For this in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Gabriela Gonçalves, founder and managing partner at Namari Capital; managing partner at Brasil Venture Debt, whose portfolio includes the likes of Exact Sales (acquired by RD Station), Solfacil and Digibee. Prior to that Gabriela was a co-founder and managing director at Rocket Internet-backed Lazada (acquired by Alibaba). We hope to make in person recordings our new normal, so please do check out our new YouTube channel. In today's...

For this in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Pedro Sirotsky Melzer, partner at Patria Investments; founding partner at Igah Ventures, whose portfolio includes the likes of Infra Commerce, Unico, Avenue Securities, Hashdex, Conexa Saude, CRM&Bonus and more. We hope to make in person recordings our new normal, so please do check out our new YouTube channel. In today's episode we will discuss:   1. Deconstructing VC decision making framework: how does Igah evaluate startups? 2. From...

For this in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Fersen Lambranho, Brazilian entrepreneur and investor; chairman of the board of GP Investments and G2D Investments, member of the board of Centauro, Spice Private Equity and The Craftory. Fersen is also the former CEO of Lojas Americanas and the current board member of several non-profits including São Paulo Museum of Art. Additionally, he actively invests in deep tech initiatives in the USA, UK and Brazil through his family office Volpini...

For this in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Cassio Bobsin, Endeavor entrepreneur and the founder and CEO at Zenvia. Zenvia is LatAm’s leading customer experience communications platform and the first Latam-based SaaS company to IPO on Nasdaq. Cassio is also the founder of WOW Accelerator, the largest independent startup accelerator in Brazil. We hope to make in person recordings our new normal, so please do check out our new YouTube channel. In today's episode we will discuss:   1....

For this in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Vander Corteze, founder and CEO at Brazil's leading at home healthcare company Beep Saude, backed by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Valor Capital Group, Banco Bradesco, DNA Capital and the founder of Nubank David Velez. Prior to that, Vander founded a Brazilian chain of occupational health clinics BR Med, and prior to that he served as an emergency doctor at a fire department in Rio de Janeiro. We hope to make in person recordings our...

For our third in studio episode I am thrilled to welcome Gustavo Brigatto, founder and chief editor of Startups Brazil, a media platform  that covers tech and venture capital in Latin America and beyond. Before becoming a founder, Gustavo spent 15 years as a business journalist, 12 of which were at Valor Economico, the largest economics, finance and business newspaper in Brazil. We hope to make in person recordings our new normal so please do check out our new YouTube channel. In today's...

April 27: For our second in studio episode, I am thrilled to welcome Talita Lacerda, CEO at Petlove, the largest pet e-commerce platform in Brazil and Latin America, that has raised over $225M+ from some of the best investors in Latin America including L Catterton, Riverwood Capital, SoftBank, Kaszek, Monashees, Globo Ventures, Porto Seguro and Tarpon. Petlove has recently announced its plan to go public within 2-3 years.  We hope to make in person recordings our new normal so please do...

April 18: For our first in person episode ever released I am thrilled to welcome Jose Renato Hopf, the serial entrepreneur and the founder of GetNet, which became one of the largest companies in Latin American was acquired by Santander in 2014 for just south of $500M. Jose Renato is also a founder of venture builder 4ALL and co-founder and president at South Summit Brazil, the leading tech summit in the South of Brazil that dragged over 22000 attendees, 900 speakers and over 3000 thousand...

March 21: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Bernardo Milesy, founder & managing partner at GLOCAL,  the first certified B Corp  agrifoodtech venture capital firm, whose portfolio includes the likes of Agrofy, Frizata and Kilimo In today's episode we will discuss:   1. Why impact investing is a lucrative business opportunity from venture capital standpoint?  2. Which agrifoodtech industries are ripe for unicorn production in Latin...

March 13: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with George Roche, investment director at Yara Growth Ventures,  the corporate venture capital arm of Yara International, the world's leading crop nutrition and agriculture company out of Norway with $11b market cap. Yara Growth Ventures portfolio includes the likes of SP Ventures, Agrolend and Agrofy.  In today's episode we will discuss:   1. What is George's startup evaluation framework?  2. Why 'No, I...

February 21: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Camilla Junqueira, managing director at Endeavor Brazil,  the leading global community of, by and for high impact entrepreneurs.  In today's episode we will discuss:  1. What makes Endeavor so good at building community? What are the lessons that founders can learn from Endeavor's approach towards building community?? 2. What's next for Endeavor? Hint: it has everything to do with globalizing...

February 14: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Adolfo Roullion, founder and CEO at Frizata,  a direct-to-consumer vertically integrated frozen food tech company that has raised ~ $10M from the likes of the founder of Mercado Libre Marcos Galperin,  SP Ventures and Norte. In today's episode we will discuss:  1. What are the building blocks of 25 year strong partnership between Adolfo and his co-founder Jose Robledo?  2. Why big food companies...

February 2: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Victor Santos, founder and CEO at Liv Up, a São Paulo-based D2C healthy frozen food company that has raised over $70M from the likes of Kaszek, ThornTree Capital Partners, Lofoten Capital and many more. In today's episode we will discuss:  1. What are the core skills required to manage complex businesses that combine tech and operations capabilities? 2. What are the most important lessons of...

January 24: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Francisco Jardim, co-founder and general partner at SP Ventures, a São Paulo-based pioneer venture capital investor in agrifoodtech space in Latin America whose portfolio include the likes of Agrolend,  Agrofy and Frizata and that's backed by corporate and industry giants like Yara Growth Ventures, Syngenta and Banco do Brasil.  In today's episode we will discuss:  1. What are the ultimate traits...

January 17: For the first episode of the J Curve in 2023 I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Alan Glezer, co-founder and CFO at Agrolend that has recently raised over $27M in Series B led by Lightrock  and joined by Yara Growth Ventures, SP Ventures and Valor Capital Group. In today's episode we will learn:  1. Profitability vs growth. What should founders focus on during adverse market environment? 2. What are the focus areas in agriculture Alan is excited about? 3. What is...

In this final episode of the year we are taking a look back at top 10 most listened episodes of the year and sharing our favorite insights from each and every one of them. If you would like to get more insight from LatAm's leading tech founders and investors, subscribe to our newsletter on our website https://www.thejcurve.com and follow us on Spotify or Apple. The J Curve on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejcurvepodcast/ Olga is an entrepreneur, venture capital investor, mentor...

December 12: For the final episode of the J Curve in 2022 I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Marcos Salama, founder and CEO at Inventa, Brazil's leading digital marketplace for small retailers and suppliers in Latin America that has raised over $80m in venture capital from the likes of Greylock, a16z, Founders Fund, Tiger Global, monashees, One VC and MAYA. In today's episode we will learn:   1. What are the unique challenges of building and scaling a B2B marketplace solution in...

November 21: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Guilherme Weigert, founder and CEO at Conexa Saude, Brazil's leading telemedicine and digital health platform that manages over 20M lives and that has recently raised ~$40M Series C from the likes of  General Atlantic, Goldman Sachs and Igah Ventures. In today's episode we will learn:   1. When, why and how to pivot a healthcare business: Conexa's experience 2. What were the most challenging aspects...

November 7: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Eduardo Carone, founder and CEO at Atlas Governance, Brazil's leading software platform for corporate governance management that has recently raised $5M Series A from the likes of  Volpe Capital and DSK Capital. In today's episode we will learn:   1. What's subjectivism and how to apply that philosophy to business? 2. What are the biggest mistakes startups make as they build enterprise sales? 3. What...

October 31: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Marcelo Lombardo, founder and CEO at Omie, a São Paulo based ERP platform that has raised over $138M from the likes of SoftBank, Tencent, Riverwood Capital, Dynamo, Velt, Bogari Capital, Hix Capital,  Brasil Capital and Astella.  In today's episode we will learn:   1. Why is it so hard to build partnerships as a core sales channel? What was the impact of switching from digital ads to partnering with...

October 17: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Rodrigo Tognini, a founder and CEO at Conta Simples, a São Paulo based financial platform for SMBs that has recently raised $24M Series A from Tinder founders Justin Mateen's JAM Fund, Valor Capital, Base10 Partners, Y Combinator and Big Bets. In today's episode we will learn:   1. How do you define a product market fit? What are the actual signs of it? 2. How to think about market segmentation when...

October 3: For this episode of the J Curve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Daniel Ibri, a founder and General Partner at Mindset Ventures, an early stage Sao Paulo based VC firm that invests in B2B startups in Israel and the United States, that just did the first closing of their brand new $100M Fund IV and whose portfolio includes tech unicorns Brex and  Turing. In today's episode we will learn:   1. How to build a high performing portfolio on competitive markets like Israel...

September 14: For this episode of the JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Benjamin Gleason, founder and Head of Strategy & Corporate Development at Kamino, Sao Paulo-based end-to-end financial hub for high growth businesses in Latin America that has recently raised over $6M in pre-seed capital from Inspired Capital, Global Founders Capital, Fontes, Picus Capital and Flourish.  In today's episode we will learn:  1. What are Benjamin's key learnings of building Guiabolso...

August 31: For this episode of the JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Parker Treacy, founder and CEO at Cobli, Brazilian telematics and fleet management platform that has recently raised $35M Series B from the likes of Softbank, Fifth Wall, Qualcomm Ventures and Valor Capital. Prior to that, Parker founded First Help Financial now one of the largest independent auto finance companies in the United States. In today's episode we will learn:  1. What are Parker's key...

August 22:  For this episode of The JCurve I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Guilherme Azevedo, founder and Head of Health at Brazilian healthcare company Alice that has recently raised $127M Series C from the likes of SoftBank, Kaszek and Globo Ventures. Prior to that Guilherme co-founded another health company Dr. Consulta and Brazil's largest tilapia fish farm GeneSeas. In today's episode we will learn:  1. What are the critical elements of building a founding team? 2. What...