Where Argentina And Spain Are Scoring Startup Goals

As Spain and Argentina prepare for Sunday's World Cup final, Crunchbase News is looking at how these soccer superpowers are faring in the startup world—and the picture is quite different. Argentina's startup ecosystem has delivered some notable successes. The Buenos Aires fintech Ualá has raised one point one billion dollars to date, while the payments startups Pomelo and Tapi have scored significant funding rounds this year. So far, twenty twenty-six is shaping up as a strong year for Argentina, with funding already ahead of last year's total. Spain's startup scene is comparatively smaller, raising less than two billion dollars this year—about one-third of France's—but some standouts are making waves. PLD Space, focused on space transportation, closed on a two hundred six million dollar Series C in March, while the AI-enabled HR platform Factorial raised one hundred fifty million dollars in June. Both countries represent what Crunchbase sees as startup underdogs in the current investment cycle, where capital concentrates even more heavily in Silicon Valley. Yet given their proven track record in soccer, there's no reason they can't prevail in the venture game as well.

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