"Entrepreneurial Talent is Global" - On The Enthusiast, Host Pat Alex chats with some of the most fascinating Founders, Operators and Investors Beyond Silicon Valley.
Every two weeks, he sits down with the likes of Arjuna Costa (Flourish), Paulo Passoni, Jeffrey Paine (Golden Gate Ventures), Gerry Giacoman (Clara) and Monica Brand Engel (Quona) to dissect their challenges around scaling, fundraising, managing boards and company leadership. Taken together, the guests have raised venture capital in the hundreds of millions and are behind their regions' biggest business and venture successes paving the way towards a more equitable and diverse future.
Follow the newsletter to always stay up to date with the latest episodes: https://linktr.ee/Patalex
"Entrepreneurial Talent is Global" - On The Enthusiast, Host Pat Alex chats with some of the most fascinating Founders, Operators and Investors Beyond Silicon Valley.
Every two weeks, he sits down with the likes of Arjuna Costa (Flourish), Paulo Passoni, Jeffrey Paine (Golden Gate Ventures), Gerry Giacoman (Clara) and Monica Brand Engel (Quona) to dissect their challenges around scaling, fundraising, managing boards and company leadership. Taken together, the guests have raised venture capital in the hundreds of millions and are behind their regions' biggest business and venture successes paving the way towards a more equitable and diverse future.
Follow the newsletter to always stay up to date with the latest episodes: https://linktr.ee/Patalex
On this episode Pat sits down with Bernardo Garcia, Co-Founder of ripping remittances startup Felix Pago to dive into the early days of the business, finding product-market-fit and doing things that don't scale. In particular we chat about how they realised that the existing solutions were not really solving the problem for hispanics in the US sending money to their home countries and how they put the flywheel together relying on WoM.
You will learn about
- Finding product-market-fit and launching on the back of your customer needs
- Be where your customers are and acquiring customers manually
- Scaling beyond the early days, geo expansion vs. product expansion, what route will Felix take and why
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
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On this episode Pat sits down with Puren Ucar, the fmr Head of Talent at Earlybird Digital East, to dive into building out the talent function at one of Europe's leading VC firms, Earlybird, what does it take to build high performance teams and why founders up until Series-B still need to dedicate 40% of their time on hiring and how AI changes the game.
You will learn about
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Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Gaurav Biswas, Co-Founder & CEO of leading freight forwarder and logistics scaleup Trukker. We dive into the company’s journey from their initial launch in India, focusing on MENA scaling to 200M+ in revenues, servicing 1,500 clients across 9 countries and raising $300M+ from the likes of ADQ, Ruya and Investcorp
You will learn about
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Lucas Vargas, CEO and Founder of Nomad, a leading cross border account and investment solution for Brazilians that want to reduce their exposure to the local currency investing in US dollar dominated assets. Lucas takes us down the rabbit hole on building out the product, scaling to 100M in ARR within 5 years, incorporating new features and his take on dollar primacy, other fiat currencies and stable coins.
So much to unpack there.
You will learn about:
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Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with legendary operator and former MELI CFO, and of late CEO of dLocal, Pedro Arnt, to dive into his learnings of 20+ years of company building.
We discuss
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Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
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On this episode Pat sits down with Camila Vieira, Partner and head QED’s Brazil operation. We dive into the fund’s evolving commitment on the region, how they got it right investing in Nubank in 2015, what their thesis and structure looks like today 10 years later and whether LatAm’s next outbreak success will also be Fintech?
You can find Camila on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Michael Lints, Partner at leading South East Asian VC firm Golden Gate to dive into their expansion into MENA, his move to Qatar, why now and how he sees the two regions complementing each other in terms of ecosystem maturity, VC and LP landscape.
You will learn about:
You can find Michael on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Mihai Faur, CIO of UiPath to discuss his 10 year journey with the company from a small startup in Romania to the global automations company it is today.
We dive into the IPO readiness piece, how as a Chief Accounting Officer he set the company on the path for IPO following Daniel Dines' vision in 2019 to bring the company public in 2 years.
You will learn about
You can find Mihai on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Managing Partner of Across Capital, Rafael Costa, to dive into his journey building Across investing cross-border in the US & LatAm after a successful career at Summit Partners and Vulcan Capital, how he things around portfolio construction and liquidity for growth stage, getting to conviction when deciding to invest and a lot more.
You will learn about
You can find Rafael on LinkedIn here
On this episode Pat sits down with Milena Oliveira, Partner of Latin American early-growth fund Volpe Capital to dive into the dynamics of investing post Series-A, portfolio construction and making concentrated bets in a few select opportunities. We dive into why LatAm Tech entrepreneurs and VCs can produce top tier returns, and Volpe has the data to back it up.
You learn about
- Volpe's investment thesis
- How to convince LPs to bet on the asset class and invest in multi-vintages
- The maturity of LatAm tech entrepreneurs and how they are thriving not only despite the adversity but because of it
You can find Milena on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedIn here to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Alexis Pantazis, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of European insurtech Hellas Direct to dive into the insurtech playbook, succeeding in smaller yet profitable markets in Southern and Eastern Europe, and how to go about vertical integration as a moat to build maximum value for consumers.
To date Hellas has raised more than $85M from the likes of5G Ventures S.A | Phaistos Investment Fund,Portage ,ETF Partners - The Environmental Technologies Fund ,IFC - International Finance Corporation,EBRD,Convex Insurance andEndeavor Catalyst and since its founding has expanded to Romania and further grown their insurance offering through vertical integration.
You will learn about
- The Insurtech playbook on going direct to the customer but also through brokers
- How to go about expansion from smaller markets and under penetrated segments that in aggregate have significant value creation potential
- How Greece made their way out of the slump and are now one of the best performing and dynamic economies in Europe
You can find Alexis on LinkedInhere.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedInhere to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedInhere.
On this episode Pat sits down with Jimena Prado, Partner at Latin American VC firm Hi Ventures, which has backed the likes of Cornershop and Fintual. We explore Jimena's journey from one of the first female founders in Mexico to becoming an investor, how she thinks about navigating the current AI craze and where LatAm entrepreneurs can play at and capture value.
Hi Ventures is one of the leading early stage funds in LatAm, having backed the likes of Cornershop (exited to Uber at 3Bn), Sequoia backed Fintual and Clau.com. Founded by Federico Antoni, it has raised more than US$170M over 4 vintages.
We dive into: - How to filter through the AI noise and where LatAm entrepreneurs play in the space - Transitioning from founder to funder - How Hi Ventures has formulated their investment thesis around AI
You can find Jimena on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedIn here to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Izabel Gallera, Partner at Canary, one of the leading early stage VCs in Brazil.
We dive into:
- The evolution of the Brazilian VC ecosystem and Canary alongside it
- How to get to conviction and structure your investment decision process at the seed stage
- Professionalizing a VC firm through recycling capital, driving DPI and creating liquidity when possible
You can find Bel on LinkedIn here.
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedIn here to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Christine Kenna, Managing Partner of Ignia, a pan-american VC firm that invests in early and Series-A stage tech businesses.
You will learn about:
You can find Christine on LinkedIn here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Pavel Fedorov, Co-Founder of Philippines based challenger bank Salmon.
We dive into scaling a neo-bank in emerging markets, product mix, customer profiles and how to ensure flawless execution
You will learn about
You can find Pavel on LinkedIn here.
Also check out his Personal Website and Blog here.
On this episode Pat sits down with Mikhail Lomtadze, CEO of superapp Kaspi. We dive into the origin story of the business, its humble beginnings in Kazakhstan to going public on Nasdaq earlier this year at a whopping $20Bn market cap.
You will learn about - How to successully execute the superapp strategy - How to go about product priosiation and not losing focus - Why customer centricity is the key to everything
- The importance of culture in scaling your business
Want to stay up-to-date on latest episodes?
Follow The Enthusiast wherever you are getting your podcasts and make sure to check out our newsletter on LinkedIn here to stay up to date on our latest episodes with founders and investors beyond the Valley.
Follow Pat on LinkedIn here.
