Tag: magma partners

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.

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region.

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

Ángel Sahagún, Albo: Bringing Financial Inclusion to Mexico’s Underbanked, Ep 109

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.

Subscribe to the LatamList Weekly newsletter to get updated on the week’s top tech news and stories from the region.

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:

  • [1:20] – About Albo 
  • [4:20] – Yucatan ecosystem 
  • [5:50] – Ángel’s first fintech startup 
  • [7:58] – Investing in Mis Rentas
  • [8:56] – Why fintech?
  • [10:40] – Albo’s clients
  • [13:04] – Market overview in Mexico
  • [14:51] – Daily challenges of Albo clients
  • [16:30] – Closing an investment round
  • [18:46] – Raising globally and investing locally
  • [20:58] – Books, blogs, & podcast recommendations
  • [22:26] – Advice to Ángel’s younger self
  • [22:50] – What’s next for Albo?

It’s been a pleasure to get to know Ángel while supporting him via Magma’s investment in 2018.

Show notes on Latamlist.com.

Geoff Michener, dataPlor: Closing the Latin American Data Gap with Human Verified SME Data, Ep 105

Growing up in Denver, Colorado, Geoff Michener was interested in international trade and economics. During his undergrad, he got the opportunity to study abroad in Nicaragua and learn about foreign investment. There, he quickly fell in love with Latin America and promised himself that he would come back and do business in the future.

Geoff kept his promise and is now CEO and founder of dataPlor, a Magma portfolio company that provides quality data on small businesses in Latin America. He noticed that there was a huge information gap in the region where up to 75% of SMEs have no online presence. DataPlor’s team of “explorers” captures and validates data to build a database that provides enterprises with accurate information on small businesses.

In this episode, I sit down with Geoff to talk about the value dataPlor brings to large enterprises as well as the challenges of collecting data in Latin America compared to the US. We also discuss some of the lessons he’s learned from shutting down his first startup, and also some of his reflections on the future of data.

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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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