It’s a funding or co-funding line designed by CORFO to support a specific type of project — from an early-stage idea to the commercial expansion of an established company. Each instrument has its own objective, target profile and evaluation criteria.

Crea y Valida is designed for projects that still need to prove their product or service works, technically and commercially — taking it from prototype to validation. Consolida y Expande starts from an already-validated innovation and funds its commercial scale-up, domestically or abroad.

Yes. Several instruments, like Crea y Valida, are specifically designed for early-stage founders, even without recorded sales. The core requirement isn’t revenue — it’s the technical soundness of the project and its fit with the instrument’s criteria.

TRL (Technology Readiness Level) is an international 9-level scale measuring how mature a technology is, from a conceptual idea to proven commercial operation. CORFO uses it because different instruments fund different points along that scale.

Yes. It’s possible to apply to more than one instrument if the projects are distinct or complementary, but each application is submitted independently and must meet the specific requirements of that call. What matters is that each project’s value proposition is clearly differentiated and doesn’t overlap with the other.

Yes. Some instruments are specifically aimed at growing or consolidated companies looking to innovate, scale, or solve a technological challenge — not every CORFO instrument targets early-stage ventures only.

It’s a collaborative model where two or more companies, or a company together with a university or technology center, jointly develop an R&D project that none of the parties could tackle alone at the same scale or speed.

Generally, no. Most instruments work on a co-financing basis: CORFO covers a percentage, and the company covers the rest, whether in cash, valued working hours, or both. The exact percentage varies by instrument and by the specific call.

It depends on the instrument. A Crea y Valida project is typically formulated in 3 to 4 weeks. More complex instruments, like Consolida y Expande or Innova Alta Tecnología, can take 6 to 10 weeks. The real timeline always depends on each call’s official opening and closing dates.

Not being awarded doesn’t mean the project isn’t viable. It’s often due to fixable gaps in the formulation, a mismatch with the instrument chosen, or how competitive that particular call was. A diagnostic session helps identify the real reason and map a second path forward.

Start-Up Chile is CORFO’s acceleration program for very early-stage ventures. Unlike instruments such as Crea y Valida, it isn’t just co-financing for a specific project: it includes non-reimbursable seed capital, a mentor network and an acceleration community, with its own process and calendar, separate from the Innovation Division’s regular calls.

Co-financing, like Crea y Valida, delivers direct funds for a specific project. Guarantees and coverage, like FOGAIN or Crédito Verde, don’t hand over money directly: they back a bank loan, making it easier for a company to access bank financing on better terms or when it lacks sufficient collateral of its own.