Dispatches from
the Network

When American companies expand abroad, Pavel Teplykh says, "at least they know that they don't get it. So they employ people that do." Nordic companies expanding into their neighbors' markets operate under the opposite assumption—that Denmark works like Sweden, Finland like Denmark, Norway like all of them. "Which of course it completely doesn't."

Pavel built his business around that blind spot. A Swedish company opening in Denmark often doesn't know that local service providers exist, or that they'd need one. The cultural assumption is that the rules on the ground will be the same.

Eighteen months of geopolitical turbulence has brought Nordic GEM a wave of clients who wouldn't have picked up the phone before: Canadian investors whose exposure has been 95% North American for fifty years, UAE-based entrepreneurs seeking stable European footholds, Indian firms spreading jurisdictional risk as global trade fractures.

The Nordic pitch in 2026 is narrow and clear. Highly regulated. Highly predictable. No arbitrary enforcement surprises. Geopolitically stable. Now fully NATO.

"They're not looking to put all their eggs here," Pavel says. "Just 10 or 15%. Which, from a Nordic perspective, is still an enormous amount."

Up north, everyone in finance, tax, and law knows everyone else. Pavel has strong views about corporate service providers promising service in the Nordics without a close local partner.

"I'm generally very, very mad about many in our industry… especially Asia-based companies," referencing the Hong Kong-based service providers promising global coverage. "In reality, it's just subproviders they don't even know."

Pavel's recommendation is simple: if you want to access the Nordics, make some calls, build relationships. And pay Copenhagena a visit.

On paper, Chile is one of the most straightforward jurisdictions in Latin America. Incorporation is fully online. The country has a broad network of double-tax treaties and a predictable administrative system. After eight years advising foreign investors, Gregorio Izquierdo is clear on one point: the real risk is almost never legal.

When he meets a new client, the first questions aren't about entity type or tax registration. They're about the market. Do you know the competition? Do you know local pricing? Do you know what demand looks like on the ground?

If the answer is no, Chile won't save you. Latin America is not easy. New entrants run into local competition, fulfillment costs, marketplace fees, and pricing pressure faster than they expect.

Eighty percent of Gregorio's clients never visit Chile. That's part of the service.

His job is to be the person on the ground so they don't have to be—opening bank accounts, handling tax authorities, managing compliance, coordinating visas, and, when the work stretches across borders, pulling together trusted legal support in other jurisdictions. One recent project involved trademark coordination in 50 countries.

He is direct about preferring clients with long-term needs over one-off engagements. The good clients get candor. The transactional ones get help, but the terms are clear from the first meeting.

Gregorio puts Chile comfortably in the top tier of Latin American markets for foreign entrepreneurs. Uruguay belongs in the conversation given fast formation, relatively simple structures, but limited by market size. Mexico is there on scale and stability.

Brazil is a different category entirely: large, important, and much harder than outsiders expect, with state-by-state tax complexity, local protectionism, and a commercial environment that punishes the unprepared.

Lexidy started ten years ago with a simple idea: fixed fees for legal work in a market still dominated by the billable hour.

What was contrarian then is now standard across corporate services.

Hector Lopez Vazquez joined seven years ago to open the Madrid office, which today handles hundreds of clients a month moving into southern Europe.

Hector's pitch for Spain rhymes with tax-flight startups leaving San Francisco for Florida. Engineering talent is abundant, hardworking, and meaningfully cheaper in Spain than in France or Germany. Corporate taxes are regionally competitive.

For businesses thinking beyond Europe, Spain offers something more strategic: a credible bridge into Latin America, with shared language, familiar business culture, and a long list of companies that have used Madrid as a first stop before expanding into Mexico or Colombia.

Hector is direct about the one caveat. "The bureaucracy is a bit annoying at the beginning," he says. "But once you get the company off the ground, it's not that hard or that expensive."

Getting a bank account is, in theory, a solved problem. For companies expanding across borders, it is anything but.

US fintechs like Mercury and Brex are built for domestic operators. Global players like Wise and Revolut are built for companies already moving money internationally. Aspire found its opening in the gap: businesses trying to enter the U.S. before they fully look like they belong there.

That customer, David Harris says, is everywhere: foreign companies with revenue, customers, momentum, and a freshly minted U.S. entity, but no banking relationship to match.

"We hear it every day," he says. "We're trying to go to the US. We have a US entity. We want to expand to the US but can't get a bank account."

The American banking system has a word for what it wants from a new business customer: nexus. Some visible connection to the U.S. economy. A physical address. A founder with a Social Security number. Something a compliance team can circle in red and call legible.

For international businesses, the alternatives in the Know Your Business process can feel vague and flimsy, with rejections that arrive without explanation. "They never tell you why either," Harris says.

Aspire's pitch is that the rules should at least be named. Beyond the standard path, it has built other routes: investment nexus for companies backed by U.S. investors, commercial nexus for those already earning U.S. revenue, supplier nexus for those working with American vendors, and a 90-day provisional account for founders who are almost there.