LatAm in Focus: Latin America's Companies of Tomorrow, Today
LatAm in Focus: Latin America's Companies of Tomorrow, Today
Business leaders from Riverwood Capital, Rappi, and VTEX talk about investing in the region and what it takes to build billion-dollar companies.
“I truly am very optimistic because I think for [Latin America], as long as we facilitate the free markets, the private enterprise, I think we're going to continue to see more and more company creation, more and more activity, driven by technology,” said Francisco Alvarez-Demalde, co-founder & managing partner of Riverwood Capital, who was honored by as the 2024 BRAVO Investor of the Year award.
Speaking with AS/COA's Susan Segal at the 2024 COA Symposium, Alvarez-Demalde shared his winning formula for success for an entrepreneurial team: dreaming big and then meticulously executing it.
Alvarez-Demalde spoke to Segal about the “thinner markets,” in Latin America. “When things get really hot, there's probably more capital than opportunity. And when things get bad, there's much less capital than opportunity,” he said.
Latin America's premier business engagement and dialogue platform honored influential leaders from the region in Miami on October 30.
Later, Sebastian Mejia, co-founder and president of Rappi, and Mariano Gomide de Faria, founder & co-CEO of VTEX, joined the conversation. “You have built billion-dollar companies from scratch,” Segal said, “What's the secret sauce of your success?”
Mejia spotlighted having a strong mission, working with founders that are “obsessive self-learners,” having a business model with “capital efficiency at its core,” and bringing in talent. He also recognized that beyond these big factors, “a fair share of luck” is also required.
What advantage do Latin American companies have over the rest of the world?
Gomide de Faria pointed to the region’s engineers. “It is probably today the most efficient engineering source of talents to the world,” he said, which is invaluable to the region’s nearshoring appeal to U.S. businesses. It’s why he said he foresees “Global companies forged and emerging from Latin America will be seen in NASDAQ in New York stock exchange.”
“I've worked with Latin America for over 40 years and I think that entrepreneurship and the creation of these new, young, vibrant companies has been the greatest thing and the most impactful,” said Segal.
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