From Startups to Mines: How the Commerce Exchange Seeks to Mobilize Investments
Developing a productive project depends not only on having a good idea or access to natural resources. It also requires access to capital, knowledge about markets and the capacity to manage risks. In Mendoza, the Commerce Exchange seeks to recover its protagonism in this articulation, with a strategy that ranges from financing ventures to connecting mining projects with international markets.
"We work to be the place where you can consult and search to find," defines Santiago PĂ©rez Araujo, director of the entity, in an exclusive conversation with Mining Communications during the development of Conecta Inversor, at Endevor Cuyo 2026.
The intention is that companies and entrepreneurs can find partners, explore financing alternatives and access training to develop their businesses.
Santiago PĂ©rez Araujo, director of the Commerce Exchange, opening the Conecta Inversor space at La Nave Cultural.
The vision stems from an idea: the Exchange should not be solely a space linked to financial operations, but also a venue where actors capable of turning a productive opportunity into a viable project can meet.
"Capital and knowledge," the new role of the Mendoza Commerce Exchange.
From Capital to Entrepreneurs: A Connection That Requires Preparation
This strategy had a concrete expression in Conecta Inversor, an initiative developed jointly with Endeavor that brought together 25 preselected startups and 9 investment funds. The dynamic allowed entrepreneurs to present their projects to potential investors in meetings of approximately 15 minutes.
Endeavor took charge of convening the funds and identifying possible matches between their investment profiles and the characteristics of the ventures. The Exchange provided the space to facilitate these meetings.
For PĂ©rez Araujo, however, connection is just a beginning. Access to financing demands preparation and a clear understanding of what each investor seeks.
The Commerce Exchange facilitated a connection space between startups and investors.
"You have to arrive prepared, very prepared for that conversation to sell in the best way what you need: the money to finance," he states.
The meeting can open an opportunity, but does not guarantee that an investment will materialize. Funds must evaluate each proposal, analyze its risks and determine whether it fits their strategy.
"One of the most desirable qualities is persistence," he affirms. Even when the answer is negative, he explains, the entrepreneur can obtain information about what they lack to move forward: partners, more solid fundamentals or a proposal that better matches the investor's profile.
The decision also usually does not depend on a single person. "The money is not mine," PĂ©rez Araujo sums up when explaining the responsibility of those managing third-party resources. Funds must answer to their investors and justify the decisions they make.
The experience of Conecta Inversor thus reflects one of the functions the Exchange seeks to strengthen: generating the initial contact and helping projects navigate the path toward eventual investment.
The Exchange Wants to Recover Its Role as a Meeting Place
The strategy also involves recovering a historical function of the institution. PĂ©rez Araujo recalls that, until 2012, the Exchange had its own securities market and its building housed stock brokers, risk rating agencies, lawyers specialized in securities offerings and professionals from various fields.
Proximity among specialists facilitated information exchange and the generation of opportunities. With changes that modified that scheme, the Exchange no longer had its own market. Now it seeks to recover the spirit of articulation and adapt it to the needs of Mendoza's economy.
"Today we want to work to create the place. The Exchange this year has been a place of meeting, alternatives and discussions," he notes.
The definition synthesizes the role the institution aims to assume: bringing together those with capital and those who need to finance their projects, but also connecting companies with specialized knowledge.
"Capital and knowledge," PĂ©rez Araujo sums up when describing this relationship.
Mining: The Path to Toronto and Australia
In the mining sector, the connection acquires an international dimension. Projects require significant investments and must link with specialized financial markets, where there is experience in the evaluation and financing of mining companies.
"The mining capital market is abroad, it won't be in Argentina," affirms PĂ©rez Araujo. Among the main centers he identifies Toronto and Australia, as well as other international markets.
The function he envisions for the Exchange does not consist of replacing those centers, but of helping projects reach them.
"The path to present a project and reach those markets, we do want to be the place where you can traverse it at the beginning," he explains.
The definition places the institution in a stage prior to access to international financing: that of connections, preparation and search for the right interlocutors.
Argentina Metals, the first mining company to trade on the Metals Exchange, marked a milestone and was presented at the Mendoza Commerce Exchange.
For Mendoza, where mining appears as an opportunity for productive development, this path involves incorporating knowledge about investor requirements, available financing alternatives and the risks inherent to an activity whose revenues depend, to a large extent, on global quotations.
"The path to present a project and reach those markets, we do want to be the place where you can traverse it at the beginning."
Copper Price Is Also a Financial Issue
The relationship between mining and capital markets does not end with project financing. It also involves managing metal prices, a matter that affects both producers and companies that use them as inputs.
PĂ©rez Araujo argues that the financial reasoning behind these tools can be applied to different sectors.
"What won't work for another market is that the London Metal Exchange has 500 warehouses in the world, where you can execute your contract," he explains when referring to a particularity of the metals market: the international infrastructure that allows backing operations with physical delivery.
Risk management, however, is a broader necessity. A mining company may seek to protect the value of its production, while a cable factory or construction company may attempt to limit the impact of rising copper on its costs.
"If I sell something that has an international price, I'm not stupid: I have to secure my quotas," PĂ©rez Araujo states when describing the logic of a company exposed to these fluctuations.
Guillaume Légaré, Head – Latin America / South America for TMX Group.
For this purpose, financial instruments exist that allow hedging part of the risk. The decision depends on the needs of each company, its risk management policy and the scenarios it considers possible.
"There are many things you cannot foresee, a war, very particular contextual situations, and the market reflects them. But you can shield yourself in some way, or shield a part," he maintains.
Hedging does not eliminate all risks nor guarantee a favorable result. Rather, it allows managing part of the uncertainty and making decisions with a defined financial strategy.
Markets Are Not Simply Metal Delivery
Futures markets also attract funds and investors who trade contracts without necessarily requiring physical delivery of the product. These operations serve a function in liquidity and price discovery, though they involve risks and can generate gains or losses.
PĂ©rez Araujo emphasizes that the operation of these markets cannot be reduced to gambling. Participants make decisions based on information, expectations and analysis of prices.
The distinction is important for productive companies: financial tools can serve to manage risks, while other participants take positions with different objectives.
In this scenario, incorporating knowledge about international markets ceases to be an exclusive matter for large mining companies. It can also be part of the strategy of industrial companies exposed to commodity quotations.
A Financial Culture Yet to Develop
The challenge for Mendoza is that this knowledge reaches more companies. Risk management through financial instruments requires training, specialized staff and an evaluation of the costs and benefits that each strategy entails.
PĂ©rez Araujo considers that this is training that is not yet sufficiently incorporated in the local sphere.
"It is training we are not accustomed to in these places," he notes.
Conecta Inversor, a training ground for entrepreneurs and a discovery opportunity for investors with ideas seeking to provide solutions and services.
The Exchange seeks to intervene in this process through its role as a meeting space, with initiatives that allow bringing together companies, entrepreneurs, investors and specialists. Conecta Inversor represents one expression of this strategy in the startup world; mining represents another opportunity to project this capacity for articulation toward international markets.
The objective, in both cases, is to facilitate access to knowledge and the connections necessary for projects to advance. Because, as PĂ©rez Araujo affirms, linking capital with production also requires connecting those with an opportunity with those who can help finance it.