Follow the biggest innovators and tech founders in Latin America as they cover valuable insights and inspire entrepreneurs facing challenges in scaling their business and raising capital. Presented by Brian Requarth, Co-founder at Latitud. 

Latitud Podcast

Universal as it may seem now, in 2014 access to banking services was still very much limited in several LatAm countries. That realization was what sparked Daniel Vogel's idea of democratizing financial services through the existing but underused infrastructure of mobile phones. With the Bitso app, buying and selling cryptocurrencies become as easy as ordering pizza.

Daniel's founder journey got him in the MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35 list as one of the youngest CEOs of this generation. Having started in Mexico, Bitso quickly expanded in Latin America.

With a $2.2bn valuation and backed by the likes of Tiger Global and Kaszek, Bitso has pledged to invest $270M to take the Brazilian crypto market by storm.

Crypto as a vehicle of financial inclusion

The future of blockchain in Latin America

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

#72 - Financial inclusion through Crypto: Daniel Vogel, Bitso

With over 10 years of experience in Brazil's VC scene, Rodrigo Baer was hearing pitches and offering offering term sheets long before the LatAm capital craze started. He has an unquestionable understanding of the country's entrepreneurial landscape, and is a believer of sharing knowledge with the world, which he has been doing for the last four years through his Youtube channel "Pergunte ao VC".

Previously a partner with Redpoint Ventures and a board member for companies such as Movidesk and Cortex Intelligence, he is now a Managing Partner for SoftBank's Latin America fund with a $5bn initial commitment and then an additional $3bn being allocated.

Common questions founders have about exit strategies

SoftBank's plans with the latest LatAm fund

#71 - The runway from seed to exit: Rodrigo Baer, SoftBank

In his own words, Daniel Bilbao is a friend to all latino entrepreneurs. He went from spreading papelitos in Comic Sans looking for engineers to shaping the future of fraud prevention in Latin America. Born and raised in Colombia, his mentality is one of giving back to our region first.

Daniel first dipped his toes into the cybersecurity space with his previous company Paladin Cyber in 2017. Now CEO and co-founder of Truora and backed by the likes of Kaszek, Magma Partners and Y Combinator, he managed to take his business from 0 to $10M annual recurring revenue in two short years.

In this episode, Daniel and I talk about:

The role founders play in combating inequity in LatAm

How to sell your company's idea to investors

What the Latin America startup scene will look like 10 years from now

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

#70 - Building teams that bridge gaps: Daniel Bilbao, Truora

Alex Vilhena was born in Rio de Janeiro, but moved to Los Angeles to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Communications and had a chance to try out the startup scene in the US. Big lover of jiu-jitsu, he has over 10 years of client-facing roles under his purple belt, and helped build Santander's Loyalty Program before moving on to his own projects in the financial industry.

Now CEO of Plug Pagamentos, he gets to brag about being a YC portfolio company while he and his co-founders are simplifying payment services by providing a one-stop solution to manage multiple providers through a single API integration.

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

#69 - Altitud | Alex Vilhena from Plug Pagamentos and the future of payment solutions

Andres Bilbao is a Colombian triple threat, and that goes far beyond being fluent in three languages: he's a unicorn entrepreneur, an angel investor, and a trusted advisor to many others in the LatAm startup ecosystem.

He was one of the co-founders of Rappi and reached an impressive $5.25 billion valuation within six years of starting operations. Now Andres is putting down roots in blockchain as co-founder of Invert, a company pledging to change the way we do conservation through the power of crypto and NFTs.

In this episode, Andres and I will talk about:

What qualities to look for in a mentor or advisor

How blockchain and conservation can intersect to shape the future

#68 - Achieving ridiculous goals: Andres Bilbao, Rappi and Invert

Entrepreneurship is much like running into a wall until you knock it down, and German-born Florian Hagenbuch has committed to making sure that the wall stays down for those coming after him.

Florian founded Loft to digitalize the real estate market and make it accessible to millions of Brazilians dreaming of owning a home. Their latest funding round bumped them up to a nearly 3 billion-dollar valuation.

With a portfolio of over 100 companies he has personally invested into as an angel, his trajectory naturally evolved into the formation of a VC fund. Canary, a pre-seed and seed-stage investment firm in Latin America, has now over $220M in assets under management.

The lifecycle of disruption opportunities

How fast-growing companies can accelerate careers

The potential of addressable markets in Latin America

#67 - Fueling innovation in LatAm: Florian Hagenbuch, Loft

Children are often fascinated with technology, and Sahil Lavingia's story isn't any different: he first started getting into computers at about 12, playing around with graphic design tools like Photoshop, and it soon naturally developed into building websites for family and friends.

One Computer Science and Engineering degree later, Sahil turned what started as a casual project for himself into a marketplace for others like him to get paid doing what they were good at: Gumroad went from a weekend project to a sustainable business that became a staple of the gig economy. But the road wasn't without its bumps.

Now having published his book "The Minimalist Entrepreneur", Sahil is known not only for his transparency about his challenges as a founder, but also for talking about the alternative path for founders that aren't looking to build a VC-backed unicorn.

Community-driven products and the art of problem-solving

And the delicate balance between profitability and scale

#73 - Community-driven companies: Sahil Lavingia, Gumroad

Latitud

Podcast.

Up close with Latitud

Latest Episode

Previous Episodes