BOGOTÁ, Colombia—Soon after the U.S. extracted Venezuela’s dictator in a raid, the board of Mercantil Colpatria gathered here in the Colombian capital to assess what might come next—particularly regarding the potential for investment.
“It was the first order of business,” said Eduardo Pacheco, board president of the conglomerate, which is involved in banking, construction, insurance and infrastructure development. “I said that we should go and do the groundwork to determine the business opportunities.”
As Venezuela begins reopening after years of economic collapse and isolation, businesses from the U.S., Colombia and elsewhere are dispatching executives, studying projects and, in some cases, moving toward early investments, drawn by the prospect of rebuilding a country of more than 28 million.
“In Caracas, you now find different companies and people traveling to investigate, to see where they can invest,” said Jose Gonzales, who recently visited Venezuela and is a managing partner of GCG Advisors, a New York-based financial advisory firm. “There are people who have never been in Venezuela, who don’t have a network in Venezuela.”
Charles Myers, chairman and founder of Signum Global Advisors in New York, was so bullish he began planning a trip to Caracas last year—convinced Nicolás Maduro’s 13-year rule was nearing its end amid an intense pressure campaign from President Trump. Last week, he led a 55-member delegation from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, the Middle East and Europe that held meetings in Venezuela with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, government officials and Venezuelan executives.
“Everyone on the trip was really impressed with two things: how stable the government is and how stable the situation is,” Myers said. “This is a country that after 27 years of economic repression is absolutely moving at light speed to turn the economy around and, as part of that, really open up to foreign investors.”
These early movers face steep challenges in a country that Exxon Chief Executive Darren Woods called “uninvestable.” Venezuela is still an authoritarian state. The judiciary is politicized, the government has a history of expropriating businesses, and security services have detained executives and union leaders in the past.
Plans to reinstate the country’s once-vibrant democracy remain a longer-term goal. Corruption, including bribery and government extortion, remains a daily fact of life for some businesses.
Daniel Lansberg-Rodríguez, a Venezuelan who is managing partner of geopolitical risk firm, Aurora Macro Strategies, said Venezuela has an opaque bureaucracy, weak state control outside big cities, and obstacles to moving capital.
“The compliance you have to do as a company is a heavy amount of work, if you’re worried about what the Justice Department might say,” he said.
Myers, the chairman of Signum, acknowledged that “the challenges are huge, the infrastructure is so dilapidated, there’s domestic security concerns, there’s sanctions.”
But he pointed to an important backstop—the U.S. government, which has leverage over the interim government. And while the U.S. hasn’t announced when sanctions against state companies might end, it has provided licenses or waivers so that American firms—mainly in oil—can do business with Venezuelan officials.
Rodríguez, a longtime official in a regime that once embraced what it dubbed 21st Century Socialism, now touts reform to attract capital. After overhauling its oil rules, the government is now drafting a new mining law covering gold, diamonds and other minerals, she told the Signum delegation.
“Those who believe…that Venezuela is a good place to invest should know that there are guarantees, legal certainty, political security, stability, and calm conditions for their investments to develop fully,” she told the investors in an address posted on X.
With President Trump praising her publicly as an able partner, Rodríguez pressed for Washington to lift individual sanctions—and on Wednesday, the U.S. did end restrictions that barred U.S. companies from doing business with her. She continues to call for the Trump administration to end sanctions against other officials as well as economic ones against the state oil company and public entities.
Under Maduro, the economy shrank 80% before a recent uptick, a crisis economists chalk up to the expropriation of 1,000 companies, corruption and the exodus of eight million people, many experienced managers. Sanctions made the situation worse.
That has left Venezuela short of everything from food to pharmaceuticals, clothing to chemicals, said Luis Felipe Quintero, president of the Colombian-Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce.
Colombia, which shares a 1,400-mile border with Venezuela, is—along with the U.S. and its oil industry and asset managers—positioned to benefit.
“People here say, ‘This is our great opportunity,’” said Quintero, speaking in his Bogotá office. “All we have to do is put it on a truck.”
Paint company PVC Colors has seen Venezuelan sales surge and is accepting payments in the country’s bolivar for the first time in a decade as the currency stabilizes.
“This is the best moment for us to invest,” said Neyker Santander, its production manager in Cúcuta, Colombia, where the company is based. “If you do an infrastructure project, you’ll need paint.”
The company plans to invest at least $4 million in Venezuela this year, largely in a plant near the western city of Barquisimeto. PVC Colors projects sales of $5 million this year, a 150% increase from last year.
Emerson Electric, a St. Louis-based automation company that provides control systems and advanced technology that are used in oil fields, is looking to revive Venezuelan operations abandoned years ago.
“We have a plan,” Emerson Chief Executive Lal Karsanbhai said in a recent conference call. “We’ve mobilized and thought through the investments we need to put back into the country.”
Carlos Ramírez, 60, who renovates and sells properties in Medellín, Colombia, is also looking to return.
He bought homes in Valencia years ago at steep discounts when the country had hit the skids. Now Ramírez wants to look for other properties that he thinks can be bought cheaply and sold later with a big markup.
“The recovery in Venezuela won’t happen in a year or two. It could take a while,” he said. “So it’s an opportune time.”
One thing the Rodríguez government still doesn’t appear to tolerate is businesses connected to the political opposition.
Evanan Romero, an 86-year-old with dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizenship who lives in Houston, was arrested in February and held for days until he was released and American diplomats helped secure his exit from the country. A former deputy oil minister and adviser to Venezuela’s opposition, he had gone to Venezuela to renew energy contacts and scout oil opportunities.
“It’s a warning to anyone who has ever been in their crosshairs,” Romero said. Venezuelan officials had flagged an arrest order tied to fraud allegations, he said, despite no charges or documentation.
“If it can happen to a veteran like me,” said Romero, “can you imagine what would happen to another company representative going in?”
Write to Juan Forero at juan.forero@wsj.com and Ian Lovett at ian.lovett@wsj.com