Overview
- Official figures show five in ten entrepreneurs are young, yet eight in ten new businesses shut within their first year, underscoring survival as the core challenge.
- Digital invoice factoring is growing more than 20% a year and lets small firms sell invoices for cash within 24 hours instead of waiting 60 to 90 days to get paid.
- Large companies and business groups are mentoring founders and bringing micro and small suppliers into corporate chains, with Ferreycorp integrating more than 7,000 MYPEs under quality and formalization standards.
- Despite more than US$370 million invested in startups over the past seven years, Peru has not produced a US$1 billion “unicorn” company.
- Experts, including Jorge Conde of the University of Lima, advise teams to validate the customer problem, define how they will earn money, stay flexible, and use digital and AI tools to manage and test ideas.