Where Argentina And Spain Are Scoring Startup Goals

This year, I’ve been watching the World Cup with the play-by-play in Spanish, only because that streaming app was way cheaper. With the final game between Argentina and Spain approaching on Sunday, however, it’s seeming like a real perk. For this matchup, “¡Gooooooooool!” is really the only acceptable way to announce a new score. And if you can make that stretch a good 21 seconds in one breath, all the better. Here at Crunchbase News, meanwhile, we’ve been prepping for the final in a less vocally demanding but much more data-intense manner. Since both contenders are far more famous for soccer than accomplishments in the startup realm, we figured a small step to rectify that was in order. To do this, we put together a snapshot of recent startup funding tallies and trends for both Spain and Argentina. As you’ll see, neither accounts for a particularly large share of global or even regional investment. Both however, have an intriguing pipeline of recently funded companies. Argentina We’ll start with our second World Cup-related profile of Argentina. After it won the final in 2022, we wrote a venture funding-themed story calling the country’s startup scene “small, scrappy and sometimes very successful.” Four years later, that description still holds. Argentinian startups typically pull in a few hundred million dollars in venture funding annually. Investment is, however, lower than for Brazil and Mexico, the two most populous Latin American nations, which commonly lead in funding. Argentina’s startup ecosystem has also delivered some big hits over the years. The most famous Argentine-founded internet company — online marketplace MercadoLibre — commands a market cap around $94 billion on Nasdaq. (It’s currently headquartered in Uruguay but traces its roots to a Buenos Aires garage.) More recently, Buenos Aires-based fintech Ualá has been making waves in the regional startup scene. It’s raised $1.1 billion in known funding to date, including a $195 million March financing. Others that have raised good-sized rounds this year are also in the fintech space, including: - Pomelo, a payments infrastructure startup, closed on a $55 million Series C round co-led by Kaszek and Insight Partners. - Tapi, a provider of payments and collections infrastructure, secured $27 million in Series B funding in February. So far, 2026 is shaping up as a strong year for funding, with investment already ahead of last year’s total. Funding tends to fluctuate quite a bit from year to year as the presence or absence of a single large round or two can heavily skew the totals. Spain Oddsmakers say Spain is the favorite going into the final. However, it’s well known that often the underdog also prevails. That was the lesson from Spain’s 2:0 defeat of favorite France this week. But while it may have prevailed over France in soccer, Spain continues to lag in venture funding. So far in 2026, Spanish startups have raised less than $2 billion in funding across stages, which is roughly one-third France’s total for the same period. While not large, Spain’s funded startup pipeline is not lacking in pizazz. Take this year’s largest funding recipient — PLD Space — which closed a $206 million Series C in March. Its anything-but-modest mission is to be a “global space transportation service provider to support cargo and human spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars.” Other standouts among the bigger rounds this year include: - Factorial, an AI-enabled HR and payroll platform, scooped up $150 million in Series D funding at a $2.5 billion valuation in June. To date, the Barcelona-based company has raised over $350 million in equity funding. - EOS-X Space, a Madrid startup focused on infrastructure for near space, space tourism and aerospace data, closed on $140 million in Series D funding in May. - Xoople, a Madrid-based developer of AI tools for analyzing geospatial data, picked up $130 million in Series B funding in April. Overall funding to Spanish startups is also trending higher, with 2026 on track for a year-over-year gain. For the past few years, annual Spanish startup funding has ranged between $1.8 billion and $2.8 billion, as charted below. Rooting for the underdog While both Spain and Argentina have a long track record of soccer success, a case could be made that both are underdogs in the startup space. It’s a familiar situation for secondary hubs in the current AI-driven investment cycle. Capital has been concentrating even more heavily in Silicon Valley and other leading venture hubs. Given all the follow-on effects a successful startup can have on its region, it’d be encouraging to see investors spreading their bets more broadly across a wider geography. Spain and Argentina have already proven they have what it takes to prevail in one very competitive arena. Given the capital and opportunity, there’s no reason to doubt their abilities in the venture-backed startup game either. Related Crunchbase queries: Stay up to date with recent funding rounds, acquisitions, and more with the Crunchbase Daily. 67.1K Followers