From weeks of domain research to a venture concept in days

Client

Date

LATAM corporate venture studio

08/2026

The challenge

A corporate venture studio in Latin America builds commercially viable businesses that address structural social and economic problems across the region. Exploring a new domain meant weeks of fragmented desk research, synthesis and stakeholder mapping per area of interest, most of it analyst and expert heavy, with outside partners relied on for the reading and the write-up.

The solution

FifthRow set up two connected systems the studio runs as one exploration capability: a domain and a region in, structured opportunity areas out, then prioritised challenge statements and concept directions ready to take to real users. The scan refreshes continuously rather than being commissioned per area of interest.

Weeks to days

full domain exploration cycle

Multi-region

coverage in one pass

Scan scopeany domain, multiple sub-regions

Exploration cycleweeks before, hours to days now

Domain map structuresegments, value chains, stakeholders, delivery models

Exploration outputprioritised challenge statements and concept directions

Headcount addednone

01 — CONTINUOUS DOMAIN SCANNING

The first stage replaces the part of exploration that used to take weeks: reading the domain. It returns a structured picture of a space and a region in a single pass, then keeps it current as new signals appear.

Core Activities

Reads policy, market data, academic research, industry reporting and on-the-ground signals in one pass
Breaks a domain into segments, value chains, stakeholder groups and delivery models
Sizes opportunity areas bottom up, including unit economics, separating constrained from viable
Refreshes as new signals appear, never recommissioned per area
Reads several sub-regions in one pass, not the nearest market

The Results

A domain arrives structured rather than described. Opportunity areas come back placed inside segments and value chains, with the stakeholders, drivers and constraints around each one already attached, which is the map the next stage prioritises against.

Hundreds

sources synthesised, zero reading time

02 — PROBLEM DEFINITION & PRIORITISATION

The second stage decides what is worth pursuing. It turns what the scan found into a small number of problems the studio can build against, rather than a long list of things that are true.

Core Activities

Aggregates pain points at user, system and market level, with the evidence behind each
Applies structured reasoning to separate symptoms from structural problems
Frames the result as prioritised challenge statements, not findings
Says where time and money should go next, with the reasoning attached
Re-reads the refreshed scan, so priorities move with the domain

The Results

Exploration ends in a decision about what to pursue rather than in a reading list. Each priority arrives as a stated challenge with the evidence behind it, which is what makes the next stage a design problem instead of another research request.

Hours to days

open domain to ranked challenges

03 — CONCEPT DESIGN & VALIDATION READINESS

The third stage takes a prioritised challenge to something testable. Concept directions leave with the people, the partners and the questions needed to put them in front of real users.

Core Activities

Expands each challenge across economic, behavioural and systemic dimensions before solving
Maps organisations, operators, funders and opinion leaders already active
Reads solutions and reforms from other regions for what transfers
Generates concept directions around local constraints and what users can do
Returns personas, journeys, hypotheses, interview guides and a testing frame

The Results

A concept direction leaves exploration already grounded in who it serves, who is active in the space and what would have to be true for it to work. The first validation conversation starts from a hypothesis and an interview guide rather than from a fresh research request.

validation artefacts per concept

What it proved

Two connected systems replaced the studio's exploration phase. A domain and a region go in; hundreds of credible sources across policy, market data, academic research and industry reporting are read in one pass; opportunity areas come back by segment, value chain, stakeholder group and delivery model, sized bottom up. Those become prioritised challenge statements, then concept directions with personas, journeys, hypotheses and interview guides. What took weeks now takes hours to days.

What the studio holds is an exploration capability that does not reset between areas. Coverage is specified rather than limited to what an analyst could reach, several sub-regions are read in one pass rather than one country, and the scan refreshes as signals emerge. The studio widened what it explores without adding internal headcount or sending desk research back to external partners.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Domain exploration time	weeks of fragmented research per area	hours to days	Weeks compressed to days
Continuity of intelligence	restarted for each area	one standing scan, continuously refreshed	Episodic replaced by continuous
Geographic breadth	one country standing for the region	multiple sub-regions, one pass	Breadth without a second cycle
Outside desk research	partners commissioned for reading and synthesis	run on the studio's own capability	Held in-house, not commissioned
Exploration output	a static report	prioritised challenge statements and concept directions	Reports replaced by decision-ready outputs

ALWAYS-ON EXPLORATION

Domain scanning refreshes as signals appear, so a picture stays current instead of being rebuilt from the start for each new question.

STRUCTURED DECOMPOSITION

Every domain is broken into segments, value chains, stakeholder groups and delivery models, so an opportunity area arrives placed rather than merely described.

ROOT-CAUSE FRAMING

Structured reasoning separates symptoms from the structural problem underneath, so a challenge statement names something worth building against.

TRANSFERABLE PATTERNS

Comparable solutions and reforms from other regions are read alongside local constraints, so a concept starts from what has already worked somewhere.

VALIDATION-READY OUTPUT

Each concept direction leaves with personas, journeys, hypotheses and an interview guide, so field validation starts without another research cycle.