I'm writing this from Buenos Aires. Miami a few weeks ago. Same logic both times: go and look at the ecosystems that are accelerating.
Not the most advanced ecosystems in the world. Not Silicon Valley, not London, not Paris in 2018. The ecosystems that are changing gear — that's the interesting category. The ones where momentum is being created in real time, where the people who arrive first will compound the most over the next decade.
Buenos Aires, right now, is one of those.
What hits you when you land
A country in permanent crisis for decades — and yet entrepreneurs of unusual resilience.
That's the first thing that struck me, sitting across the table from founder after founder, week after week of meetings. Argentine entrepreneurs know crises in their bones. They've lived through hyperinflation, devaluation, capital controls, dollarisation debates, default. They've built businesses through all of it.
That kind of operating context produces a particular type of founder. They don't pitch growth charts as if they're inevitable. They don't assume capital will be there when they need it. They optimise for survival as much as for expansion. And they have, on average, an instinct for unit economics that I rarely see in founders trained in stable, abundant-capital environments.
Crises forge founders that stability cannot produce.
That's not a slogan. It's a pattern I've observed in conversation after conversation here. The Argentine founder, even when they're polished and well-resourced, carries a built-in scepticism that shows up in how they design the business. It's a real edge.
What's actually changing right now
President Milei is opening the country to foreign capital. Whether you agree with his politics or not — and reasonable people disagree — the practical effect is that the contours of a new ecosystem are being drawn at speed.
AI is on the official priority list. Capital controls are easing. The exchange rate is moving toward a single, liquid market. Public assets are being privatised. Whatever your view of the social cost of these reforms, the consequence for foreign investors and operators is straightforward: the friction to deploy and operate in Argentina is dropping in a way it hasn't in twenty years.
What I keep saying to people who ask: he does what he says he'll do. That's a feature, not a bug, when you're trying to plan a multi-year operating presence. You may agree or disagree with the direction — you can at least project the direction.
The result is brutal change for some, and a brutal awakening of an inertia that had set in for forty years. The country is, right now, in motion with real ambition. That window of motion is exactly when smart capital starts to position.
The structural assets are real
Three things make Argentina a serious candidate for "the smartest entry point into LatAm" — not the only candidate, but a serious one.
Engineers of unusual quality
The technical talent here is, on average, exceptional. Strong CS programmes, a long tradition of mathematical rigour, and a workforce that is accustomed to working remotely with US and European teams at competitive rates. If your company needs to scale engineering without scaling Bay Area cost structures, this is where you should be looking.
Forty-six million people, plus the LatAm gateway
Argentina is itself a mid-sized market — 46 million people, with consumption habits that lean European and an internet-native middle class. But more importantly, it's a natural launchpad into the rest of Latin America. Spanish-language operations, cultural proximity to the region, time zones friendly to both Europe and the US East Coast.
A track record of scale
Mercado Libre was founded here in 1999, in the depth of an economic collapse. Today it's worth more than $100bn. Globant, Auth0, OLX, Despegar — Argentina has produced category leaders before, and is structurally capable of producing them again.
That last point matters more than people realise. Ecosystems don't produce winners by accident. They produce winners when the same group of operators and investors compound their experience across cycles. Buenos Aires has that compound interest.
What I'm telling investors I work with
Three observations from the past two weeks.
Position now, deploy in stages.
The smart capital I've met here isn't writing big cheques on day one. It's establishing presence — board observer seats, small angel positions, advisory engagements, scout networks. The point is to be in the room when the deals that matter happen, which is in the next 18-24 months. Showing up in 2027 will be too late to access the best vintages of this cycle.
Co-invest with locals.
Argentine founders don't need foreign capital with foreign opinions about how to run an Argentine business. They need foreign capital that understands the local nuances and works with local lead investors. The pattern that works: a Buenos Aires-based fund leads, a European or US fund co-invests with a clear value-add (talent, GTM in the EU, cross-border M&A access). Don't try to be the only foreigner in the deal.
Use Argentina as the LatAm wedge, not as the destination.
The most interesting investment thesis isn't "buy Argentine companies." It's: find founders building from Argentina toward LatAm, then toward the US. The geography is the launchpad, not the limit. Mercado Libre's playbook was exactly that. The next set of LatAm category leaders will, I think, come out of the same template.
The bigger picture for European capital
Getting some air in your lungs lets you see fields of opportunity — and measure better what we already have at home.
I'm not abandoning Europe. The opposite. Spending time outside it makes the European thesis sharper, not weaker. France and Greece remain at the centre of what we do at Honey Lab. But I no longer think it's possible to operate as a serial investor or studio with a France-only frame.
The serious work, going forward, is multiplying the bridges: Europe (France, Greece) ↔ US (Miami) ↔ Argentina (Buenos Aires). Capital that flows. Talent that circulates. Founders who treat the three geographies as a single operating canvas.
That's the geography of conviction for the next five years. I'll be writing more about each leg of it. More to come.