INSEAD Emerging Markets Podcast

Growing a search fund acquisition to IPO in Brazil - Jan Riehle, B4A


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Jan Riehle is the CEO of B4A, a leading Brazilian beauty marketplace with over 700,000 active users. An INSEAD ’09D, Jan began his career in M&A and private equity in Switzerland before joining Springstar, a German-Swiss venture builder, to manage their Brazil operations.

In this episode we cover: 

  • How he acquired and merged two struggling beauty companies (Glambox and Men’s Market) into what is now B4A (00:00:24; 00:05:28) 
  • His approach to restructuring and achieving breakeven in just four months by integrating company cultures and cutting fixed costs (00:11:39; 00:12:21) 
  • How B4A grew 10x in size and revenue, leveraging subscriptions, micro-influencers, and B2B services (00:19:41; 00:28:02) 
  • His thoughts on AI’s impact on labor, business efficiency, and why every employee at B4A is expected to use AI tools (00:28:02) 
  • His long-term vision for B4A, including potential international expansion, IPO, or SPAC exit (00:36:18)

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INSEAD Emerging Markets PodcastBy INSEAD Emerging Markets Podcast by Nick Lall