From the very start of the Buildathon Season, co-organizing a founders track was central: supporting the highest-potential profiles along their entrepreneurial journey is key to consolidating their teams. Alongside Lisk we selected the best founding teams from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe, co-created the weekly activities, and accompanied the startups towards a global-scale event like Devconnect, with the central goal of accelerating their development.
There were 16 startups selected from dozens of applications, with a deliberately exhaustive selection: a small program can provide the personalized guidance that promising teams need. The track added up to 11 activities and more than 15 hours of content, with the five Founders Wednesdays as its backbone: panels and close-up talks with established founders, investors and representatives of the leading funds of Argentina and the region.
Participants especially highlighted Hernán Kazah (Kaszek Ventures), Nader Dabit (EigenLayer) and Edwin, CMO of Belo. On the Lisk side, Santiago Trujillo, head of DevRel, sustained the day-to-day guidance with mentoring sessions, and Gideon Greaves, head of Investments, delivered one of the season's six masterclasses.
The topics followed the teams' needs: the search for go-to-market alongside university professors who are experts in the field, team building and people management in a startup, and advice from founders and investors for funding processes. The track also leaned on ecosystem teams like the Crecimiento Startup Club and Lucero Ventures.
As a result, several of the track's startups made it to the Startup World Cup: they pitched at the Qualifiers, Zerem Finance and Piggy Wallet, born at an Aleph Hackathon, reached the second round of the Semifinals, and DobProtocol pitched at the Grand Finale, on Devconnect's main stage, among the 12 finalists.
The track also had an in-person continuation: the Lisk Emerging Markets Founders Residency, four weeks of work within Edge City Patagonia with a select group of founders from Africa and Latin America, including teams that stood out during the Buildathon. Structured around daily standups and dedicated build time, the program focused on go-to-market, product experience and capital, and closed on November 12 with a Community Demo Day.
The case that sums up the journey is Simón Espínola's, who entered the ecosystem through Rayuela, the startup track of March 2025. Driven by that experience, he joined the Buildathon's Founders Track, and after completing the program DobProtocol entered the Startup World Cup, advanced round after round, and ended up among the 12 finalists on Devconnect's main stage.
The program it was part of has its own note: Buildathon Season.