“My dream is to have my own place, create jobs, have an open kitchen where our customers can see the preparation of our products and continue to be delighted with our pasta,” says Katherine Valenzuela, an entrepreneur from Chillán, owner of Pappardella Pasta, an Italian food business that combines local products from the area.
In search of support to achieve her goals, she searched for entrepreneur funding on social media and learned about Impulso Inicial, a program by the Luksic Foundation that supports men and women across Chile who need a boost to achieve their goals. In 2022, she applied and received a dough mixer for her business. “It allowed me to reduce the time and increase production by 70%. Without this support, it would take us much longer to get to where we are today,” explains the young woman from the Ñuble Region.
Like Katherine, since 2018, another 14,000 entrepreneurs have been supported by the Luksic Foundation program. “When I won the machinery, I was very happy. It was tremendous joy because I knew I was on the right path,” says Valenzuela.
The objective of Impulso Inicial is to provide concrete and direct support to men and women who need to boost their businesses and increase their sales. The program provides, on one hand, machinery and/or semi-industrial tools for entrepreneurs to professionalize their production processes and, starting this year, will also provide training for efficient use of the machinery provided, as well as in management and administration.
“Through the program, this year we aim to support 2,000 micro-entrepreneurs to increase their sales. Our goal is for them to modernize their businesses with the machinery and learn how to make the most of them through training. We want entrepreneurs to introduce business practices that improve the efficiency, quality, and profitability of their production,” explains Cristián Schalper, director of the Entrepreneurship area of the Luksic Foundation.
Application Requirements
Through Initial Boost, support is sought for owners of traditional businesses that have regular and consistent operations. Although it is not required to have started activities with the Internal Revenue Service (SII), the business must have been operating for at least six months, and the applicant must have an updated Household Social Registry (RSH) card.
For this first call, it is required that the business be in the gastronomic sector and require machinery or tools to professionalize its production processes. Among the contributions are, for example, semi-industrial ovens, dough mixers, semi-industrial mixers, display coolers, dough rollers, freezers, dough kneaders, stainless steel countertops, among others. The training will focus on the use of machinery and on business management and administration.
The call will be open from Monday, March 4th to Monday, March 18th, and interested parties can review the guidelines and apply through an online web form available at impulsoinicial.cl.
