Tag: latam

Miguel Medina, Plerk: Revolutionizing employee benefits in Latin America, Ep 160

You can now find the full show notes of the Crossing Borders podcast on LatamList.com’s new podcast section. I’ll still post the audio of the podcast on my blog and I’m planning to start writing more again on my blog, like I used to.

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Thanks for listening to Crossing Borders all these years! If you have any feedback or questions, please feel free to reach out here, or contact me on social media.

Outline of this episode:

  • [01:34] – About Plerk
  • [04:10] – Miguel’s background 
  • [05:58] – Work experience before being an entrepreneur
  • [08:30] – Launching Rappi in Latin American cities
  • [10:20] – Turning point of Miguel’s coming of age
  • [12:13] – Biggest lessons learned at Rappi
  • [13:15] – Making his own path
  • [15:33] – The origins of Plerk
  • [17:57] – Overcoming obstacles in entrepreneurship
  • [20:15] – Creating an ecosystem with Plerk
  • [22:44] – How fintechs are disrupting the industry
  • [24:03] – Miguel’s recommendations
  • [24:37] – Advice to younger self
  • [25:10] – Next years for Plerk

Show notes on Latamlist.com

Ishan Sinha, Point72 Ventures: Investing in Global Fintech Startups, Ep 101

Originally from New Delhi and Kathmandu, Ishan Sinha grew up on the move. Because of his Father’s job, he lived in six countries on three different continents until finally settling in Connecticut. Today, as Vice President of Point72 Ventures, he still normally spends lots of time on planes, but that’s been on hold in light of COVID-19. Under normal circumstances, he travels several times throughout the year to explore markets in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. 

Point72 Ventures is the independent, early-stage investment arm of Steven Cohen’s $16B hedge fund Point72 Asset Management.  The fund –always seeking to be at the forefront of new technology– naturally contacted a lot of startups, which eventually turned into investable businesses. Their first investment in Latin America was in Pierpaolo Barbieri’s fintech Ualá. Ishan, with his international background, jumped at the opportunity to work on the fund’s new global endeavors.

In this episode, I sit down with Ishan to talk about his nomadic upbringing, Point72’s core thesis and decision to explore outside of the US, and his insights on the differences between traditional investing and venture capital. We also discuss how Latin America compares to Southeast Asia, and Ishan gives advice on how to approach the Latin American market.

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Advice from Venture Capitalists to Latin American Founders, Ep 100

Over the years, we’ve had the chance to interview some of the best venture capital investors in Latin America on the Crossing Borders podcast. With that in mind, we decided to launch an Investor Remix Series, where we go back to previous episodes to highlight the stories of some of the region’s most interesting and successful investors. For the first episode in the series, we feature six investors giving advice to founders from Latin America.

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Advice from 11 Magma Entrepreneurs from 7 countries, Ep 99

At Magma Partners, we work with people who share our values, whether they’re the founders we invest in or the mentors and investors we bring on to our team. We hope to create lifelong relationships with the people we support. 

For this episode, we’re featuring eleven Magma entrepreneurs –some are members of our portfolio, and others are from our team– who have appeared on previous episodes of the Crossing Borders podcast to share their advice to founders from Latin America on how to get started. 

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