PROCOMER Impulso Tecnologico Costa Rica: Up to CRC 7,000,000 Seed Capital for TIC Exporters

PROCOMER Impulso Tecnologico Costa Rica: Up to CRC 7,000,000 Seed Capital for TIC Exporters

Historical reference: the first-edition call is closed. PROCOMER’s Programa Impulso Tecnologico accepted applications from 06 October to 07 November 2025, announced results and began project execution on 27 November 2025, and its selected companies have a project-completion deadline of 27 October 2026. The operating rules planned for up to 20 beneficiaries, but PROCOMER’s later official clarification says that 24 companies were selected for this edition. No second-edition call appears in the official program material reviewed here. If you are preparing for a future round, use the details below as a planning reference and check PROCOMER’s program page for a new call.

One correction matters more than anything else here. The official operating rules and one-pager set the maximum non-reimbursable award at CRC 7,000,000 per company. Budget against the official colones amount. For the standard category, PROCOMER could cover up to 80% of a project budget, while the company supplied at least CRC 1,750,000 as counterpart for a total project budget of CRC 8,750,000.

At a glance

What the program actually funds

Impulso Tecnologico is narrow on purpose. It targets micro, small, and medium enterprises in the services sector, specifically the TIC subsector, which the bases define as including creative and content industries, fintech, data-based services, digital services, and firms specializing in emerging technologies. The company must already export or have demonstrable export potential.

The stated objective is productive transformation: adopting new or better technology and adding business innovation, so the firm can enter and hold ground in international markets. Every project must show a measurable positive impact in at least one of four thematic areas:

1. Operational efficiency — process optimization that cuts time and cost, raises capacity, or improves responsiveness.
2. Product design, development, or adaptation — more competitive or differentiated products through technology, design, and quality, or technical work that aligns products with international norms.
3. Commercial growth — tangible impact on customer acquisition or revenue, including entry to new markets or diversification.
4. Competitive differentiation — innovative features in the business model that strengthen international positioning.

Within those areas, three cost categories are financeable: digital transformation and technological infrastructure (digital tools, hardware, information systems, specialized software including licences); international certifications required for market access, including implementation costs and final audits; and professional services covering prototyping, commercialization work such as marketing strategy and sales-oriented website improvements, and technological development of systems, applications, or other digital solutions.

The certification route carries a trap worth flagging. A formal pre-audit evaluating what the certification requires is mandatory. Without that pre-audit, PROCOMER will not treat the certification work as financeable at all.

What the money cannot be spent on

The exclusion list in the bases is specific, and it eliminates a lot of what small firms would like to charge to a grant:

• Construction, remodelling, or expansion labour.
• Legal fees, stamps, or professional fees not directly tied to the funded project.
• Salaries or full-time outsourced personnel.
• Debt repayment, credit-card balances, dividends, share purchases, capital increases, bonds, taxes, or social charges.
• Administrative overhead — electricity, water, gas, waste, internet, telephony, accounting services, and administrative support staff.
• Rental or purchase of vehicles or real estate, with production equipment the only exception.
• Indemnities of any kind.
• Travel costs and per diems.
• Academic research and development at thesis, master’s, or doctoral level, and publications disconnected from project objectives.

If your budget leans on salaries, overhead, or travel, the project will not survive review in its current form.

Eligibility and the exclusions that quietly disqualify firms

Admissibility is documentary, and PROCOMER checks each item against a named proof. The official program page also lists a colones IBAN account in the company’s name at a bank in the Sistema de Banca Nacional; the bases require that account certificate when a selected company formalizes, so a future applicant should prepare it before results are announced:

• Cedula juridica — a company properly registered with the Registro Nacional. Proof: personeria juridica plus the legal representative’s ID.
• MIPYME status — a current PYME certification from the Ministerio de Economia, Industria y Comercio (MEIC).
• CCSS — registered as an employer and current on payments. Proof: a screenshot of the query at sfa.ccss.sa.cr/moroso showing the cedula and an up-to-date condition.
• Ministerio de Hacienda — the supported economic activity registered and payments current. Proof: a screenshot from atv.hacienda.go.cr showing registered status and no arrears.
• Project impact — verified through the technical description and justification, assessed by an external technician.
• Ownership structure — obtained through a lawyer or via the Banco Central de Costa Rica legal-person declaration summary.
• PROCOMER export potential diagnostic — PROCOMER checks whether the firm has one; if not, a PROCOMER business developer applies it during evaluation, provided the other requirements are met.
• Colones IBAN account — a certificate from a bank in the Sistema de Banca Nacional showing an IBAN account in the beneficiary’s name is required at formalization.

The restrictions section rules out several categories outright. Companies that won other SBD-funded seed capital programs in the previous two years cannot participate. Neither can related companies in the same economic control group applying simultaneously, nor companies related to a large enterprise. Firms that won other PROCOMER non-reimbursable programs — Alivio, Descubre, Desarrollo de Proveedores, The BluePrint, Crecimiento Verde, Cultiva+, among others — are excluded unless at least two years have passed since that edition ended.

There is a narrow door for repeat participants: a maximum of two slots are reserved for firms previously funded by a PROCOMER non-reimbursable program. They compete under the same scoring, but must have finished the earlier project satisfactorily, wait the full two years, contribute at least 30% counterpart instead of 20%, propose a project in a different area at a more mature stage of the business, and report concrete results from the earlier grant. For those firms PROCOMER covers up to 70% rather than 80%, meaning a CRC 7,000,000 award requires a CRC 3,000,000 contribution.

How projects are scored

The bases publish the full 100-point rubric, which is unusually transparent and worth designing a proposal around:

Impact and coherence together carry 65 of the 100 points, so a vague objective paired with a single-line budget is fatal regardless of how strong the underlying idea is.

Evaluation runs in two stages. A technical evaluation team named by PROCOMER, made up of experts in the program’s areas, scores each admissible project. A high-level specialized jury then picks the winners, weighing scores alongside associated risks. That jury is composed of PROCOMER directors: Consolidacion de Exportadores, Creacion de Nuevos Exportadores y Acceso a Financiamiento, and Encadenamientos, or their designees. The jury also names a waiting list in case a selected company withdraws.

How the application was submitted

Applications for the closed first edition went through the online platform at capitalsemillaprocomer.charly.io. Applicants entered the Impulso Tecnologico program, selected “Participe Aqui”, created a user, and completed all six sections of the form. After completing every section, the legal representative had to download the application, sign it by hand or with a digital signature, scan the complete document when the signature was handwritten, and upload it again to finish registration. A form left online but never downloaded, signed, and re-uploaded was not a completed submission. The official application period was 06 October to 07 November 2025, so this workflow is useful for the next round but cannot be used to submit to the closed edition.

Winners then formalize: a contract and a promissory note (pagare) with PROCOMER, a separate contract with INA for the training scholarship, and a sworn declaration confirming no conflicts of interest.

Execution: reimbursements, not a cheque

Nothing is paid up front. The company buys the good or service, pays for it, and then requests reimbursement across three fixed windows:

The 10% “Partida Ajuste” inside the third tranche is not extra money — it is part of the same 100%, and the company may pull it forward into an earlier reimbursement, leaving at least 25% for the final one. Requests are accepted only between 27 November and 27 October; after that final date no project expense can be reimbursed, and 27 October 2026 is also the hard deadline for finishing the project.

Each request requires a progress report against the approved action plan including the PROCOMER advisers’ logs and an asset registry, a signed reimbursement form, an expense liquidation with supporting documents, and quotations or justifications for goods and services. PROCOMER pays in colones within a maximum of 30 business days after a complete and satisfactory submission.

Expenses are proven with original invoices authorized by the Direccion General de Tributacion for domestic purchases; foreign and online purchases need transaction records, receipts, payment proofs, and import documentation where applicable. Dollar purchases convert at the BCCR sell rate on the invoice date. Invoices must be issued in the beneficiary’s name and be free of alterations.

Because SBD public funds are involved, Ley No. 9986 procurement rules apply. Before any purchase the company runs a quote-validation process: search the market, send a formal quotation request to at least two suppliers, submit at least two received quotes to the assigned adviser for analysis and supplier selection, notify suppliers by email and allow a 24-hour appeal period, then buy only after the adviser authorizes it. Physical assets must carry labels reading “Donado por Sistema de Banca para el Desarrollo” and “Programa Impulso Tecnologico PROCOMER”, and the company must keep a verifiable registry of tangible and intangible assets acquired. Misuse of funds triggers a demand to repay the reimbursements received.

Savings generated in the first and second reimbursements accumulate and can only be spent at the third, to cover an activity that turned out more expensive than quoted, to expand an approved activity, or to add a new one that supports the project objective. Savings cannot be returned to the company as a refund of its counterpart.

The advisory component

Beyond the cash, each winner receives specialized technical advisory funded through an INA scholarship worth CRC 3,180,000, of which the company pays 10% — CRC 318,000 — during the project’s first stage. That payment counts toward the counterpart contribution. The advisory starts with interviews and a diagnostic to identify gaps, then produces a tailored action plan with SMART objectives, indicators, activities addressing at least three gaps, milestones, and deliverables. Delivery is three cycles of sessions of up to two hours each, totalling 12 hours per company. The advisory cycles must be completed to PROCOMER’s satisfaction before the final disbursement is approved.

What to do now that the window is closed

If your firm fits the profile, the useful move is to get admissible before the next call rather than to scramble during a five-week window:

• Obtain or renew the MEIC PYME certification, which is the single most common blocker for otherwise-qualified firms.
• Clear any CCSS or Hacienda arrears and keep the query screenshots current.
• Request the PROCOMER export potential diagnostic through a business developer; it is worth 10 points outright.
• Order the ownership-structure documentation through a lawyer or the BCCR.
• Build a project around one of the four thematic areas, with a budget of roughly CRC 8,750,000 and documented capacity to fund CRC 1,750,000 of it yourself.
• If you are pursuing an international certification, commission the pre-audit early — without it the certification cost is not financeable.

Contact programasinnovacion@procomer.com to ask whether a second edition is planned and to confirm your profile fits. PROCOMER runs several non-reimbursable programs on rolling annual cycles — Crecimiento Verde, Cultiva+, Descubre, and Desarrollo de Proveedores among them — so a firm that misses this window may find a better-matched instrument in the same family.

FAQ

What was the award ceiling? The official maximum was CRC 7,000,000 per company. For the standard category, that amount represented no more than 80% of the project budget, so the company had to provide at least CRC 1,750,000 in counterpart funding.

Can I still apply? Not to the first edition. It closed on 07 November 2025 and the selected cohort is in execution until 27 October 2026. No second edition has been announced in the official material reviewed here.

Does PROCOMER pay the full project cost? No. It covers up to 80% of the total project budget, capped at CRC 7,000,000. The company funds at least 20%, or 30% if it was previously funded by a PROCOMER non-reimbursable program.

Do we get the money before spending it? No. All three tranches are reimbursements paid after the company has paid the supplier and the good or service has been delivered.

Is the program open to any Costa Rican SME? No. It is restricted to the services sector, TIC subsector, and to firms that export or have credible export potential.

What if we already won a PROCOMER grant? Two slots are reserved for prior beneficiaries, subject to a two-year gap, satisfactory completion of the earlier project, a 30% counterpart, and a project in a different area at a more advanced stage.

Official links

• Programa Impulso Tecnologico
• One pager with official dates and amounts (October 2025)
• Bases operativas, normas y condiciones
• Online application platform