply chains requires four things: contacts, resilience, cash flow, and GRI-aligned reporting. Without personal networks, access remains closed regardless of product quality. The most valuable moment of the workshop came from a direct exchange between a startup and the corporation that eventually hired it — revealing that the barrier is not willingness but operational agility. Circle 5 — Social Economy, SAF, Women Entrepreneurs: Chronic bootstrapping. Entrepreneurs with 11–13 years of operation, national distribution, and genuine impact — unable to raise institutional investment. Capital, as one founder put it, passes in front of them but never arrives. The Most Hopeful Concept: Competipartners From Circle 5 emerged the most unexpected and hopeful finding of the workshop: a word coined spontaneously by participants to describe a reality they had been living for years without a name for it. "Cooperate or compete? The answer was unanimous: cooperate. The market is enormous. The real competition is the unsolved problem, not the entrepreneur next to you. Sharing is caring." — Circle 5 synthesis · FLII 2026 Workshop Competipartners — competitors who are also partners — is, according to the ANDE MDEE Model, the embryonic form of the reinvestment cycle that distinguishes self-sustaining ecosystems from those permanently dependent on external resources. It is the earliest signal that Chihuahua, and ecosystems like it, are building something that lasts. The Seven Structural Barriers The synthesis of all five circles, triangulated with ANDE data, produced seven clearly mapped structural barriers: B1 — Sectoral trap: waste, arts, education, artisan crafts excluded from investment theses B2 — Geographic capital gap: entrepreneurs outside the Mexico City–GDL–MTY triangle face structural exclusion B3 — Traction Catch-22: funds demand sales, but without capital there are no sales B4 — Intermediation disconnection: capital exists but the infrastructure to connect it to entrepreneurs does not B5 — Regulatory inadequacy: no legal framework for social enterprise in Mexico B6 — Poorly calibrated investor readiness: financial preparation — not pitching — is the critical gap B7 — CAPEX penalization: infrastructure companies systematically disadvantaged relative to software models Chihuahua: A Laboratory in Transition Chihuahua is the second-best positioned city in the ANDE 10-City Diagnostic (2026), scoring 53/100 — behind only Guadalajara (65/100). The city's greatest differentiating strength is its mentorship infrastructure: 67 formalized mentors, the highest score in the entire diagnostic. Its weakest domains are Financing (43/100) and Culture (43/100) — the same bottlenecks identified across all 10 cities. The ANDE data is unambiguous: in none of the 10 Mexican cities analyzed has the reinvestment cycle yet occurred, where successful founders return as investors for the next generation. That is the next frontier. And Startup Chihuahua — with its MIT REAP-based ecosystem coordination model, 90 organizations in the Red Emprende network, and $60 million USD mobilized for startups — is positioned to help catalyze it. What Needs to Happen The report's recommendations are organized by actor type, calibrated to Mexico's ecosystem maturity level: For impact investors: Diversify instruments to include overlooked sectors and non-traditional geographies. Create funds with explicit regional mandates. For corporations: Implement Venture Client models for impact startups. Create formal introduction channels that don't depend on prior social capital. Convert GRI reporting requirements into explicit market signals for startups. For ESOs and intermediaries: Redesign acceleration programs around financial preparation — due diligence simulations, cash flow modeling, investment structure education — not just pitch coaching. Institutionalize the competipartners model. For government and DFIs: Create the legal framework for social enterprise in Mexico. Design blended finance instruments with first-loss capital for overlooked sectors. Implement tax incentives for impact investment. "The capital Mexico needs to mobilize already exists. The voices that can direct it toward where it is most needed also exist — we heard them. What is missing is the connection infrastructure between both. This report is part of that infrastructure."— Rising Leaders of Mexico · Startup Chihuahua · FLII Mérida, February 2026 Download the full report below (click on the image). Click on the imagen for download