Nathan Lustig

YCombinator in Latin America: Advice from 8 LatAm Founders on how to prepare for YC, Ep 96

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast, Latin America Startups and Investing
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YCombinator is one of the leading early-stage US investors in Latin America, and has served as a signal for other US investors to start making their first investments in the region. Since accepting its first Latin American founder in 2013, the region’s presence in the accelerator program has significantly increased. The most recent batch had over 15 companies from Latin America.

In this episode, we’ve gathered advice from 8 founders, some we’ve interviewed previously, and some new ones, that have participated in YCombinator. They talk about their experience going through the program and give tips to founders in the interview process, which can also be useful for other accelerators.

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What it’s Really Like to be a Female Founder and Investor in Latin America, Ep 95

Category : Crossing Borders Podcast
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In honor of the seventh edition of the IDB’s WeXchange annual event taking place in Asunción, Paraguay next week, this episode highlights the stories of seven women from both sides of the investment table featured in past Crossing Borders episodes. These high performers share their experiences of what it’s like being a woman in technology in Latin America.

This episode starts off with a55’s Jackie Hyland talking about how gender balanced teams improve the long-term health of a business, and Lab4U’s Komal Dadlani talking about her experience as a female founder in science. 

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Andres Gutierrez, Tpaga: How Tappsi’s acquisition led to Trying to Help Latin America’s 400M Unbanked, Ep 94

Category : Colombia, Crossing Borders Podcast
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Andres Gutierrez was working for a can manufacturing company in Philadelphia when he realized that web and mobile apps were disrupting the US market. When he asked friends and family in Colombia if there were any equivalents to these companies back home, he discovered an underserved market. 

While most tech companies were launching in Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina, startups were overlooking 50M consumers, with a GDP of $360B. Andres decided to go back to Colombia to found Tappsi, a ride-hailing app that after operating for only 8 months got a $1M buyout offer which, to his parents’ dismay, he turned down. 

In this episode, I sit down with Andres to discuss his most recent venture Tpaga, a mobile wallet that aims to give financial services to the 400M unbanked people in Latin America. We also talk about his story growing Tappsi to an exit, advice he has for Latin American entrepreneurs, and lessons learned from Tappsi that he used to start Tpaga. We also cover what it’s like to raise money and advice for going through YCombinator.

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Pedro Sorrentino, ONEVC: Investing in Inevitable People , Ep 93

Category : Brazil, Crossing Borders Podcast
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Pedro Sorrentino and his team were successful angel investors with multiple exits and technology executives and entrepreneurs when Pedro and his team decided to co-found ONEVC, a cross-border seed-stage firm based in San Francisco and São Paulo. He went from being a tech executive to starting his own company and then transitioned into angel investing and parlayed this successful track record into a $38M venture capital fund.  

ONEVC’s cross-border vision means that they invest in Latin America and the US with very specific theses for both regions. The fund focuses on investing early into category-defining startups that operate in Latin America or startups outside of Silicon Valley, whether that be in Latin America, US or in Europe, that have the potential to go global.

In this episode, we cover the ONEVC investment thesis, and why they decided to invest against this thesis. We also discuss how Pedro thinks about helping companies he partners with and his advice to startup founders going into the Brazilian market. Lastly, we talk about how Latin America’s ecosystem is changing, advice to founders seeking funding from VCs, and advice Pedro would give to his younger self when he was first starting ONEVC.

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