The J Curve with Olga Maslikhova

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova sit down with their first-ever TJC Debrief guest — Ivana Delevska, Founder and CIO of Spear Invest and Portfolio Manager of the Spear Alpha ETF (SPRX, Nasdaq), one of the best-performing actively managed AI ETFs. Ivana spent a decade at Tiger Management, Millennium, and Citadel before founding Spear, where she now runs over $100M in AUM as a one-person fund augmented by AI. This is the June 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets through a global lens.We cover where $1 of AI spend actually goes — 50% to compute, 15–20% to networking, 15% to power and physical build-out — and why networking is the most under-the-radar layer of the value chain, why behind-the-meter power and former Bitcoin mining sites (Applied Digital) are the most overlooked plays in AI infrastructure, why Latin America could become a serious data center alternative to the US given cheaper electricity and faster permits, why hyperscaler-backed offtake deals are solving the cost-of-capital problem for data center build-outs, the SpaceX IPO at $1.77 trillion and 60x forward revenue with only 15% growth — and why Paulo thinks the employee lockup wall is the biggest risk, why Anthropic at ~$1T with $15B revenue scaling to $200B in 2027 is the more reasonable bet on a 12-month horizon while SpaceX is the better 10-year hold, why the application layer is where the next wave of billion-dollar revenue companies will emerge — using Higgsfield as a case study going from $0 to nearly $500M in revenue in one year by orchestrating 30 video models, why speed and revenue per employee ($1–10M is the new bar) are the only real moats left in software, why Elon is the "king of hardware" and what the EPC contractor insourcing playbook actually looks like, why community is the anti-AI moat — from independent watchmaker collector groups to Corgi's coffee shop in Silicon Valley, why the air pocket of AI demand is the real risk to watch (token prices are the early signal), and why wealth concentration from the AI boom is the biggest macro risk of all — and what forced-savings products and intelligent wealth transfer mechanisms could prevent it.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Felipe Carvalho is Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Camu — an AI workflow automation platform. Previously, Felipe spent 10 years building the global go-to-market organization at Pipefy alongside founder Alessio Alionço, scaling a horizontal workflow platform that serves Volvo, Capgemini, IBM, Accenture, Visa, Santander, Itaú, and thousands of other SMBs and enterprises across Brazil, the US, and beyond. Before Pipefy, he built and scaled the fundraising function at Hospital Pequeno Príncipe — Brazil's largest children's hospital — raising over $20M and growing a team of 50.In this TJC Operators episode, Felipe shares the brutal sales lesson from Pipefy — why selling everything to everyone is a GTM trap that hides inefficiency through inbound demand, and why outbound exposed it overnight. He walks through the "who would be crazy not to buy this" framework from Seth Shaw (former CRO of Airtable) that reshaped Pipefy's outbound motion, how Camu got from 1–2% to 17% to 33% conversion by progressively narrowing focus to a single ERP (SAP Business One) and one specific workflow (invoice intake), why charging monthly with no strings attached was the cleanest way to validate true product-market fit, the Sean Ellis "very disappointed" PMF survey methodology and how Camu hit high-50s on a V1 product, why saying no to massive enterprise RFPs is a superpower in the early days, how Felipe now manages 68 active opportunities solo by using Claude and AI to automate 50–70% of sales back-office work (CRM updates, ROI calculations, proposal generation, deal-power scoring), the FCA (Fact, Cause, Action) framework Pipefy used to run monthly results meetings and why analyzing wins matters as much as analyzing losses, why "building a plane is different from flying a plane" — and why founders should nail the sales playbook themselves before hiring senior enterprise sellers, the shift from selling software-as-a-service to delivering recurring impact and how risk has moved from buyer to seller in the AI era, and the lesson he most wants Brazilian founders to learn about building credibility before the market gives it to you.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova break down the two forces reshaping tech and capital markets right now — the end of 40 years of global integration as the US-China tech split hardens, and the collapse of the services moat as AI lets companies scale from $0 to $100M in revenue in 24 months by replacing labor. This is the May 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets through a global lens.We cover why China blocked Meta's $2 billion Manus acquisition and what the new US-led versus China-led ecosystem split means for global M&A, how SoftBank's blocked Arm-NVIDIA sale cost half a trillion dollars in value creation and why deals like it will keep happening, Anthropic's $50B round closing in 48 hours with secondary markets pricing ahead of the primary and what it reveals about AI's escape velocity, why Anthropic and OpenAI are forming joint ventures with Blackstone, TPG, Apollo, Sequoia, General Atlantic, and GIC to lock in compute capacity and guaranteed revenue, Plata's $5B round and why Qatar Investment Authority, US endowments, and long-only funds piled in alongside Valor Capital — and what mispriced Russian and Eastern European talent has to do with it, why data is becoming the last real moat and how Nubank, Revolut, CloudWalk, Mercado Libre, and JPMorgan are racing to train proprietary models on their own customer data, the radiologist paradox and what it predicts for tax accountants, lawyers, and every services job AI is supposed to kill, the legal AI startup Enter and the wild story of prompt injections hidden in PDFs filed to courts, why humanoid robots at $600/month today and $100/month in ten years will reshape global labor markets, Elon Musk and SpaceX as the "build potential, then monetize" playbook, and the $0 to $100M in 24 months phenomenon — why early movers in vertical AI are already hitting this scale and where the next opportunities will emerge across legal, wealth management, healthcare, and security.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Latin America is the third-largest fintech and payments market in the world — bigger than India, behind only the US and China. Gastón Irigoyen is Co-Founder and CEO of Pomelo, the fintech infrastructure company powering card issuing and processing for banks, fintechs, and global enterprises across eight markets including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Pomelo is backed by Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Kaszek, Monashees, and most recently Adams Street Partners in their first-ever Latin American investment.In this episode of The J Curve, Gastón unpacks the contrarian playbook behind Pomelo: why the team went regional from day zero on a $10M seed round instead of nailing one market first, how they built a "plug and play" hiring engine that's stayed at 90%+ since founding, why they tripled revenue without adding headcount, and what it actually takes to win enterprise customers like BBVA, Santander, Bci, Bancolombia, Binance, and Bybit when nobody trusts an infrastructure startup. He also shares the Series B-to-Series C lessons most founders never document — including the end-of-year memo that turned rejections into investor trust — and his framework for the AI transformation a five-year-old company is now being forced to run.This is a masterclass on regional-by-design strategy, B2B fintech go-to-market, founder-led fundraising in down markets, and building world-class companies from Latin America for the world.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova break down Claude 4.6, Brex’s $5.15B sale to Capital One, and why only 4 US companies can IPO right now. This is the April 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets for Latin American founders and investors.We cover why Claude 4.6 was a bigger “aha moment” than the original ChatGPT for building companies and how it’s rewiring CTO roles, org design, and the question of what a moat even is anymore, how Nubank, Revolut, Tether, and Plata are reshaping consumer finance and why Paulo thinks regional US banks are an “aberration” that shouldn’t legally exist, the Brex x Capital One deal, Ramp’s software multiple, and what the prof stack saving late-stage LPs means for every fintech exit going forward, Brazil’s IPO window cracking open and Mexico’s sudden flood of Sequoia, Founders Fund, and a16z capital, why Paulo thinks many employees are already “worse than AI” and why every salary should now come with a token budget, how he built a working marketplace in three hours on Perplexity Comet without writing a line of code, and the coming collapse of low-ROI universities and what it means for talent in LATAM.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Pedro Conrade is the founder of Neon — a $1B run-rate Brazilian neobank that serves millions of underbanked Brazilians and has raised $924M from General Atlantic, BBVA, BlackRock, and PayPal. In this TJC Originals episode, Pedro shares how he survived the 72-hour crisis that almost killed Neon in 2018, how engagement data beats credit scoring, and the fundraising playbook behind a decade of capital efficiency.We cover how to build a profitable neobank in an emerging market and why serving the underbanked is a better business than it looks, why engagement data beats credit scoring and what that means for fintech underwriting at scale, the 72-hour crisis that almost ended Neon and the real-time decisions Pedro made to save it, how Neon uses AI agents to handle collections, compliance, and customer support and what that means for headcount at scale, the fundraising playbook behind $924M raised from General Atlantic, BBVA, BlackRock, and PayPal, and why M&A destroys more value than it creates — and when it actually makes sense for a startup.Pedro also shares why the constraints of serving Brazil’s underbanked population made efficiency non-negotiable, and why that same constraint became Neon’s most durable advantage.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Stelleo Tolda co-founded MercadoLibre in 1999 and ran Brazil for 25 years — building the $100B company into Latin America’s most valuable publicly traded business. In this TJC Operators series premiere, Stelleo unpacks how MercadoLibre outlasted 80 competitors, declared war on Amazon, scaled logistics from 8% to 95% in-house, and architected a three-year succession that actually stuck.We cover how MercadoLibre outlasted 80 competitors while charging the highest fees in the market, the dot-com crash survival playbook and what scarcity forces you to do right, why MercadoLibre declared war on Amazon and what happened in that war room, the 2010 technology bet of throwing away everything and rebuilding from scratch, the adjacency principle that turned one marketplace into payments, logistics, credit, and advertising, why MercadoLibre chose to build versus buy at every inflection point, investing in logistics CapEx as a public company and how to bring Wall Street along, the Champions League analogy for competing against the world’s best, how MercadoLibre codified its culture at scale, the succession playbook from advisor to board member to gone, what great board members actually do, and why scarcity makes Latin America’s builders better in the age of AI.Stelleo also shares why the worst thing for an entrepreneur is abundance — and why the next generation of iconic Latin American companies is being built right now.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Hernan Kazah is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kaszek Ventures — Latin America’s largest venture firm, backing Nubank, Kavak, Gympass (Wellhub), and 100+ other LATAM companies. He previously co-founded MercadoLibre, now a $100B public company. In this Season 5 premiere, Hernan shares how Kaszek evaluates founders, why the default outcome in venture is failure, the venture power law behind generational returns, and how AI is reshaping the future of software in LATAM.We cover the early strategic decisions that allowed MercadoLibre to win, why the default outcome for founders is failure, how Kaszek evaluates founders and investment opportunities, the venture capital power law and why investors must be right only a few times, what it takes to build a generational venture capital institution in Latin America, the impact of AI on software and the future of SaaS, how great founders actually get identified, and the evolution of the Latin American tech ecosystem.Hernan also explains why building a startup in Latin America is like “climbing Everest on top of a rollercoaster” — and why the next generation of iconic companies is still ahead.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Paulo Passoni is Managing Partner at Valor Capital — one of the most active crossover investors in Latin America, with positions in Nubank, Plata, CloudWalk, and dozens of public tech companies globally. This is round two with Paulo, following the most-played episode in J Curve history.We cover why speed is the last real moat in the age of AI, why Anthropic may be a safer bet than OpenAI, the hiring rule at Perplexity that sounds insane until you understand what it unlocks, the 10,000-year clock Jeff Bezos is building inside a mountain and the founder mindset behind it, how capital markets are pricing Ramp vs. CloudWalk at radically different multiples despite similar revenue scale, why the Mag 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla) now sit at the center of global power dynamics, why LPs and capital allocators remain split on LATAM and what each side is optimizing for, and what it means to be deliberately more human in the age of AI.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Dileep Thazhmon is Founder and CEO of Jeeves, a global corporate card and expense management platform serving SMBs across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and 15+ other markets. Bruno Maimone is Managing Director at Warburg Pincus, a $90B+ AUM global growth equity firm.In this conversation, Dileep and Bruno break down why Brazil went from six $100M ARR companies to thirty in a few years, whether AI is killing SaaS, why growth investors underwrite M&A more seriously than IPOs right now, and what “right to win” means before any LATAM founder goes global. Toward the end, Olga brings in questions from the live audience in the room during the recording.This is the episode to send to your co-founder, your board, and the WhatsApp group where everyone is not fundraising just yet.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Roberto Dagnoni is Executive Chairman of Mercado Bitcoin — Brazil’s largest crypto exchange. Ben Lizana is Principal at SoftBank Latin America. Gui Gomes is Founder and CEO of OranjeBTC. Recorded live at Digital Assets Conference 2025 in São Paulo, this panel covers the real bottleneck to mainstream crypto adoption, why Latin America’s volatility is creating a global edge, why public markets are suddenly hungry for digital-asset IPOs, and how stablecoins and tokenization are reshaping reserve assets.We cover the real bottleneck to mainstream adoption — the factor slowing growth more than technology, liquidity, or regulation, the emerging-market advantage and why Latin America’s volatility and innovation pressure are creating a global edge, the new IPO class and why public markets are suddenly hungry for digital-asset companies, lessons from the last crypto cycle on the mindset founders and investors need to navigate hype and downturns, the future of digital money and how reserve assets, tokenization, stablecoins, and macro shifts will shape global adoption, and the everyday impact of how new financial primitives are already reducing friction in ordinary transactions.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Olga Maslikhova, Founder and Host of The J Curve, breaks down what four Latin American founders did differently — Daniel Vogel (Bitso, $2.2B), Caique Carvalho (Gringo, $200M exit to Corpay), Tiago Dalvi (Olist, $10B GMV), and Piero Contezini (Asaas, 37 revenue streams). This is a strategic debrief on why the friction that makes emerging markets “too hard” is exactly what makes them defensible.We cover the infrastructure decision of when to build from scratch versus orchestrate what exists and why control beats features in volatile markets, the contrarian bet that won Mexico as Bitso ignored the entire crypto industry’s narrative and built the bridge instead, the tattoo marketplace that failed and what Caique learned about the difference between problems people tolerate and problems they’ll pay to eliminate, the pivot that required courage as Tiago offered to return investor money and what that decision revealed about founder clarity, distribution as product design and why Gringo built for WhatsApp first, the four-layer playbook behind how Asaas went from “help SMBs get paid” to 37 revenue streams, the M&A playbook behind Olist’s four-step integration strategy, and why 2,600 hours on taxes equals $185M raised — the value of inefficiency and why vertical SaaS works differently in Latin America than anywhere else.This is a masterclass in seeing opportunity where others see impossibility.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Daniel Vogel is Co-Founder and CEO of Bitso — Latin America’s first crypto unicorn, valued at $2.2B and serving millions of users across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia.In this conversation, Daniel shares the pilot’s mindset of leadership and what flying small planes taught him about control, composure, and crisis management, the risk paradox of building in volatile markets from a culture defined by risk-aversion, the product decision that killed the competition — how owning the tech stack became Bitso’s unseen edge, the end game of crypto and why Daniel thinks AI agents will eat the crypto market before humans do, and the paradox of rivalry that turned competition into Bitso’s great source of discipline and growth.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Caique Carvalho is Co-Founder and former Chief Product Officer of Gringo — a Brazilian super app for drivers that was acquired by Sem Parar (owned by NYSE-listed Corpay) for approximately $200M. Before Gringo, Caique built two failed startups that taught him everything about product-market fit.In this episode, Caique shares the hard lessons behind two failed startups and how they shaped his approach to product-market fit, the principles of great UX and why listening to customers isn’t enough, the 80/20 rule of growth and why mastering one acquisition channel drove most of Gringo’s traction, the business-model decisions that turned a WhatsApp MVP into a platform processing billions of reais in transactions annually, the art of building a cap table with Kaszek, VEF, and Valor Capital for their complementary strengths, and the culture principles that helped the team scale without losing its startup DNA.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Piero Contezini is Founder and Executive Chairman of Asaas — a Brazilian fintech platform serving thousands of SMBs, processing billions in payments, and backed by SoftBank, Bond, and Bradesco. Asaas has evolved from a Stripe-for-Brazil experiment into a full-stack financial operating system with 37 revenue streams.In this episode, Piero shares why service companies can’t scale like product companies, how one SME pain point grew into 37 revenue streams, the fintech monetization model tied directly to customer success, the radical culture rules that shaped Asaas (8-hour workdays and a zero-bug policy), and how PIX and Open Finance reshaped Brazil’s fintech landscape.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider Newsletter⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠.

Julio Vasconcellos is Managing Partner at Atlantico — a leading Latin American venture firm and publisher of the Latin America Digital Transformation Report, now in its 6th edition. Julio was previously Facebook’s first country lead in Brazil and co-founder of Peixe Urbano.In this episode, Julio unpacks why local LATAM VC funds have quietly outperformed global peers and what it will take to attract more LP capital, why Mexico is suddenly attracting Sequoia, Founders Fund, and a16z capital and what it means for investors placing their first bets, the geopolitics of tech and what’s driving the 39% of Brazilians who say they’d align with China over the U.S., Pix’s relentless rise with 87% corporate penetration and $15B in fee savings and what it means for Visa, Mastercard, and fintechs, Brazil’s AI moment following Microsoft’s $2.7B AI/cloud investment, and the founder archetypes Atlantico’s research identifies as most likely to win in Latin America.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Tiago Dalvi is the solo founder and CEO of Olist — Brazil’s leading e-commerce operating system, serving 45,000+ merchants and processing 60 billion reais annually in Brazil’s $60B+ e-commerce market. Olist has raised $314M from SoftBank, Wellington Management, Goldman Sachs, Valor Capital Group, and Accel partner Kevin Efrusy.In this episode, Tiago shares how Olist went from a single storefront to a multi-product operating system for 45,000+ merchants, the three pillars of high-performing boards and why the best ones keep evolving, the M&A integration playbook including why protecting new acquisitions from the gravitational pull of core operations is critical and why earnouts are so tricky to get right, Olist’s vision of intelligent commerce and how AI-powered decision-making could reshape SMB operations across Latin America’s fragmented ecosystem, and the investor breakup playbook — why Tiago parts ways with board members he “really likes,” what tough conversations are required when someone who got you to $10M isn’t right for $100M, and how secondaries help recycle the cap table without burning bridges.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠Newsletter⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ or ⁠Instagram⁠.

Olga Maslikhova, Founder and Host of The J Curve, breaks down why 90% of LATAM founders struggle to raise venture capital — and the patterns behind every major success story from Nubank to QuintoAndar. This isn’t about product or market — it’s about understanding the game VCs are actually playing. Olga covers the fund economics that drive every investment decision, the founder profiles that get fast-tracked, the three business models that dominate portfolios, the four-element framework for stacking the odds in your favor, why fundraising is actually B2B sales, how to evaluate VCs before they evaluate you, and the exit math that determines premium outcomes.We cover the Goldman/McKinsey pattern — why the majority of funded LATAM founders share investment banking or top consulting backgrounds, and how to borrow credibility if you don’t have it, the fund math reality check — how a $300M fund needs $6B+ outcomes from single deals and why this changes everything about what VCs actually fund, the Stanford platform mindset of shifting from “solving problems” to “designing market architecture,” market timing and how 2012’s 3G+smartphones created unicorns while 2025’s Pix+AI+Open Finance could be bigger, the 4-element fundable startup framework (backable founder profile + compounding business model + broken market + perfect timing), fundraising as B2B sales and why treating VCs as prospects with systematic qualification and follow-up changes outcomes, the venture capital fund cycle and how a $100M fund in year 2 beats a $500M fund in year 8, and the multi-country premium — why regional businesses price higher than local ones and how to build global buyer optionality from day one.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠ and follow Olga on ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠.

Daniela Binatti is Co-Founder and CTO of Pismo — acquired by Visa for $1B cash. Carlos Costa is Managing Partner at Valor Capital ($2B+ AUM), early investor in CloudWalk ($2.15B valuation), Wellhub ($2.2B valuation), and Pismo ($1B exit). Romero Rodrigues sold Buscapé to Naspers for $374M and is now Managing Partner at Headline, with early bets on Pismo and Wellhub. Recorded live in São Paulo with AWS, this roundtable covers the exact strategies behind three of Latin America’s most consequential $1B+ exits.We cover the “bonds vs options” framework — how Brazilian companies use stable local cash flow to fund aggressive global expansion bets, why LATAM-to-LATAM expansion is a trap with the same operational complexity as global markets but negligible valuation impact, the 25-year compounding curve and why Pismo’s real growth phase began after the $1B acquisition, global infrastructure strategy and why multi-country, multi-currency architecture must be built from day one rather than retrofitted later, the market education playbook behind converting banks from on-premise skeptics to SaaS believers across 78 countries, the Brazil advantage of pressure-testing global-ready products in a 150M+ user domestic market, and when borderless business models should skip local validation entirely.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠Newsletter⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ or ⁠Instagram⁠.

Vitor Asseituno is CEO and Co-Founder of Sami — Brazil’s fastest-growing health insurance startup, serving 20,000+ customers across 11 Brazilian cities in the $60B private health insurance market. Sami has raised $65M in total funding.In this episode, Vitor shares the “pipeline mathematics” behind turning 100+ VC rejections into a Series B raise, investor psychology and what resonates when pitching complex healthcare business models, how embracing broker networks after everyone said “avoid them” drives 50%+ of Sami’s sales, AI workflow implementation delivering $800+ monthly savings per clinician and 30% EMR compliance improvement, the loss ratio optimization tactics that cut losses from 85% to 53% of premiums, and why regional focus beats national scale in Brazil’s complex healthcare market.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider Newsletter and follow Olga on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Welcome to Season 4 of The J Curve with me, Olga Maslikhova.This week, I sit down with Federico Vega, founder and CEO of Frete.com—the largest freight matching platform in Latin America.Federico’s story is anything but conventional: he grew up in a small town in Patagonia, left a career in investment banking at JP Morgan in London, and moved—without speaking the language—to Brazil to reinvent an entire industry. What started as a Facebook group for truck drivers has evolved into a logistics giant, processing nearly $18 billion in freight transactions annually and serving ~900,000 active drivers—roughly 80% of Brazil’s entire trucking fleet.In this episode, Federico shares how Frete.comsolved the classic chicken-and-egg dilemma, scaled a fragmented industry from the ground up, and transformed Brazilian complexity into a competitive moat. It’s a masterclass in grit, product obsession, and doing things that don’t scale.Here’s what we cover:How to break network effects open in traditional industriesWhy doing unscalable things early creates lasting strategic edgeWhat Brazilian truck stops taught Federico about product designHow to use AI and data to combat fraud and drive operational leverageThe culture-building playbook behind Frete.com’s growthFor founders building in complex markets—and investors betting on logistics and fintech as the future—this episode is a must-listen.More from us: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we go beyond the podcast to break down the most exciting investment & tech trends in LATAM. Sharp. Concise. Real business strategies and market insights you won’t find anywhere else. Delivered straight to your inbox.Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram

Welcome to this special solo episode of Season 4 of The J Curve with me, Olga Maslikhova.Every few months, I zoom out to reflect on the lessons that stuck with me from the show. Think of this as your quarterly operator’s memo—especially if you’re building, raising, or investing in Latin America.Q2 was full of sharp insights and real operator depth. But in this edition of The J Curve Insider, I won’t recap every episode.I’ll go deep into three. João Del Valle (EBANX), Mike Packer (QED), and Gustavo Mapeli (Kanastra).We’ll unpack EBANX’s global growth playbook, explore how QED built conviction around LATAM as an outsider VC—and what they’re betting on next—and break down how Kanastra scaled by defying startup orthodoxy.Here’s what I’ll get into:→ In LATAM, complexity isn’t a bug—it’s the moat.→ Revenue is the best anti-dilution strategy.→ In frontier markets, global expansion is a risk management.→ Outsiders win in LATAM when they think like founders: test, learn, commit.→ Multi-product vs. single-product: what founders need to ask before picking a lane.If you enjoy today’s episode, please rate us on Spotify, subscribe to our newsletter at ⁠blog.thejcurve.com⁠, and follow us on YouTube (@thejcurvepodcast) and Instagram (@olgamaslikhova).Let’s get into it.

Welcome to Season 4 of The J Curve with me, Olga Maslikhova.This week, I sit down with Caetano Lacerda and Raphael Dyxklay, co-founders of Brazilian fintech Barte, which is transforming the payments and working capital landscape for mid-to-large companies.Barte’s journey is a masterclass in efficient growth: from zero to $10M ARR in less than two years on just $1.5M of burn—and then growing sustainably to $20M ARR. Along the way, they’ve pioneered a build-in-public strategy that attracts customers, builds trust, and fosters engagement. They’ve also developed sharp insights into segmenting by use case rather than industry, prioritizing speed and first-principles thinking, and leveraging customer feedback to scale efficiently—insights that have become part of their DNA and that they generously share in this conversation.Here’s what we cover:What founders need to know about horizontal vs. vertical strategies in B2BWhy building in public is more than a marketing tactic—it’s a B2B growth engineHow to find product-market fit in fragmented, high-friction industriesWhat Brazilian complexity taught Barte about opportunity and executionLessons in prioritizing product bets when everything feels urgentThis episode is the second in a special three-part series brought to you by AWS.AWS has become a key growth partner for Latin America’s startup ecosystem—helping founders scale from idea to IPO with world-class cloud infrastructure, local expertise, and a global support network. We’re incredibly happy to partner with them.For founders and investors who see Latin America’s friction as an opportunity—and fintech as the future—this conversation is a must-listen.More from us: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we go beyond the podcast to break down the most exciting investment & tech trends in LATAM. Sharp. Concise. Real business strategies and market insights you won’t find anywhere else. Delivered straight to your inbox.Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram

Del Valle is Co-Founder and CEO of EBANX — one of Latin America’s most iconic fintech stories, processing billions in cross-border payments across 29 countries and powering transactions for Spotify, AliExpress, and Shein. EBANX is backed by Advent International in one of the firm’s largest-ever tech deals. Founded in Curitiba, outside Brazil’s traditional tech hub, EBANX was built global-by-design from day one.In this episode, João shares how regulatory and payment complexity became core to EBANX’s GTM playbook, what 2022–2023 taught him about discipline and founder-mode leadership, how he leads distributed teams across the U.S., China, and Latin America, what it means to scale sustainably without blitzscaling, and tactical insight on navigating cross-border regulation, local payment rails, and real-time systems like Pix and UPI.Subscribe to​ our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram.

Welcome to Season 4 of The J Curve with me, Olga Maslikhova.Last week I got to spend a few days in cidade maravilhosa—Rio de Janeiro—for Web Summit, which this year attracted over 37,000 people. The event was action-packed—both inside the venue and across the city, with an incredible lineup of side events.It was a milestone week for The J Curve. We recorded our very first live episode on stage—a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for a long time, and the one we’re releasing today: a live interview with Mike Packer, partner at QED Investors.QED is the legendary firm founded by Frank Rotman and Nigel Morris—the creators of Capital One and pioneers of data-driven credit long before it became mainstream. They’ve been betting on Latin America for over a decade. Their first investment in the region was Nubank, now the most valuable digital bank in the world.Here’s what we cover:— Why growth capital is the new frontier in LatAm— What makes a founder truly fundable in 2025+— AI’s real impact across QED’s portfolio— What it really takes to IPO from LatAm— The vertical SaaS trap—and the case for vertical AIMore from us: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we go beyond the podcast to break down the most exciting investment & tech trends in LATAM. Sharp. Concise. Real business strategies and market insights you won’t find anywhere else. Delivered straight to your inbox.Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram

Welcome to Season 4 of The J Curve 🎙️This week, I sit down with Marcelo Lutz and Roberto Biselli, the co-founders and co-CEOs of Capim—a vertical SaaS + fintech company that started as an MBA class project and is now doing $10M+ in ARR, serving thousands of dental clinics across Brazil.Their story breaks every rule—and proves that in Latin America’s most fragmented industries, the right wedge isn’t software. It’s credit.Instead of trying to “disrupt” dentistry with a standard SaaS tool, Marcelo and Roberto built a credit product tailor-made for the quirks of Brazilian clinics—and used it to build their way into a much bigger platform play.Here’s what we cover:• How Capim reached $10M+ ARR in 3 years without a traditional SaaS GTM• Supply-side fragmentation as a feature—not a bug—for B2B marketplaces• Understanding distribution in offline markets—without relying on paid ads• What 70,000+ dental procedures taught Capim about underwriting and risk• How to think about product sequencing in complex industriesMore from us: Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠⁠, where we go beyond the podcast to break down the most exciting investment & tech trends in LATAM. Sharp. Concise. Real business strategies and market insights you won’t find anywhere else. Delivered straight to your inbox.Follow us on⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram

Welcome to this special solo episode of Season 4 of The J Curve with me, Olga Maslikhova.Every few months, I take a step back from the interviews to zoom out, connect the dots, and reflect on the themes that emerged from our conversations with Latin America’s most driven founders and sharpest investors.This quarter, the learnings hit hard.From Paulo Passoni’s breakdown of growth-stage capital and the M&A trap, to Roberto Oliveira’s slow-and-steady playbook at Blip, to Guilherme Horn’s vision for conversational commerce and fintech infrastructure on WhatsApp, to André Penha’s disciplined expansion strategy at QuintoAndar—one truth kept resurfacing:In Latin America, the founders who win don’t just ride momentum. They build leverage.Here’s what I cover:• Why M&A caps in LatAm create a hidden trap for venture-backed startups• The SoftBank boom, and what it got right—and wrong—about the region• How control, not capital, gave Blip the upper hand in choosing investors• Why the next wave of winners will scale productivity—not headcount• The difference between surviving a downturn and compounding through it• How conversational commerce + AI is reshaping the frontend and backend of business• What Andre Penha’s expansion philosophy can teach us about product sequencing• Why the real fintech opportunity isn’t credit—it’s infrastructure and insight• And why sometimes the boldest thing a founder can do… is walk away and start againThis is your quarterly operator’s memo—full of tactical insight, strategic frameworks, and hard-won lessons from the frontlines of building in Latin America.If you enjoy today’s episode, please rate us on Spotify, subscribe to our newsletter at blog.thejcurve.com, and follow us on YouTube (@thejcurvepodcast) and Instagram (@olgamaslikhova).Let’s get into it.

Gustavo Mapeli is Co-Founder of Kanastra, a Brazilian fintech replacing the $300B private credit market infrastructure still running on Excel.In this episode, Gustavo shares how Brazil became fertile ground for fintech infrastructure as regulation, wealth decentralization, and embedded finance created the perfect storm, the contrarian decision to go multi-product from day one and why Kanastra had no other choice, how Kanastra is winning in a concentrated low-tech market through trust, reputation, and distribution tactics built for a system running on inertia, why the best cultures are the most exclusive and how Gustavo thinks about hiring on high-performance teams, and the story of the 15-year friendship with his co-founder and how they built what Gustavo calls an “unbreakable” partnership.Subscribe to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights or follow us on⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠Instagram

Roberto Oliveira is Founder and CEO of Blip, the Brazilian company powering billions of WhatsApp conversations across Latin America and backed by Warburg Pincus, SoftBank, and Microsoft. Roberto bootstrapped Blip for two decades before raising outside capital.In this episode, Roberto shares why websites and apps are being replaced by messaging and how brands need to adapt now, how AI is transforming sales, marketing, and customer service at scale, why Brazil is the perfect lab for the future of business, and the playbook for taking Blip global — where the biggest opportunities lie and why the U.S. is lagging behind.This one’s about product timing, strategic architecture, and building a truly global company starting from Belo Horizonte.Subscribe​ to our weekly newsletter ⁠⁠The J Curve Insider⁠⁠, for deeper insights and follow Olga on⁠⁠ LinkedIn⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠Instagram

Guilherme Horn is Head of WhatsApp for Strategic Markets — Brazil, India, and Indonesia — and previously founded Agora and Orama, two Brazilian fintech pioneers. In this episode, Guilherme breaks down how WhatsApp became the default commerce, banking, and business infrastructure in Brazil, what conversational AI means for retail and financial services, why Brazil is Meta’s most valuable market globally for commerce innovation, and what’s coming next for WhatsApp Business and AI agents.We cover why WhatsApp is replacing websites and apps and the rise of C-commerce, why Brazil leapfrogged the U.S. in digital adoption and the cultural and structural reasons behind WhatsApp’s dominance, AI in fintech and how automation will redefine credit, payments, and personal finance, how WhatsApp is becoming a financial services hub and the surprising ways banks are integrating into chat, and what founders must unlearn when they scale — why the skills that get you to $10M won’t get you to $100M.Subscribe to​ ⁠The J Curve Insider⁠ newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on⁠ LinkedIn⁠ or ⁠Instagram.

Andre Penha is Co-Founder of QuintoAndar — a $5B+ Brazilian real estate platform that raised $750M from SoftBank, General Atlantic, Kaszek, and others — and CEO of IBBX, a wireless electricity startup aiming to eliminate cables and batteries.In this episode, Andre shares why product beats storytelling in fundraising and how investors went from doubting QuintoAndar to fighting to get in, how QuintoAndar cracked real estate’s biggest inefficiencies by making transparency, speed, and reliability non-negotiable at scale, why he enforced a “No Assholes Allowed” hiring rule and fired high performers who didn’t align, the Option A vs. Option B framework he uses to make high-stakes resource decisions, how to turn your board into a growth accelerator rather than a time drain, and why wireless power is the next major industry and how IBBX is betting on the future of energy.If you’re a founder, investor, or operator focused on how to build generational companies, this episode is packed with unfiltered insights.Subscribe to The J Curve newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Paulo Passoni is Managing Partner at Valor Capital. He previously led SoftBank’s multi-billion-dollar investments in Latin America, serving on the boards of QuintoAndar, VTEX, and Creditas. This is the most-played episode in J Curve history.We cover why M&A is a broken exit strategy for LatAm VCs and why startups need to think bigger, the hard truth that a company needs $300M+ in revenue to realistically IPO, why the $200M acquisition trap kills LatAm’s unicorn potential, how SoftBank’s cash wave reshaped the market and the pricing mistakes investors (including Paulo) made, the scarcity of growth capital in LatAm and what it means for startups at Series B and beyond, how to spot truly “crazy” founders and why they’re the only ones who build billion-dollar businesses, and the game-changing role of AI in scaling startups faster with fewer people.If you’re building or investing in LatAm, this is the playbook.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

🎙️ No Guests, Just You & Me 🌍 Season 3 of The J Curve is officially wrapped, and I’m here to unpack the journey so far. From doubling our Spotify streams to hitting the top 5% of videocasts globally (what?!), this year has been a wild ride. In this solo ep, I’m breaking down: 🔥 Why podcasting is THE medium of the future. 🌎 LATAM’s tech explosion—blockbuster M&As, IPOs, and a pipeline of unicorns. 💡 The 10 life-changing lessons I’ve learned from 40+ brilliant founders. It’s bold. It’s personal. It’s everything you didn’t know you needed. 🎧 Tune in now and let’s close this season on a high note! 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).

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. Today we sit down with Allen Taylor, Managing Partner at Endeavor Catalyst, to explore his 18-year journey with Endeavor and the rise of emerging markets as thriving hubs for entrepreneurship. We discuss Allen’s personal path from California to becoming a global advocate for high-impact entrepreneurs, the creation of Endeavor Catalyst, and how the model fosters economic development through the multiplier effect. Notably, Allen shares how Endeavor Catalyst’s first $6 million pool achieved an impressive 8x cash-on-cash return, investing in companies like Globant and Yemeksepeti. This conversation dives deep into crafting sustainable investment models, the untapped opportunities in Latam in sectors like agribusiness and enterprise SaaS, and the importance of long-term thinking for emerging market growth. Whether you’re a founder aiming to scale globally or an investor seeking to unlock new markets, this episode is filled with powerful lessons and practical takeaways. We discuss 👇🏻 1. Think in Decades: Why Building Billion-Dollar Companies Requires Patience, Resilience, and a Long-Term Vision – and What’s Broken in the Classic VC Model 2. The Multiplier Effect Unlocked: The Three Defining Traits of Hyper-Successful Entrepreneurs 3. The $6M Bet That Returned 8x: How Emerging Markets Became Venture Capital’s Best Kept Secret 4. Scaling from $6M to $500M AUM: Inside the Endeavor Catalyst Playbook for Building a Global Venture Fund in Emerging Markets 5. The Next Big Markets: Where Endeavor Catalyst Is Placing Its Boldest Bets – From LATAM to Egypt and Beyond 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).

On this special episode of The J Curve, I swap roles with the incredible Veronica Serra—founding partner at Innova Capital and Endeavor Global board member. With dirty martinis in hand, I shared my entrepreneurial journey, life lessons, and love for Latin America’s startup ecosystem. A rare and unforgettable moment 🥂 Enjoy!

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America. Today we sit down with Marcelo Lombardo, the founder of Omie, to explore the journey from a seven-person startup to a 1,600-strong team transforming Brazil’s SMB ERP market. We discuss his unconventional path to entrepreneurship, pivotal business decisions like the shift to accountant partnerships, and how Omie became a key player in an incredibly complex and fragmented market. The list of Omie’s venture capital investors includes the likes of Riverwood Capital, Softbank and Astella. Marcelo shares insights on building resilient companies, navigating challenging fundraising landscapes, and leveraging M&A to fill strategic gaps. This conversation dives deep into crafting scalable sales processes, balancing growth with cash flow sustainability, and the lessons learned from his fascinating transition from tech to sales leadership. Whether you’re an entrepreneur scaling your venture or an investor seeking the next disruptive play, this episode is packed with actionable takeaways. We discuss 👇🏻 1. B2B sales playbook mastery: How Omie crafted a science-driven approach to sales that closes 40% of deals in the first meeting. 2. Breaking the VC2G trap: Why raising venture capital to spend on performance marketing is a losing strategy and how Omie escaped it. 3. Navigating Brazil’s complex tax system: How understanding and leveraging local nuances created a competitive moat in one of the world’s toughest markets. 4. The accountant hack that revolutionized customer acquisition”: How leveraging accountants turned OMI into a lead-generating machine. 5. Acquisition as a growth fuel: How Omie became an M&A machine to fast-track innovation and fill product gaps. 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).

Welcome to Season 3 of The J Curve, a podcast about entrepreneurship in Latin America with me, Olga Maslikhova. My guest today is Adhemar Milani Neto, founder and CEO of Kovi, an ‘all-inclusive’ car subscription platform for gig workers. Kovi has raised $145M from top investors like Valor Capital, Prosus Ventures, Quona, Monashees, Norte, Maya Capital, Globo Ventures, and Peter Thiel’s family office. In this episode, we talk about Brazil’s unique mobility landscape, the lessons from transforming Kovi from a pure tech company to an operational technology business, and how Adhemar is building a holistic company culture—plus so much more.In today's episode we discuss:​ Driving innovation: how Brazil’s mobility challenges are reshaping the market with subscriptions and connected technology​ Connect the dots: how transparency and proactive communication build stronger founder/VC partnerships?​ Complexity doesn't scale: how to build scalable operations with purpose and precision?​ Break down silos: how to create synergy between tech-driven culture and operations in a startup​ Clean win: how Brazil’s renewable edge and gig economy fuel EV growth?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).

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 is $4.8B and the list of backers includes the likes of Fidelity, Advent International, Lightrock, QED, VEF, Softbank and Kaszek.  In this episode, we dive into the value of choosing the right market, distinct challenges and opportunities of Brazil’s financial services ecosystem, Creditas’ pivot from a marketplace to direct lending, and how Sergio’s fresh perspective as an expat gave him the courage to challenge the status quo.   1. The Market Matters: How targeting the right market can make or break your startup? 2. Profitability Roadmap: Why profitability depends on margins and smart resource management over drastic cost-cutting? 3. Smart Capital, Stronger Foundations: The long-term benefits of choosing investors who share your mission and bring strategic value, not just funds 4. From 6 to 2000: The Creditas team-building playbook—forget résumés, hire for grit and vision 5. Breaking the Mold: Why outsiders see opportunities that insiders miss? 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).

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 his inspiring entrepreneurial journey, from selling emoji pillows to building a tech-driven company that directly challenges Brazil’s entrenched bus monopolies. We explore how Buser’s innovative platform is providing affordable, on-demand transportation for millions of Brazilians, while tackling complex legal challenges and scaling in one of the most fragmented transportation markets in the world. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Before you build, validate: why early demand validation is the key to smarter, leaner startup launches Learn how building a waitlist and testing demand upfront can help you scale smarter without burning through your cash. 2. Make headlines work for you: how to leverage media to boost your startup’s growth and user adoption Discover how strategic media coverage from pivotal moments can rapidly boost your user base and brand awareness. 3. Play by the rules (or break them!): How to innovate in heavily regulated industries Learn how startups can navigate tricky regulations and carve out opportunities for disruption in established markets. 4. Right place, right time: how spotting lucky moments can be your startup’s secret growth hack Timing is everything—explore how to recognize and ride lucky breaks that could make your startup a success. 5. Turning red to black: a practical guide for startups to survive (and thrive) through financial crises Learn actionable steps to cut costs, achieve cash flow neutrality, and ensure your startup thrives, even during economic downturns. 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).

Igor Marinelli is Founder and CEO of Tractian — the industrial AI company whose solutions now touch 5% of global industrial output, serving John Deere, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, Goodyear, and Bimbo. Tractian has raised capital from NEA, General Catalyst, Next47, and Y Combinator, and was named to the Forbes AI 50 as the only company representing the industrial sector.In this episode, Igor shares why B2B companies require a fundamentally different operating system than consumer-facing startups, why great managers are hands-on operators rather than career ladder climbers, why founders should stay hands-on with product and customer feedback before scaling, how focusing on impact rather than features leads to faster conversions, and why a fair partnership with strategic support beats an inflated valuation with little alignment.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

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 complexities of scaling in highly regulated market, the importance of building a strong partnership, and the critical role that understanding local market dynamics played in their success. In today's episode we discuss: 1. CERC’s $5 trillion bet: how reinventing receivables is transforming Brazil’s financial infrastructure? 2. Regulation as strategy: how CERC turned compliance into a competitive advantage in Brazil’s fintech landscape? 3. Brazil-specific strategy: how deep understanding of industry pain points can fuel innovation? 4. Co-founder chemistry: how the right partnership drives startup success? 5. Long-horizon funding: how CERC secured $100M by aligning with investors who understand infrastructure and share a long-term vision? 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).

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 Morgan. This is a special conversation where we dive into the evolution of startup investing in Brazil and Latin America, unpack various exit strategies, and set realistic return expectations for portfolio managers. We also explore AI’s transformative role in boosting productivity, particularly in sectors like tax prep and automation. Finally, we discuss why LATAM is such a hotbed for innovation, offering tech giants like Google and Meta an incredible $700 billion market opportunity. In today's episode we discuss: 1. AI’s Big Bet: why the application of AI is a critical factor in unlocking productivity in Latin America?  2. The $700B question for Meta, Google and ByteDance: why Brazil is big tech’s most wanted market? 3. The 2021 exit gap: how LATAM VCs missed a golden opportunity to deliver LP returns? 4. The path forward: How can Latin America cultivate a robust local LP market? 5. LATAM vs. Silicon Valley: What sets their founders apart? 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).

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 recorded US$63 million in annual recurring revenue in the first quarter of 2024 – a 140% increase compared to the same period last year. Celcoin processes over 200 million Pix transactions monthly and has already established itself as the leading provider of Open Banking solutions for licensed institutions in Brazil. Notably, this investment marks Summit Partners' first venture into Brazil and Latin America. We talk about the evolution of the Brazilian financial ecosystem, focusing on pivotal moments like the Central Bank’s PIX initiative, which revolutionized digital payments in Brazil. We also touch on the decision to pivot Celcoin from a B2C model to an infrastructure provider and the strategic importance of M&A in their growth. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Banking on change: the defining moments of Brazil's fintech evolution 2. Mastering the pivot: three key decisions that elevated Celcoin to the top of Brazil’s BaaS and embedded finance markets 3. Navigating growth capital: key lessons from the frontlines 4. Merging minds and products: how M&A became a catalyst for Celcoin's rapid expansion? 5. Tech that grows: Celcoin’s strategy for sustainable scalability 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).

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 customers include Bitso, Hotmart, Avenue, Buser and Cayena. In our conversation we unpacked Jeeves unique playbook for entering new markets, discussed why Latin America and Brazil in particular is such a lucrative opportunity for Jeeves and how to build strong relationships with investors when pursuing a contrarian strategy like global expansion across 22 countries. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Vamos Latam: why focusing on Brazil and Mexico can be a game-changer for US fintech startups? 2. Jeeves global expansion playbook: practical strategies for entering new markets with a localized approach 3. Choose the right market: why fintech infrastructure and regulatory environments matter for scaling? 4. Cap table strategy 101: how to excel at raising capital with a contrarian go-to-market strategy? 5. Low ego, high output mentality: how to hire leaders who build exceptional teams and drive success at scale? 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).

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 business from Brazil is nothing short of remarkable and paved with countless setbacks and failures. His relentless drive to overcome obstacles and pivot business models serves as a valuable example for other entrepreneurs. In our conversation, we explored how building a successful company without VC funding demands strategic thinking and resourcefulness. Leveraging early investor relationships and focusing on customer-driven growth were crucial in scaling the business. We also discussed the importance of family support for sustaining long-term business success and performance. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Zoox Sales Playbook: how to build a robust enterprise sales strategy? 2. Mastering the pivot: how and why (!) to leverage customer feedback to transform your enterprise? 3. Optimize your startup cap tablet: key benefits of strategic investors vs. traditional VCs 4. Customer-centric innovation: how to boost growth and market relevance by co-creating with customers? 5. Turning failure into fortune: Rafael’s lessons in business 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).

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 VEF, what makes Brazil one of the most attractive markets in the world from a venture capital perspective, why trying to predict exit timing in emerging markets is often a losing game, and why Dave prefers M&A over IPO as the go-to exit strategy. Dave also shared his perspective on the most underrated tech company in Latin America. In today's episode we discuss: 1. VEF’s investment strategy playbook: single country, single product focus and big scale up market  2. Build for exit: how to make M&A a viable exit strategy in VC and why an IPO might be less attractive than you think?  3. The holy grail of private markets: the pros and cons of a permanent capital vehicle structure in venture capital  4. Emerging markets are not all the same: what makes some particularly attractive for venture capital investors? 5. Brazil deconstructed: key factors making it a top tech investment 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).

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 Catalyst. In our conversation, we dive into the importance of intentionally targeting your customer segment, the transformative journey of a CEO leading a publicly traded company, and the critical need to maintain core fundamentals, even in the toughest times. In today's episode we discuss: 1. From zero to Walmart: key strategies for landing enterprise customers 2. Optimize for scalability: key trade-offs VTEX made for global growth 3. Building a high-performing partnership: trust, complementary skills, and a divide-and-conquer management approach 4. From founder to public company CEO: main lessons on leadership transformation 5. Take LatAm to the World: how to inspire global entrepreneurial ambitions in the region? 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).

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 played an active role during the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s and early 1990s, serving on numerous advisory committees and chairing the Chilean and Philippine Advisory Committees. Susan's board memberships include Mercado Libre, Vista Oil & Gas, Robinhood, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, the Tinker Foundation, and the Bretton Woods Committee. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. We talked about the importance of strong governance and financial prudence, dug into the key traits of highly successful Latin American founders, and got Susan's perspective on the future of tech entrepreneurship in the region. We also looked at why startups in Latin America are in a great position to ride the wave of AI advancements. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Strong governance matters: why should startups establish robust governance structures early on? 2. Build personal relationships: how can cultivating meaningful relationships with partners, investors, and teams impact your business success? 3. Traits of exceptional founders: What signature traits set apart highly successful founders in Latin America? 4. From Latam to the world: why the future of regional entrepreneurship is global? 5. The rise of AI: why Latam startups are well-positioned for AI breakthroughs? 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).

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 standards in a predominantly male-dominated field. We talk about how leveraging advanced technology from sectors like social media and streaming could revolutionize traditional industries like financial services, why embracing global ambitions early allowed Pismo to rapidly adapt and expand into new markets. We also discuss navigating VC founder relationships and why it’s important to balance investor insights with founder intuition. And finally we touch on the rationale behind selling Pismo to Visa. In today's episode we discuss: 1. Embracing global mindset: how this foundational decision enabled scalability and flexibility, allowing Pismo to rapidly adapt and expand into new markets? 2. Cross-industry innovations: how leveraging advanced innovations from alternative sectors can revolutionize traditional industries and provide startups with a competitive edge? 3. Unified front: what are the key ingredient for fostering enduring co-founder relationships? 4. Building critical infrastructure: what startups must get right from the get-go? 5. Power dynamics: the fundamentals of a successful founder-VC relationship 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).

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).