About Us

EndemicoLAB is a financial innovation lab specialized in strategic fundraising, blended finance, and capital structuring for sustainable development. We provide personalized support to organizations, universities, foundations, and companies in designing advanced resource mobilization strategies, investment architectures, and institutional strengthening processes, integrating rigorous financial analysis, data-driven models, and artificial intelligence tools applied to prospect and capital management. We believe in capital — when properly designed, structured, and governed — as a catalyst for social, environmental, and economic transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Our Mission

At EndemicoLAB, we innovate in the way financing is designed, structured, and mobilized for development and strategic growth. We transform ideas into robust, bankable, and scalable investment architectures and vehicles. Our purpose is to turn financing into a lever for structural transformation across Latin America and the Caribbean, combining technical rigor, strategic vision, and next-generation financial solutions.

Our Vision

To become the leading firm in Latin America and the Caribbean in financial innovation and strategic capital structuring, recognized for designing sophisticated, reliable, and transformative financing solutions that redefine how organizations and companies access and mobilize resources.

Carlos is a senior expert in development finance, blended finance, fundraising, and venture capital, with more than 28 years of experience structuring financial instruments, mobilizing philanthropic and private capital, and designing investment vehicles across Latin America and the Caribbean. Throughout his career, he has led high-level institutional strategies, capitalization roadmaps, and negotiations with development banks, multilateral organizations, and global foundations. His expertise spans fund design, technical assistance facilities, investment readiness, governance strengthening, and the structuring of bankable projects, integrating data-driven approaches and artificial intelligence tools applied to fundraising and prospect management.

He has held executive and strategic advisory roles at leading institutions such as the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), CATIE, ICCO Cooperation, and EARTH University, delivering tangible results in multimillion-dollar resource mobilization, institutional financial sustainability, and public-private partnerships. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Tropics Foundation (USA), is Founder and CEO of Brumas Venture Capital—an AgriFoodTech-focused venture capital fund for Central America and the Dominican Republic—and leads EndemicoLAB Capital, advising organizations, universities, and impact ventures on innovative financial models and advanced capital strategies. He is Costa Rican-Panamanian, a native Spanish speaker, fluent in English (C1), and operates effectively in board-level, C-suite, and field environments.

Carlos Araya Q.

Founder & Managing Partner

Audy Vargas J.

Senior Partner

Finance professional with more than 20 years of experience leading financial management, administration, and corporate control across organizations in diverse economic sectors. His career has focused on ensuring the achievement of the four fundamental financial objectives: profitability, liquidity, solvency, and enterprise value maximization. He brings extensive expertise in corporate financial leadership, strategic planning, budgetary control, financial statement analysis and interpretation, investment project evaluation, business valuation, and the design of financial and investment policies to support strategic decision-making.

Throughout his career, he has served as an independent financial consultant, institutional finance manager, investment advisor, and university lecturer in financial management, combining strong technical foundations with executive leadership and communication skills. He has led internal and external audit processes, optimized financing structures, managed liabilities and financial risk, and developed financial models and growth projections for organizations at various stages of maturity. He holds an MBA with a concentration in Finance and Marketing, graduated with honors, is the author of specialized publications in applied finance, and is recognized for strengthening financial discipline as a cornerstone of organizational growth and sustainability.