latin-america
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MK Li and the trouble with simple
MengKe “MK” Li helped build Liquido for the untidy reality of Latin American payments. His own encounter with a phone that would not connect offers a useful way into the story.
Estoy and the work behind easy crypto
Estoy wants to make crypto feel simple. Its hiring plans reveal the complicated human machinery required to keep that promise.
X5 takes advisors across borders. The client stays theirs.
International finance comes with paperwork, unfamiliar providers and several languages. X5 gives Latin America’s independent advisors a shared route through it - while they keep the client relationship.
Customer Intelligence finds the friction in finance
Four million debit cards. One missing capability. Customer Intelligence works in the gap between a financial product that exists and one people can actually use.
The cargo is only half the journey
OnBoard Logistics connects Latin America to the world. Its real work happens between the flight, the warehouse and the border - where a shipment can lose its way.
Julio Vasconcellos wanted to work in sneakers. Then came the hard part.
He left Facebook to build Peixe Urbano, started over with Prefer, and became an investor at Atlantico. Along the way, Julio Vasconcellos learned that growing a company and making it last are very different jobs.
Fernando Terrés built a dollar app. Then the name got in the way.
An engineering graduate became a fintech operator, then co-founded DolarApp. As ARQ, Fernando Terrés and his partners are taking on a wider question: how much of a global financial life can one app handle?
Juan Manuel Amorós and the business of a useful introduction
From writing software to connecting founders across Latin America, the Emprelatam founder has built his work around a practical question: what would actually help this person move forward?
Factored makes AI show up for work
The hard part of enterprise AI is getting it through the working day. Factored embeds engineers where the data, the software, and the awkward questions live.
Sonatafy puts a name on the deadline.
Software teams can grow while delivery slows. Sonatafy Technology sells a different arrangement: senior engineers, shared working hours, and someone responsible for getting the work into production.
Your phone knows you. Juvo lends on it.
A prepaid top-up can say something a credit file misses. Juvo built a lending business around that idea, then put the phone itself behind the loan.
Trio sells the team that remembers
A fintech product carries years of decisions inside its code. Trio’s bet is that the engineers who learn those decisions should stick around.
KEO World sells businesses a little more time
The supplier wants cash today. The buyer needs another 90 days. KEO World built a business in the space between those two perfectly reasonable demands.
Betterfly makes good habits pay.
A walk becomes a reward. A reward becomes protection. The Chile-born benefits company has spent eight years testing how far that small idea can travel.
Airtm and the last mile of a dollar
Getting paid online is one problem. Turning those earnings into money you can use is another. Airtm built its business in the space between the two.
MaxiSend puts the world behind the counter
A neighborhood shop can be the first stop on a journey across an ocean. MaxiSend built its money-transfer business around that idea. Now it is giving the same customers an app.
Tribal made the card the easy part.
A corporate card opened the door. The harder work was moving money, extending credit and making the numbers useful - a business Klar wanted a piece of.
Insigneo makes independence a team sport
The Miami wealth firm built its business around advisers who want freedom and the machinery to use it. Its next test is making a $37 billion network feel like one working desk.
CrediSmart turns the phone into the guarantee
A smartphone can open the door to work, study and credit. CrediSmart finances that door - and can lock the device when payments stop.
Liquido put the checkout in the chat
A cash-paying ride helped inspire Liquido’s Latin American payment platform. Its sharper idea was to bring the store, the payment and the second chance into WhatsApp.
Viamericas puts the world on the corner
A neighborhood counter. A bank account abroad. A phone in someone else’s pocket. Viamericas has built a remittance business around the messy ways people actually use money.
GlobalTask and the last mile of financial AI
A clever model can answer a question. GlobalTask works on the harder part: connecting that answer to the systems where money, customers, and decisions actually live.
Datapro and the bank behind the app
A good banking app makes money look simple. Datapro works on the complicated part: the accounts, payments, and connections that make the screen worth trusting.
The app needs a car.
Voyager Global Mobility supplies the working vehicles behind ride-hailing. Its real business is making each car useful for longer - from a driver’s first shift to its next owner.
MetaMap and the art of trusting a stranger
An ID is a starting point. MetaMap built a business connecting the other clues - then joined Incode when the ambition outgrew the balance sheet.
ABCW puts a human in charge
ABCW brings media buyers, storytellers, and developers under one roof. Its latest bet is that faster marketing needs someone who knows when to slow the machine down.
Roberto Kafati and the trouble with buying dinner
His family needed a better way to sell online. Roberto Kafati helped build DEUNA around that problem, then followed the checkout button into payments, data and AI.
Simón Borrero and the unfinished business of getting there
Before Rappi, there were telephone orders, an agency with 5,500 models and no bookings, and a grocery shelf on a screen. Simón Borrero’s career follows the distance between a promising idea and something that actually arrives.
Daniela Peralvo and the business of belonging
Before IMPAQTO had an office, it had a gathering. From Quito’s coworking rooms to a new community for Latin American leaders, Daniela Peralvo keeps returning to the same question: who needs to be in the room?
Freddy Vega’s first classroom fit in a pocket
A borrowed calculator taught the future Platzi co-founder how to program. Building a school for millions would require a former rival, a few uncomfortable lessons in money, and a belief that Latin America could write its own future.