With more than 20 years of history, RiskAmerica is one of the most successful academic entrepreneurial cases in the Chilean financial market. Its acquisition from DCV represents a new expansion cycle.

Established in 2000 in the School of Engineering of Universidad Católica, RiskAmerica was built on a rigorous base of statistical, financial, and mathematical models. Its inception was marked by the design of its service and valuation models in a rudimentary stage, characterized by technology limitations. However, it presented an innovative proposal for the Chilean market.

The history of RiskAmerica is also a history of academic perseverance, which evolved into real impact. It was created thanks to the work of Gonzalo Cortázar, Nicolás Majluf, and Eduardo Schwartz in a FONDEF project, and it is one of the few cases where university research became a company of sustained success. After years of technical development and improvement, the company obtained its first important contract in 2006 with the Mutual Funds Association, which required an objective and external financial instruments valuation service.

As its founder, Gonzalo Cortázar, expresses, the greatest initial challenge was adapting academic models to a low liquidity market such as the Chilean one and gaining the trust of the industry. “To overcome this lack of trust, it was essential to offer an objective valuation and reduce information asymmetry.” Currently, regarding the future of his university project, he says he expects that the support of DCV helps foster a stronger connection between universities and the market to promote innovations.

Throughout its history, RiskAmerica has been recognized not only for its methodological rigor, but also for the outstanding quality of its team, comprised of highly skilled students and professionals trained in the School of Engineering of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. For its founders, human capital is their main asset, and based on their ability for innovation, reflected in developments such as the funds administration (backoffice) platform “Backbone”.

RiskAmerica’s second act came with technological modernization, the development of a robust website, APIs, and digital tools that made its service the market standard. This evolution enabled its sophisticated valuation models—key for illiquid assets such as fixed income—to be used efficiently by different profiles of users within the financial system.

Today, in this new phase alongside Depósito Central de Valores (DCV), RiskAmerica is planning for growth and strengthening both the security and institutional framework of its processes. This relationship seeks to consolidate the best of both worlds: the agility and creativity of a startup, backed by the support and solidity of a recognized entity in the Chilean financial system.

In this regard, according to Ignacio Badilla, general manager of RiskAmerica, “RiskAmerica’s great strength lies in the combination of a rigorous methodology with a versatile, user-focused technological ecosystem. Our entrepreneurial spirit is part of our DNA, and we want to keep that essence alive as we take this big leap forward alongside DCV.”

Guillermo Tagle, Chairman of the DCV board of directors, stated that “RiskAmerica has been a reliable source of information for the market for years. Founded by professors from Universidad Católica with the initial goal of contributing to research, it eventually became a key company for valuing financial assets in Chile. Its academic origins gave it a stamp of rigor and neutrality that has been essential to its legitimacy.

The acquisition of RiskAmerica opens up new possibilities for the creation and expansion of services for the DCV, as well as technological development and strengthening of the national financial ecosystem.

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