Mercedes Bidart

Mercedes Bidart is the CEO and Co-founder of Quipu, a financing platform for informal businesses in Latam, building an equitable AI credit score. Born and raised in Argentina, Mercedes studied Political Science at the University of Buenos Aires and worked at CIPPEC supporting local governments in Latin America and at TECHO in the micro-finance program. She then completed a master’s degree in Cities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a Fulbright scholarship. At MIT, she founded Quipu after going through the MIT DesignX incubator.

Since 2021, Mercedes has been based in Colombia, expanding Quipu’s solution to support more than 40,000 micro-businesses to date. Mercedes is a Fellow of the Cartier Women’s Initiative 2024 and The Global Good Fund. She has been recognized for MIT Tech Review as an Innovator Under 35 in Latam. She is also a research affiliate at the MIT Community Innovators Lab, and a Board member of MIT DesignX.

Quipu was recognized by Fast Company as one of the ten most innovative companies in LATAM in 2022 and by Accion’s Center for Financial Inclusion as one of the 50 most inclusive fintechs in the world.