Startup Failures in Argentina

An Argentine finlit startup killed by the very inflation it taught people to fight.

Buenos Aires veterinary telemedicine raised $350K — Argentine inflation 140%+ reduced discretionary pet spending; owners postponed even phone vet consultations; insufficient consultation volume to sustain

Argentina's card issuing infrastructure startup strangled by the BCRA's fintech restrictions

Kaszek's peer-learning bet expanded across 8 countries and sold for pennies.

Argentine agtech marketplace raised $23M to be the Mercado Libre of agricultural inputs in Latin America—then shut down commercial operations in 2024 after failing to achieve marketplace liquidity in a sector dominated by local dealer relationships.

The Argentine crypto wallet that reached 2M users, raised 16M dollars, and shut operations in 2023 after regulatory pressure made the business model untenable.

Argentina's BNPL startup raised $26M to lend in a country with 100%+ inflation — and discovered the model doesn't survive it

Córdoba consumer digital lending raised $600K — Argentine inflation 140%+ eroded peso margins simultaneously with BCRA rate cap Communication A 7750 eliminating fintech lending economics

Argentine satellite company SPAC'd at $850M, then watched its stock crater 96% as revenue never met projections.

Argentina's home services marketplace ran out of capital expanding across four LatAm countries before any single one was profitable

Buenos Aires AI fund management raised $400K — Milei December 2023 deregulation changed FCI tax treatment, investors moved to USD/stocks/crypto, FCI market contracted abruptly, closed before 12 months

Argentina's neobank killed by the economy it was trying to fix.

The Argentine operations of Mexico's leading crypto exchange were forced to exit in 2023 as Argentina's central bank imposed currency control restrictions that made crypto exchange services unworkable within the regulatory framework.

Argentina's challenger bank unicorn that hit $2.5B — and shed 15% of staff when regulators blocked its banking licence

Argentine satellite company. SPAC peak. 90% value destruction.

Latin America's Shopify. Raised $500M. Laid off 25% in 2022.

Argentina's cross-border digital lender collapsed when regulators in three countries found the books didn't add up.

Argentina's dollar-substitute crypto exchange collapsed as FTX and LUNA wiped out its user base's trust

Latin America's first P2P lending platform pioneered in Argentina, Peru, and Mexico — then collapsed under FX restrictions, regulatory tightening, and Argentina's perennial economic crisis.

Argentina's inflation made every construction dollar promise into a peso nightmare for Briq investors.

White-label payment infrastructure. Funding dried up in the 2022 crunch.

Payment reconciliation SaaS. Co-founder conflict ended it.

Argentina's largest fintech. Hyperinflation ate the margins.

Argentine prop-tech backed by Khosla Ventures that bet on a real-estate market in freefall.

Naspers's classifieds giant quietly exited Argentina after 15 years as Facebook Marketplace and MercadoLibre ate its core market

Coding bootcamp in Argentina. Platzi and Henry arrived.

Latin America's freelance marketplace. Upwork went global. Workana restructured.

Argentina's gamification adtech startup failed to convert Trivia Crack's viral fame into a durable brand product

Neobank for Argentina. Hyperinflation and FX controls broke the model.

Argentine treasury fintech destroyed by 90% inflation and currency controls it had no hedge against.

Argentina's BCRA regulations and a parent company pivot ended Simple before it could prove its model.

Decentralized democracy: a protocol nobody voted to fund.

Argentina's leading dev agency. Accenture acquired it. Culture evaporated.

Argentine chatbot SaaS. HubSpot and Intercom arrived in LatAm.

Argentina's equity crowdfunding platform quietly shut down as economic chaos and capital controls made crowd investing impossible

Argentina's last-mile pickup network. MercadoEnvíos won.

Argentine consumer neobank targeting millennials — wound down in 2021 when the team pivoted to build Pomelo, a B2B fintech infrastructure company, acknowledging that the consumer product had not found viable product-market fit in Argentina's volatile economy.

Argentina's real estate classifieds platform swallowed by a Uruguayan competitor after never cracking profitability

The daily-deals giant's Argentine unit was among the last LatAm markets abandoned as the category died globally

Buenos Aires events ticketing marketplace launched January 2020 — COVID lockdowns March 2020 closed all events, 100% ticket refunds burned $180K in one month from $400K reserves, closed 2021

Latin America's largest OTA. COVID grounded the whole business.

Latin America's largest OTA shrank 80% overnight when COVID grounded every flight on the continent

Argentine online travel agency that COVID grounded permanently.

Warburg Pincus-backed LatAm online education platform shut down after six years and $12M without cracking B2B-to-consumer EdTech economics

Argentina's first peer-to-peer carsharing startup — shut down in 2019 as ridesharing apps flooding the Buenos Aires market made private car ownership less necessary and carsharing a harder sell.

Argentina's Amazon-challenger backed by Bertelsmann lost an unwinnable war against Mercado Libre

Argentina healthtech that took 18 months to get ANMAT registration while the peso devalued 50% and PAMI required a track record it couldn't provide

Argentina's travel platform destroyed by two crises before it could survive one

Argentine specialty e-commerce marketplace destroyed by peso crisis and Mercado Libre dominance

Argentina's ESG platform that every peso devaluation made more unaffordable

Argentina fintech third attempt — Milei's December 2023 shock (54% devaluation, 25% monthly inflation) eliminated what market Mercado Pago, Ualá, and Naranja X hadn't already covered

Argentina's payroll SaaS that Argentina's ever-changing labor code turned into a maintenance contract with no room for growth

Argentina's adtech platform destroyed by the same devaluations that destroyed its clients' ad budgets

Argentina regtech during a period when BCRA changed regulations 40+ times/year and Milei's deregulation agenda eliminated entire compliance categories

Argentina's consumer fintech squeezed between Mercado Pago and the peso that made everything unaffordable

Argentina's daily deals clone that couldn't outlast Groupon's retreat

Argentina's crypto exchange that the BCRA prohibited just as it reached profitability

The neuromorphic chip startup that Argentina's capital controls wouldn't let fly

Despegar became Latin America largest online travel agency with 100 million users and a Nasdaq IPO — then COVID wiped out travel demand in 2020 and the stock fell 85 percent, leaving the company a zombie operating at a fraction of its former scale.

Argentinian online brokerage that operated through three peso crises and eventually sold to Grupo Financiero Galicia.

Argentina's indie game studio that the economy kept looting

Argentine fleet management SaaS destroyed by peso devaluation and global GPS incumbents

Argentina's e-government startup destroyed by the same political cycle that destroys everything else

Argentina's second legaltech that learned from the first but not from Argentina's economy

Argentina medtech: 24-36 month ANMAT registration, 120% peso devaluation making USD components unaffordable, 40%+ import duties on surgical robotics

Argentina's digital mental health platform destroyed by inflation inverting therapist costs against peso reimbursements

Argentina pet tech competing in a premium market while peso devaluation eliminated the middle-class purchasing power that premium pet tech requires

Argentina corporate wellness: BCRA restrictions blocked USD subscriptions, peso devaluation made wellness the first HR benefit cut, and Globant built internal platforms

Argentina first fully digital bank raised $20M, was absorbed by Grupo Supervielle, and its brand disappeared within two years.

Argentina's legal SaaS sold to the professionals who cut software budgets first in a crisis

Argentine neobank destroyed by currency controls and Mercado Pago's dominance

Argentina's plant-based food startup defeated by the culture of asado and the math of inflation

Argentina's satellite startup grounded by the same capital controls that ground every Argentine hardware company

Argentina's project management SaaS that ClickUp free-tiered out of existence

Argentina's industrial IoT startup destroyed by the capital controls that blocked its hardware supply chain

Argentina smart city: municipal budgets cut 70%, Motorola/Siemens covered primary targets, and Milei eliminated the federal agency managing smart city procurement

Argentina insurtech: SSN authorization 30+ months, peso devaluation made multi-year policies impossible, and Milei shock made insurance unaffordable for 40% of middle class

Argentina's enterprise blockchain platform destroyed by devaluations before the technology found its use case

Argentina BNPL in a 120% annual inflation environment where Mercado Pago had 40M users and BCRA restricted BNPL to licensed credit card operators

Argentina esports platform where BCRA restrictions blocked USD prize payments to Argentine players and Stripe/PayPal restricted Argentine accounts

Argentina's leading restaurant booking platform acquired by OpenTable and silently wound down.

Argentine mobility app raised $17M but exchange controls made sustainable operations impossible

Argentine telemedicine pioneer — built in a currency crisis, killed by the next one

Argentina's digital health startup sold in pesos and paid in dollars

Buenos Aires' fashion e-commerce aggregator was killed by MercadoLibre's fashion push and Argentina's macro crisis

Bluesmart built the world first smart suitcase — then the FAA banned battery-embedded luggage and the company had nothing left to sell

Argentina's peer-to-peer insurance startup destroyed by the reserve ratios it couldn't maintain in pesos

Argentine-founded social gaming giant with 50M users crushed by Zynga's lawsuit and the Facebook platform collapse.

Argentina's retail analytics AI hollowed out by talent emigration

Argentina climate tech with RCEA 18-month registration while BCRA blocked USD carbon credit trading and Milei eliminated the climate change ministry

Argentina's proptech challenger in a market where the number of transactions fell 40%

Argentina sports tech for a market where River Plate and Boca use Catapult/StatsPerform in USD and BCRA capital controls made USD subscriptions technically complex

Argentine HR platform destroyed by currency controls and peso devaluation

Argentina's RegTech startup that couldn't build compliance software faster than Argentina changed its regulations

Argentina's second sustainability SaaS destroyed by the same peso crisis as the first

Argentine solar installer killed by subsidy reversal under Macri government

Argentine crypto exchange destroyed by the 2022 crypto winter and BCRA hard forex controls