SmartUp, the Chilean startup that develops artificial intelligence agents for the logistics industry, will open a commercial office in Atlanta. Its CEO and co-founder, Max Mardones, will settle in that city to lead the expansion, while Chile will maintain the role of engineering base.
The company set a specific goal: to bill US$10 million in the next 12 months. SmartUp was founded in 2023 by Max Mardones and Daniel Sateler, who left their computer science studies after the release of GPT-4, and completed its founding team with Daniel Goldfarb and Alan Ben-Dov.
The company arrived in Atlanta with prior traction: it has been operating in the United States for two years through a local partner, and in the last six months its activity in that market has accelerated significantly. The opening of its own office comes, then, as a consequence of validated demand and not as a speculative bet.
His journey includes the support of programs from Nvidia, Anthropic, Amazon Web Services and Endeavor Chile, as well as an angel investment of US$400,000 from Chris Klaus, an American technology entrepreneur. These endorsements are not just capital: access to programs from Nvidia, Anthropic and AWS provides computing credits, technical support and credentials against corporate buyers who tend to distrust small suppliers.
Atlanta for the customers, not for the ecosystem
The choice of Atlanta responds to a logic of proximity to the customer: the logistics and supply chain operators targeted by SmartUp are concentrated in the southeastern United States, an area with significant growth in that sector.
The economic differential of the market is also decisive: the sales cycles there last a third as long as those in Latin America and the average ticket is three times longer, which means that the same commercial effort generates more income in less time, according to statements by Max Mardones collected by DF.
The initial hiring plan is limited: add three people with a mixed profile, capable of managing an account from sales to maintenance, a combination that many software startups do poorly by separating both roles.
Rather than attracting clients one by one, the main strategy involves alliances with inventory management system providers and warehouses that have already referred clients to SmartUp, a considerably cheaper entry route than building a direct sales team in a new market. To finance the jump, the company is talking with investment funds in Atlanta to raise a round.
AI Agents in the Supply Chain: A Fast-Moving Market
The SmartUp movement occurs in a market that is undergoing complete transformation. In October 2026, Descartes Systems Group introduced its Agent Control Plane at its Innovation Forum in Chicago, a layer designed to coordinate AI agents between applications and business partners, with customer-defined permissions and approvals and a traceable record of each agent’s actions.
The problem Descartes describes is the same one SmartUp attacks: Even with connected systems, supply chain teams spend considerable time interpreting updates that arrive through mail, messages and portals, and re-entering information to move orders.
The Chilean startup thus enters to compete in a segment where global providers already package AI agents within platforms installed on their clients, which raises the standard of technical credentials necessary to win corporate contracts.
The support of Nvidia, Anthropic and AWS fulfills a specific commercial function in this context: reducing the friction of trust in the sales cycle. SmartUp has been validating the model with a local partner for two years, six months of acceleration and is only now taking the step to its own structure, a sequence that reflects expansion by traction and not by enthusiasm.
