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In this Fintech Leaders edition, I sit down with Gaston Irigoyen, CEO & Co-Founder of Pomelo, a company building and modernizing the fintech infrastructure of Latin America.
Since inception, Pomelo has raised over $45 million from an impressive roster of backers including Tiger Global, Monashees, Sequoia, Insight Partners, Index Ventures, QED Investors, and Gilgamesh Ventures. As well Jackie Reses, Max Levchin, Biz Stone, Angela Strange, Eric Glyman, and other impressive angels.
We discuss:
Fundraising lessons – is it an art or a science? Gaston shares frameworks and best practices that have worked for him throughout his entrepreneurial journey and why it’s critical to also bring strategic angels and industry operators onboard.
“Is it an art? Is it a science? I think it's a little bit of both. Nowadays, you can run the process in a very scientific manner, with a very scientific sort of fashion and approach… But I also feel there's a lot of art into it, right? You need to be paying attention to all the small signals throughout those processes… and have that sort of ability to read the situation and to make quick sort of adjustments.”
“When you're talking to funds or even angel investors, you’re talking to people, right? You're not talking to machines. So that sort of empathy, that sort of approach, having an etiquette and being able to build trust and confidence, these are all very, very important things.”
Modernizing LatAm’s financial infrastructure and how Pomelo is refreshing legacy tech that was built decades ago.
“We are essentially trying to create the first 21st century regional infrastructure company, so that you can not only launch a fintech with ease, but you can also scale it very quickly throughout the region.”
Gaston’s optimism for the next decade of entrepreneurship in the region and why the next wave of fintech will probably be led by B2B companies.
“Latin America continues to be in a very good track when it comes to attracting capital from other parts around the world... The ingredient that is going to start to play a very positive and important role, starting in 2022, is that as we see the Nubank IPO, the dlocal IPO, and a few other IPOs, all these angel investors that are going to profit will start pouring more and more of their capital into the region… and I think that's going to be critically important.”
Reflections for emerging markets entrepreneurs and what he learned from living in Dublin, Ireland… plus a lot more!
"I'm pretty convinced that for us, in Latin America, or for entrepreneurs in emerging markets, for that matter. Now that we can tap global capital, one of the very first things that we need to do is we need to build that trust. We need to be able to close that gap of what an investor may think of an emerging markets entrepreneur, when compared to what they're used to in their home market."
Hope you enjoy my conversation with Gaston Irigoyen of Pomelo.
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Emerging Fintech Leaders
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-Thank you for reading!
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.
Gaston Irigoyen, Co-Founder/CEO of Pomelo – Fundraising Frameworks, Lessons for Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs, & How Pomelo is Building Modern Fintech Infrastructure