Join Derek Hall in this episode as he sits down with Miguel Burger-Calderon, Patrick Sigrist, Belen Mella, and Jorge Vargas Neto for a Fireside Chat on the dynamics between founders and investors.

Throughout the conversation, they delve into everything, from navigating difficult discussions with investors to pinpointing the right investment partners for various company stages.

It's our first live recording, and we did encounter some audio hiccups at times, but we trust they won't compromise your listening experience. 

Meet the panel:

• Derek Hall: Partner at BFF
• Miguel Burger-Calderon: Partner at BFF
• Patrick Sigrist: Co-Founder at Ifood and Nomad
• Belen Mella: Partner at Thrive Capital
• Jorge Vargas Neto: Founder & CEO at BHub

In this episode, Derek Hall sits down with Federico Vega. Federico is the Founder & CEO of Frete.com, a logistics and trucking technology business that was last valued at $1 billion dollars.

With an A-list group of investors and board members on his cap table, Federico has raised nearly $400 million dollars. His investors include Blackstone, Softbank, Tencent, Goldman Sachs, Valor Capital Group, Reid Hoffman (Founder of LinkedIn), Paulo Veras (Founder of 99), Henry Kravis (Founder of KKR), Oscar Salazar (co-founder of Uber), Jeb Bush (the 43rd Governor of Florida) and others. 

Federico talks about the early days of founding the business, convincing his former boss to invest in the company, and growing Frete.com to become the largest freight transport platform in Latin America.

Hello and welcome to Latam Founders! In this episode, I sit down with Guta Tolmasquim, the founder of Brand Gym, the biggest branding agency for startups in LATAM. Their clients include startups from the portfolios of Kaszek, Monashees, Valor, Canary, YC, Latitud, Maya, Igah, and others. More recently, with the goal of strategically positioning branding within businesses, Guta embarked on her second venture: Purple Metrics.

Purple Metrics is software that helps marketers and managers track brand power every week by conducting research with its customers. They are currently in soft launch mode and have already measured the brands of relevant and influential companies.

👉 To track your brand, check out @purplemetrics or DM her directly.

👉 To hire Brand Gym, check out @brandgym or email Bruno at [email protected]

Hello and welcome to The Derek Hall Show! In this episode I sit down with my business partner, Miguel Burger-Calderon. Miguel is the co-founder and Managing Partner of BFF, which stands for “By Founders for Founders", an early stage venture capital firm focused on Latin America that Miguel and I recently launched. In this episode, Miguel and I talk about his previous experiences co-founding two very successful startups, Elite Daily, which ultimately sold to Daily Mail back in 2015, and Ethyca, a data privacy startup that has already raised $25 million from investors like Founder Collective, IA Ventures, and Bill Ackman. We also talk about his career as an angel investor, where he made early bets into companies like Plaid, which was last valued at more than $13 billion dollars, and ultimately becoming a full time venture capital investor focused on investing in the next generation of great founders here in Latin America. I hope you enjoy the episode!

Ariel Lambrecht and Danilo Mansano are the co-founders of Mara, a startup that offers groceries at a wholesale price, delivered next day near you. Focused on changing the shopping experience of Brazilians, Mara's objective is to give access to quality products for the entire population, with wholesale prices and free next-day deliveries, at a pick-up point close to users. The company was founded in 2021 and started operating in São Paulo in early 2022. Before co-founding Mara, Ariel was the co-founder of 99, the Brazilian ride-hailing startup that ultimately was acquired by Didi Chuxing for $1 Billion Dollars, becoming Brazil's first tech unicorn. We talk about the early days of finding product/market fit, establishing a company culture, and the relationship dynamics between co-founders. I hope you enjoy the episode!

In this episode I sit down with Phil Kauders. Phil is the founder of Courageous land, a vertically integrated agroforestry company that designs and operates regenerative biodiverse agroforestry systems that are optimized for carbon removal, income, and co-benefits. Their proprietary farms and platform for landowners helps meet the growing demand for climate-positive foods, ingredients and timber. Before becoming a founder, Phil developed his leadership skills in the financial world, working at Goldman Sachs on Wall Street, and at Tarpon Investimentos in Brazil. Before Courageous Land he was the Head of Latin America at LTK, a global technology platform founded in 2011 that empowers over 100 thousand female entrepreneurs and has driven over $12 billion dollars in sales via proprietary partnerships & technology. Phil is also a close friend of mine and a true inspiring person. I hope you enjoy the episode!