Oscar Fuentes Monzon, investment analyst at CMI Ventures, is one of our top 50 Rising Stars in corporate venturing for 2026.
Oscar Fuentes Monzon stands out as an exceptional corporate VC investor for his deep understanding of emerging technologies and his ability to bridge the gap between startups and corporate innovation, say his teammates at CMI Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of Corporación Multi Inversiones (CMI), a multinational conglomerate based in Guatemala.
Fuentes Monzon was attracted to corporate venturing because it combines three things he likes most: technology, strategy and long-term thinking. He has a varied role as part of a team of three, working closely with the corporate’s business units to understand their challenges, analyses startups that can provide solutions and assesses strategic fit for investments.
“The exposure across this full innovation and investment process, and getting to understand the corporation’s operations from the inside, is one of the most rewarding aspects of the role. There are no two days that are the same,” he says.
“The exposure across this full innovation and investment process, and getting to understand the corporation’s operations from the inside, is one of the most rewarding aspects of the role.”
CMI Ventures is structured as a separate legal entity to the parent corporation. It has a $15m fund from which to invest instead of from the corporate balance sheet, a key strength of the unit, says Fuentes Monzon.
The team invests globally in early-stage startups in food tech, clean energy, logistics and the digitisation of operations. The unit also has a venture clienting track, which creates pilot projects with startups to gauge their strategic value to CMI. Last year, it also started investing in VC funds to increase its global reach.
Fuentes Monzon is very keen on small modular nuclear reactors. “They offer an interesting value proposition that addresses the energy challenges that are already emerging across the world. They also have the potential to unlock clean energy for heavy industry and enable large-scale AI infrastructure in a more sustainable way,” he says.
He has also been tracking quantum computing closely, which he says has the potential to reshape entire systems in ways that are still not fully understood.
The Rising Stars are early-career corporate venture professionals who are making an outstanding contribution to their teams and the industry.
See the full list of Rising Stars 2026 here.
