David Velez

Nubank CEO dishes on the neobank’s profit surge and how tourist VCs in LatAm have gone home

Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, and welcome back to Equity, the podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our

Nubank’s CEO explains what the US could learn from LatAm fintech

Hello, and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. All the cool kids are filling out the Equity listener survey

Tiger Global backs Favo, which is building an easier way for Latin Americans to order groceries online

Favo enables under-employed entrepreneurs to create new income streams through steady sales commissions from their own local grocery network.

Acrew Capital, Jeff Bezos back Colombia-based proptech La Haus’ $100M debt, equity round

La Haus, which has developed an online real estate marketplace operating in Mexico and Colombia, has secured $100 million in additional funding, including $50 million in equity and $50 million in debt

Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital leads $20M investment in Brazilian healthcare startup Pipo Saude

The company's business boomed amid the pandemic. In January 2020, it had two corporate clients. By December of the same year, it had around 70.

The Nubank EC-1

Brazil is a country riven with economic contradictions. It has one of the largest and most profitable banking industries in Latin America, and is among the world’s most developed financial markets.

How contrarian hires and a pitch deck started Nubank’s $30 billion fintech empire

For most startups, the hardest early challenge is identifying a market and a product to serve it. That wasn’t the case for Nubank CEO David Velez, who knew the potential for success in Brazil.

One woman’s drive to make a neobank as magical as Disney

David Velez needed to fill two key co-founding roles to begin building Nubank — he needed a CTO to lead the engineering side of the business, as Velez didn’t have an engineering background.

How Nubank’s CX strategy made it one of the most loved digital banks

It’s easy to assume the name Nubank refers to “new bank,” but that’s not what the founders were going for. The word “nu” in Portuguese means “naked,” and Velez wanted the name to refle

Fintech all-star Nubank raises a $750M mega round

In 2013, Colombian businessman David Velez decided to reinvent the Brazilian banking system. He didn’t speak Portuguese, nor was he an engineer or a banker, but he did have the conviction that the s

Jeeves emerges from stealth with $131M in debt and equity and a16z as a lead investor

Jeeves, which is building an “all-in-one expense management platform” for global startups, is emerging from stealth today with $131 million in total funding, including $31 million in equity and $1

Belvo, LatAm’s answer to Plaid, raises $43M to scale its API for financial services

Belvo, a Latin American startup which has built an open finance API platform, announced today it has raised $43 million in a Series A round of funding. A mix of Silicon Valley and Latin American-based

Meet Justos, the new Brazilian insurtech that just got backing from the CEOs of 7 unicorns

Here in the U.S. the concept of using a driver’s data to decide the cost of auto insurance premiums is not a new one. But in markets like Brazil, the idea is still considered relatively novel. A new

Brazil’s Loft adds $100M to its accounts, $700M to its valuation in a single month

Nearly exactly one month ago, digital real estate platform Loft announced it had closed on $425 million in Series D funding led by New York-based D1 Capital Partners. The round included participation

Fintech darling Nubank raises blockbuster $400M Series G at $25B valuation

While the pandemic has left some startups strapped for cash, the aptly-named Brazilian neobank Nubank is swimming in it. This morning, the company announced that it has raised a $400 million Series

La Haus is bringing US tech services to Latin America’s real estate market

The alchemy for a successful startup can be hard to parse. Sometimes, it’s who you know. Sometimes it’s where you go to school. And sometimes it’s what you do. In the case of La Haus

Belvo scores $10M from Founders Fund and Kaszek to scale its API for financial services

Belvo, a Latin American fintech startup that launched just 12 months ago, has already snagged funding from two of the biggest names in North and South American venture capital. The company is aiming t

Latin America Roundup: Big rounds, big mergers and a $3.8M pandemic fund from Nubank

Sophia Wood Contributor Share on X Sophia Wood is a Venture Partner at Magma Partners. Sophia is also the co-founder of LatAm List, an English-language Latin American tech news source. More posts by t

Mobile banking app Empower Finance just closed a $20 million Series A round

Another afternoon, another round of funding for a mobile banking app. This time, it’s Empower Finance, a San Francisco-based company that’s headed up by former Sequoia Capital partner Warr

Former Google Pay execs raise $13.2M to build neo-banking platform for millennials in India

Two co-founders of Google Pay in India are building a neo-banking platform in the country — and they have already secured backing from three top VC funds. Sujith Narayanan, a veteran payments ex
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