Crossing Borders with Nathan Lustig

I sit down with Gabriela to talk about her experience as a woman in finance in Mexico and some of the challenges she now faces as a female founder when seeking investment. We also discuss why she decided to tackle financial inclusion and how Vexi is helping increase financial literacy in Mexico.

In this episode, I sit down with Gonzalo to talk about how a Spaniard ended up in Colombia, Hogaru’s unique business model, and the lessons he’s learned as an engineer that he applies as an entrepreneur. We also discuss his major takeaways from participating in Y Combinator and working with Endeavor.

In this episode, I sit down with Daniel to discuss how he got on the investor side of the table and became the lead in LatAm and how entrepreneurs can get involved with Village Capital. We also talk about a recent report released by Village Capital called Beyond Borders on how to successfully scale a startup in Latin America, among other industry trends in the region.

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 South East Asia, and Ishan gives advice on how to approach the Latin American market.

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...

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 C...

80% of Venezuelans today depend on remittances to survive. Almost seven million people have left the country since the protests against the Maduro government started, creating a massive diaspora, almost all of whom send money home to family members trapped in the country.  Simon Chamorro was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, so he has seen this problem firsthand. He co-founded Valiu to make i...

When Michael Sidgmore thinks about investing, he thinks about making the biggest impact possible in people’s lives. His passion for economic development and financial inclusion has led him to build a career as a fintech investor and entrepreneur focused on financial infrastructure, wealth management, and financial inclusion. Today, he is a Partner and cofounder of Broadhaven Ventures, a Silicon Va...

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, w...

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...

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 con...

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...

In the US, most people would be surprised to find that WhatsApp is the main platform for Latin Americans to communicate between friends and family, and even more surprised that its one of the main channels for businesses and their clients to communicate. Migue Morkin, an Argentine entrepreneur and founder of Sirena, explains that in Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil 70% of the population actively uses...

Mariana Costa, founder of Laboratoria, a programming bootcamp for Latin American women, found a way to mix two worlds she was passionate about: technology and helping women. Originally from Peru, Mariana combines technology with social impact by running programming bootcamps for women from underserved backgrounds. The program seeks to prepare these women for a career in tech by placing them in job...

Despite Brazil’s amazing abundance in raw materials for food, Victor Santos was finding that many delivery options in large cities like Sao Paulo offered mostly highly processed foods. Liv Up is a direct-to-consumer startup that uses local Brazilian ingredients to produce high-quality and healthy frozen meals that get delivered right to customers’ doors. Founded in March 2016 in Sao Paulo, Liv Up’...

Luis Garza is the founder of Kinedu, an app that provides educational games and activities for parents and kids to play together. He was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico but had the opportunity to study abroad at a young age. Luis knew from early on he wanted to give others the same educational opportunities he had been given as a child.  After college, he joined the corporate world but eventu...

Ariel Arrieta knew he wanted to work in tech from the moment he got his first computer, an Atari 800XL, when he was 12 years old– a gift that changed his life. Today, he is cofounder and Managing Partner at NXTP Labs, an Argentine venture capital firm and accelerator that invests in early-stage tech startups.  During the first Internet gold rush in the late 90s, Ariel was just starting his entrepr...

After a trip to Latin America with three other friends from college, Julian Deutschle and his future co-founders wanted to solve a problem that was already solved in their native Germany: booking bus tickets online.  Friends and family back home were in disbelief when they heard they had to physically go to bus terminals to check out bus routes, and in some cases like in Bolivia, tickets were sold...

Susana García Robles has been working to help create the venture capital industry in Latin America since the 90s, when she launched an ambitious flagship program in Brazil to jumpstart the Latin American ecosystem. Since then, she has been an LP to dozens of funds across the region in her role as Chief Investment Officer for IDB Lab at the Interamerican Development Bank, a Washington DC based mult...

Originally from a small town outside of Sao Paulo, Joao de Paula cofounded the first Latin American startup to participate in YCombinator back in 2013. Fueled by an obsession with making an impact, he unknowingly embraced the entrepreneurial spirit from an early age. He created different projects while growing up and then later taught himself to code to start his business, which he cofounded with...

Andres Sarrazola caught the entrepreneurial bug at the age of 17 in his home city in Medellín, Colombia. Fast forward eleven years later, he is now the CEO and founder of Ayenda, Colombia's largest virtual hotel chain and SoftBank’s first investment in the country.  According to Andres, in Latin America around 70% of properties are independently owned, meaning they are not affiliated with any hote...

Andy Kieffer and his family decided to spend a year relaxing in Guadalajara, Mexico, and ended up staying. As founder of AgaveLab, Andy helps startups in the US and Mexico build tech products with local Guadalajara talent.  Originally from the midwest, Andy moved to California straight out of high school and worked on early stage tech companies, helping them build product, raise money more quickly...

Mixergy's Andrew Warner interviews Nathan Lustig on the Mixergy Podcast. I decided to cross post this interview, since we cover my story getting to chile, what it's like doing business in Latin America and my experience with previous startups. You can find Andrew's original podcast and show notes on his website: https://mixergy.com/interviews/magma-partners-with-nathan-lustig/ From Mixergy: Nathan...

How do you keep a global workforce up to date on daily security threats and confirm people are ok in the event of a natural disaster? Most companies are still stuck in phone call and paper based systems that are extremely expensive and hard to update. Cory Siskind, Base Operations’ founder, realized there was a better way than the standard practice that most multinational corporations give to empl...

Originally from Cali, Colombia, Daniel studied in the US and started a company in Silicon Valley before realizing he wanted to us his experience to solve a pressing Latin American problem: fraud. Truora, a startup that provides instant background checks, was born to fight that problem. I sat down with Daniel for this episode to talk about why he decided to go after the Latin American market instea...