Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is ⁠Sergio Furio⁠, chairman of the board of Endeavor Brazil and founder and CEO of Creditas, Brazil’s leading fintech lender that is transforming Brazil's lending landscape by offering secured loans at significantly lower interest rates, bringing essential financial access to millions across the country. Creditas has raised $879m dollars across six funding rounds. It’s most recent valuation...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Marcelo Abritta, founder and CEO of Buser, a Brazilian bus transportation platform that connects passengers with underutilized charter buses, offering affordable travel while disrupting the traditional $10 billion intercity bus industry. Most recently, Buser raised $138m Series C from the likes of Lightrock, Softbank, monashees, Valor Capital, Globo Ventures and Canary. Marcelo shares...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Igor Marinelli, founder and CEO of Tractian, a leader in industrial IoT and enterprise asset management software. Just over a year ago, Tractian secured a $45M Series B funding round, led by General Catalyst and joined by Next47 . Igor takes us on his incredible journey from building inventory systems as a teenager to founding one of the most innovative companies in the industrial tech...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guests today are Marcelo Maziero and Fernando Fontes, founders at Brazil's leading financial market infrastructure provider Cerc, that has raised up to $100m in a round led by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investor Mubadala Capital with a follow on from Valor Capital. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in fintech innovation across Latin America and other emerging economies. We explore the...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is ⁠Andre Maciel⁠, founder of the Brazilian venture capital firm ⁠Volpe Capital⁠, whose current and former portfolio includes the likes of Vtex, CRM&Bonus, Connectly, and Atlas Governance. Before starting Volpe, André was the founding managing investment partner at SoftBank Latin America, and prior to that, he spent nearly 17 years in investment banking and private equity at JP...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Marcelo França, founder & CEO at Celcoin, a brazilian financial infrastructure company that has recently raised a $125M in a Series C round led by global growth equity investor Summit Partners with the participation from the existing investor Innova Capital and John Coughlin, a former senior executive with Corpay. This financing comes at a time of rapid growth for Celcoin,which...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Dileep Thazhmon, founder and CEO at Jeeves, a corporate spend and expense management platform for global businesses. Jeeves has raised over $260m from the likes of GIC, Tencent, a16z, CRV and more. Its last reported valuation was $2.1B. Since its public launch early in 2021, Jeeves scaled across 22 countries in North America, South America, the UK and Europe. In Latam the list of its...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Rafael de Albuquerque, CEO & founder at Zoox Smart Data, a global tech company that offers integrated solutions in big data, analytics, AI & ML. Zoox has over 1650 enterprise customers in 25 countries including the likes of Pepsi, Burger King, F1, PWC and Telefonica. Rafael’s journey from selling Wi-Fi routers door-to-door to building a $100m in revenue global data analytics...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Dave Nangle, founder and CEO of VEF, an emerging markets-focused, growth-stage fintech investment firm. VEF's Latam portfolio includes the likes of Creditas, Solfacil, Gringo and Konfio. We talked about Dave’s investment strategy, focusing on growth-stage companies that have nailed unit economics and product-market fit. We discussed the most common mistakes founders make when pitching to...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Geraldo Thomaz, founder and co-CEO at NYSE-traded enterprise e-commerce platform VTEX. VTEX is an incredible example of Brazilian company that grew to become a global player in a digital commerce with Walmart, Coca-Cola and L'Oreal among customers. Prior tp going public in 2021 VTEX raised over $360m in capital from the likes of Softbank, Riverwood Capital, Tiger Global and Endeavor...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Susan Segal. Susan has been the President and CEO of Americas Society / Council of the Americas since August 2003, following a distinguished 30-year career in the private sector working with Latin America and other emerging markets. As a partner and head of the Latin American Group at Chase Capital Partners, Susan pioneered early-stage venture capital investing in Latin America. She...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Daniela Binatti, co-founder and CTO at the Brazilian payments infrastructure company Pismo, which was recently acquired by Visa for $1 billion in cash. This conversation is very special as Pismo stands out as a globally successful tech company with roots in Brazil. Moreover, Daniela herself is an exceptional example of female leadership in technology, breaking barriers and setting new...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Alexandre Zolko, founder and CEO at CRM&BONUS, Brazilian customer loyalty management platform that has just raised $80m in Series B led by Bond Capital with the participation from Valor Capital. This round valued the company at 2.2B Brazilian reais or over $400M dollars, more than doubling its Series A valuation. Bond Capital is the fund that was created by Mary Meeker, a former...

Welcome to season three of the J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America with me, Olga Maslikhova. My guests today are Andre Florence and Guilherme Azevedo, co-founders at Brazilian healthcare startup Alice backed by the likes of Softbank, ThornTree Capital Partners, Kaszek and Globo Ventures. Their latest Series C of $127m was the largest funding round raised by a healthtech in Latin America to date. Prior to co-founding Alice Andre was a CFO at Brazilian ride sharing...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Thibaud Lecuyer, CEO at Loggi, Brazilian delivery company that has raised close to $500m over 6 rounds from the likes of Iporanga Ventures, Softbank, Monashees, GGV, CapSur Capital and Microsoft. Prior to that Thibaud was a co-founder at Brazilian online fashion retailer Dafiti. Together we explore Thibaud’s transition from finance and J.P. Morgan in Europe into entrepreneurship in...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Joao Barbosa, co-founder at corporate wellness platform Gympass (now Wellhub), that has raised over $600M from the likes of EQT Growth, Softbank, General Atlantic and Valor Capital. In today's episode we will discuss:  1. The global leap: key challenges of scaling in different markets 2. The art of the pivot: how to find a business model that fits? 3. Building a winning team: how...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Vitor Torres⁠, Endeavor entrepreneur and founder and CEO at Brazilian accounting platform Contabilizei, that has raised over $100m from the likes of SoftBank, Goldman Sachs, IFC, Kaszek and Endeavor Catalyst. In today's episode we will discuss:  1. The cultural moat: how Contabilizei has built corporate culture into competitive edge? 2. Responsible innovations: how to disrupt a...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is ⁠Michele Levy, the private equity investor and banker turned fashion entrepreneur behind the successful growth of the Melissa shoe brand in the USA as well as the premium beauty brand Costa Brazil. In today's episode we will discuss: 1. How to sell branded commodities? 2. The secret sauce to high-performing teams 3. Creative storytelling strategies for B2C businesses 4. How to find a...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Gaston Irigoyen, founder and CEO at Argentinian fintech infrastructure company Pomelo that has recently raised $40m in Series B from the likes of Kaszek, monashees, Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Endeavor Catalyst and Section 32. The latest financing brings the startup’s total raised since inception to $103 million. Gaston is a third-time founder, with two previous exits and former CEO...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Doug Storf, Endeavor entrepreneur and founder and CEO at Sao Paulo-based payment infrastructure company Swap that has raised ~$30M from the likes of Tiger Global, Endeavor, Global Founders Capital, ONEVC and Flourish Ventures. Prior to starting Swap, Doug was Head of Corporate Strategy at 99, Brazil's first known tech unicorn that was acquired by Chinese Didi in 2018. In today's...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Martin Migoya founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Globant⁠, NYSE-traded IT and software development company focused on reinventing businesses through innovative technology solutions. Globant powered digital transformation of the likes of FIFA, McDonald's, Nissan, and Novartis, and its most recent market cap is over $10B. Martin is a member of young president's organization and a...

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. My guest today is Marcelo Sampaio, founder and CEO at Hashdex, Brazilian crypto asset manager backed by the likes of Coinbase Ventures, SoftBank and Valor Capital. Hashdex is the only LatAm spot bitcoin ETF among 11 ETFs recently cleared by the US Securities and Exchange Commission in the event that some called a watershed moment for crypto adoption. Please note, that this is a two-part conversation....

In this final episode of the year we are going through some growth metrics we've managed to achieve this year as well as taking a look back at top 10 most listened-to episodes of the year and sharing our favorite moments from each and every one of them. If you would like to get more insight from LatAm's leading tech founders and investors, please subscribe to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. That is the best way to support the...

Hi everyone and welcome to The J Curve. This time we have a very different format. In this episode, I answer the questions posed by the students of entrepreneurship class at Purdue University on entrepreneurship, early stage investing, tech in Latin America and so much more. We discuss: 1. How to stay on top of emerging tech trends? 2. What is preferred capital structure of the early stage startups? 3. What are the red flags for startup investors? 4. What are the big reasons to invest in...