Impact Investing & Entrepreneurship in Latin America
Backing women-led innovation that matters
Across Latin America, women are advancing health innovation that makes diagnostics, monitoring, and care more accessible. This regional gathering is a space to learn, connect, and collaborate with founders building more equitable healthcare solutions across the region.
Co-hosted by Impact Hub, Bayer Foundation, and The Bloom, Impact Investing & Entrepreneurship is a global spotlight series spanning three regions — Asia, Latin America, and Africa & the Middle East — featuring awardees from the Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award 2026.
Rather than a traditional pitch session, each event is designed as a generous, learning- and insights-focused conversation where founders, investors, ecosystem actors, and the wider community come together to explore what entrepreneurship and impact investing look like on the ground: the opportunities emerging, the barriers founders are navigating, and the capital, partnerships and connections that could help promising ventures grow.
The Latin America Edition features five awardees from the Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award 2026, each driving transformative ventures across the region:
Laura Willers de Souza – Masima. Democratising precision neuroimaging to deliver affordable diagnostics that support faster, more objective clinical decisions.
Maria Artunduaga – Samay. Making early respiratory diagnosis accessible through a wearable chest patch that captures lung function data outside the hospital.
Sabine Zink Bolonhini – SAS Group. Building scalable phygital healthcare access models for vulnerable communities and remote workforces across Brazil.
Valentina Agudelo Vargas – Salva Health. Expanding access to early breast cancer risk identification through portable, AI-powered screening for underserved communities.
Ximena Ruget Martínez – Glya. Helping healthcare providers deliver continuous, data-driven chronic care through AI, IoT, and patient engagement tools.
The session will also feature Romi Navarrete, Head of Community at Seedstars. Working at the intersection of venture capital, impact investing, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets, Romi brings more than 10 years of experience across development finance institutions, governments, and entrepreneurship support organizations. He will help set the scene for Latin America by sharing perspectives on regional investment ecosystems, access to finance, founder readiness, and the kinds of connections between founders, investors, and ecosystem partners that can support ventures advancing the Sustainable Development Goals and serving underserved communities.
Who this is for
This event is for investors, funders, ecosystem builders, accelerators, foundations, journalists, academics, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in supporting women-led innovation across Latin America. It is especially relevant for people curious about regional approaches to health equity, accessible diagnostics, early detection, patient-centred care, and inclusive healthcare innovation.
What will happen
You’ll hear brief founder spotlights from the five Latin America awardees from the Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award 2026, alongside a regional perspective from Romi Navarrete, who will share reflections on investment ecosystems, founder readiness, access to finance, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. The session will focus on the founders’ journeys, the patterns and opportunities they are seeing in the region, the challenges they are navigating, and the kinds of collaboration that could help their work grow — moving beyond pitching into shared learning and relationship-building, not investment decision-making.
Why join
🌎 Get a front-row seat to women leaders advancing health access, diagnostics, early detection, patient-centred care, and inclusive healthcare innovation across Latin America.
🤝 Connect with founders, investors, and changemakers across the region and beyond.
🚀 Explore opportunities to collaborate with, support, and amplify ventures already creating measurable change in their communities.
About the Award
The Bayer Foundation Women Entrepreneurs Award is a global accelerator program in partnership with Impact Hub that supports women-led social enterprises addressing key challenges in health and food security. The program selects 15 women entrepreneurs from Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, and provides a 6-month investor readiness accelerator, including tailored business advisory support, expert-led learning sessions, global visibility opportunities, and a sponsored trip to the in-person Award Ceremony. Awardees also receive a €25,000 cash prize to help scale their impact and strengthen solutions that improve the lives of underserved communities.
About The Bloom
The Bloom is a global community that connects and empowers 80,000+ social impact professionals through impact matchmaking, job boards and funding opportunities, networking and mentorship events, upskilling sprints, in-person gatherings, and a free weekly newsletter featuring social impact job openings, changemaker interviews, and career resources.