3 Archetypes For Emerging Market Expansion

Photo by Will Goodman on Unsplash

This piece was first published on my Forbes column

Global innovation has exploded around the world. Yet few markets are as large or as deep as the U.S. Taking Latin America as an example: In 2024 alone, LATAM fintechs raised +$2.6 billion in venture . There are over 30 fintech unicorns across the region.

While global attention focuses on the "what" of these startups, the "how" is equally revealing. How do these companies scale? How do they navigate a fragmented, highly regulated, and deeply local landscape?

Answering this question has been a core aspect of my work over the last decade as a venture capitalist, and my book Out-Innovate (HBR). I am just back from Brazil, and in this piece will use case studies from this region to outline what I see as a global trend outside Silicon Valley: three distinct key archetypes – each with their own advantages, tradeoffs and lessons for founders and VCs alike.

Archetype 1: Single country champion

The first archetype is the single-country champion. These are startups that focus on winning one massive market, often because that market alone is big enough to support a multi-billion-dollar outcome. Think Brazil or Mexico.

This only works for the largest TAMs in the largest markets. And it favors sectors where regulation is complex, consumer behavior is localized, and operating environments demand deep on-the-ground execution. Going deep rather than broad is the answer.

Nubank is perhaps the most iconic example. It launched in Brazil and spent years dominating its home turf, expanding beyond its first product, a credit card, into other product lines like wealth management or bank accounts. Still primarily a Brazilian business (though it recently expanded to Spanish-speaking Latam), it is one of the largest digital banks in the world with a current ~$56 billion market value.

Clip in Mexico followed a similar path—starting with payments and expanding into a full-stack SMB platform. Likewise, Kueski (a portfolio company) began as a lender and grew into a broader consumer finance play, integrating products like BNPL.

In each case, the playbook is the same: win big at home. Prioritize product expansion in your home market over expansion. Only when fully saturated, expand cautiously. These startups compound by layering multiple offerings, turning high-friction markets into powerful moats.

Archetype 2: Regional Player

The second Latam startup archetype is the regional player. These are companies that recognize their home markets are too small on their own, so they go multi-country from the beginning.

Anecdotally, during a recent panel at Kauffman Fellows with Rafael de Haro of Cometa and Antonia Rojas of Attom Capital, we explored how this is most common in Spanish-speaking Latin America, particularly outside Mexico, where linguistic and cultural similarities make regional expansion more feasible – and local market TAM demands it.

In my view, Colombia has become one of the prime examples of regional launching points. Rappi is one of the best-known examples. Founded in Colombia, it quickly spread across Latin America, with operations in 9 countries and over 250 cities just 5 years after its inception, becoming a regional super-app. Contrast that with iFood, which focused solely on Brazil and dominated there. Another example is Ualá, the Argentine neobank that now operates in Mexico and Colombia. And in my historical portfolio, Xepelin exemplifies this model. Starting in Chile, it quickly expanded to Mexico to scale its B2B payments and credit platform. For these companies, success hinges on being able to replicate product-market fit across diverse geographies very early.

As Daniel Vogel, the Co-founder and CEO of Bitso told me: “When we started Bitso in Mexico, we weren’t just building a crypto platform—we were responding to real financial pain points. It quickly became clear that these challenges weren’t unique to Mexico. They were regional. That insight drove our expansion into Argentina, Brazil, and Colombia. Each market is different, but the demand for more inclusive and efficient financial infrastructure is universal across Latin America.”

In my book Out-Innovate (HBR Press), I nicknamed these companies “born global.” Often, it involves starting in a smaller market to test, then moving into a larger anchor market like Mexico to scale. It’s a strategy that balances speed and depth.

Archetype 3: global infrastructure builder

To me, one of the more nascent archetypes is the global-born infrastructure builder. These are Latin American startups that, from day one, are designed to serve the world. Typically, they offer enterprise-grade infrastructure, rather than B2B or consumer services, that are inherently cross-border. Many have emerged out of the smallest markets to become global from day one.

Uruguay is quietly becoming a key launching point. dLocal, born in Uruguay, is one of the best examples. It built a global cross-border payments network serving large international merchants across emerging markets. Today, it offers more than 900 payment methods in over 40 countries. Sergio Fogel, dLocal’s CSO & Co-Founder told me “We launched in Brazil before Uruguay… [Referring to the mindset that led the company to scale rapidly across markets] It forces you to think internationally if you have ambition.”

Even within larger markets, this model is rising. For example, Pismo is a standout here. The Brazilian cloud-native core banking platform was recently acquired by Visa for $1 billion, with customers around the world. As Daniela Binatti, Pismo’s Co-founder told me in a recent interview: “One of the things that we had in mind since the very beginning was building something to scale and to be ready to go global.”

These companies succeed because they operate in enterprise segments where global demand outweighs local complexity. Customers literally pull them across borders. They also benefit from macro tailwinds: talent cost arbitrage, rising engineering capabilities across the region, and increasingly, AI-enabled development that reduces the barriers to global SaaS plays.

What this means

These three archetypes aren’t rigid boxes. There is a lot of grey. Neither do they apply only to fintech (though fintech illustrates them especially well).

For founders, it’s a reminder to pick your battles, and spend your limited resources, wisely. In massive, high-friction markets like Brazil and Mexico, depth wins. In smaller Spanish-speaking countries, breadth may be necessary. And for those with global DNA or enterprise models, the world is increasingly accessible from Latin America.

For investors, it’s a signal to look beyond the product and ask: what is this company’s path to scale? Is it a Nubank or a Pismo? A Rappi or a Clip?

At Fluent Ventures, the venture capital firm I work with, we believe localization and regional execution eats everything else. And as AI continues to reshape product development and talent becomes increasingly distributed, I expect we’ll see even more Latin American startups start global from day one.

That’s a good thing. It’s a sign of maturity. A sign that Latin America is no longer just catching up, but leading in its own way.