Argentina’s Ley del Emprendedor, regulating new company creation, equity crowdfunding and more, was approved on March 29, 2017, by the Argentine Senate. This is big news for Argentina’s tech ecosystem, and exemplary legislation for the region.

• READ the key points in this post by ARCAP, the Argentine Private Equity & Venture Capital Association.
• WATCH Mariano Mayer, National Secretary for Entrepreneurs and SMEs, Ministry of Production, explain the new law here.
• DOWNLOAD Mariano Mayer’s PDF on the Argentine administration’s eight-point plan to facilitate entrepreneurship here.

The aim of Ley del Emprendedor is to promote entrepreneurial activity and develop entrepreneurial capital; promote investment through the creation of a crowdfunding system; and establish Simplified Corporations (SAS, after its Spanish acronym) as a new business entity that will benefit from a more dynamic legal framework and a simplified registration mechanism that allows new company creation in 24 hours.

Ley del Emprendedor is part of a range of efforts the new Macri administration is undertaking to facilitate entrepreneurship and business innovation. At LAVCA’s annual investor meeting in New York in 2016, National Secretary for Entrepreneurs and SMEs Mariano Mayer outlined an eight-point “Productive National Plan” that includes reducing the cost of capital through:

• The creation of six to ten publicly funded early-stage VC funds by 2019, with a public investment of US$12m per fund
• Convertible grants with matching funds for a dozen Argentine incubators and accelerators
• Tax incentives for investing in venture capital
• Regulation of equity crowdfunding

Mayer told LAVCA,

This is not the first and will not be the last measure that we are going to take. We are serious about changing the rules and having a better environment for entrepreneurship to thrive…. Young poverty is a big challenge in Argentina. There are 11 million people living in that situation, and the only solution for that is to create jobs in the private sector. It’s more important than ever to support entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurs backed by venture capital are a very important part of that.