Alexandre Zolko, Founder at $400M Customer Loyalty Platform CRM&Bonus: Build to Last, Not to Sell

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 Kleiner Perkins partner, whose internet trends report is considered one of the most influential reports in the world of tech and venture capital. With CRM&BONUS Bond makes its first bet in Latin America. The list of CRM&BONUS’s prior backers includes the likes of Softbank, Riverwood Capital, Volpe Capital and Igah Ventures. The company, which is Alexandre’s 8th entrepreneurial adventure, was started in 2018, been profitable since the third month of operations and was bootstrapped until the Series A in 2021. Together we explore Alexandre’s early fascination with sales, learnings from his prior entrepreneurial experiences, his approach towards building the ecosystem of products in customer loyalty space and what it takes to raise capital from some of the best investors in the world. In today's episode we discuss:  1. Ownership mentality: how to build a company that puts customer first? 2. Profitability as a fundraising strategy: how to attract high quality VC investments in a startup? 3. The CRM&BONUS playbook: how to strategically build a product ecosystem? 4. Speed: The Power of focus in accelerating startup growth 5. Beyond AI: what is the future of customer loyalty market? If you would like to get more insight from LatAm's leading tech founders and investors, subscribe to our new ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  Follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Olga is an entrepreneur, venture capital investor, mentor at Techstars and founder at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Latin America's leading English speaking podcast about tech builders. She's been investing in the USA, SEA and Latin America for over 13 years. Companies she backed include tech unicorn ClassPass (acquired by Mindbody) and Vitalk (acquired by Gympass).