#86 - Investing in the future of LatAm tech: Angela Strange, a16z

03/28/22 • 47 min

Angela Strange is a multiple marathon winner and once achieved 7th place in Canada's distance running national ranking, but you may know her best as an investor on behalf of Andreessen Horowitz.

Before joining the world of venture capital, Angela launched and scaled up Chrome for Android and Chrome for iOS during her time at Google, and her previous experiences have uniquely positioned her as an investor that's been in the trenches and knows what it's like to build something from scratch.

As a General Partner at a16z, Angela focuses on financial services such as financial infrastructure, insurance and real estate, and she's taken special interest in Latin America after witnessing the transformation in its fintech space in the last 5 years.

In this episode, Angela and I went over:

Her thesis that every company will be a fintech company
Nurturing relationships between investors and founders
And why she chose to invest in Latitud

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

Building good sh*t in Latin America?

Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com
Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond
Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love
And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

In this episode, Angela and I went over:

Her thesis that every company will be a fintech company
Nurturing relationships between investors and founders
And why she chose to invest in Latitud

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

Building good sh*t in Latin America?

Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com
Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond
Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love
And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Previous Episode

#85 - Building from first principles: Francisco Larraín, Topsort

Francisco Larraín's professional journey tells a story of coming full circle.

It all started as a founding team member for advertisement network Tapjoy. Having gotten a taste for the world of startups, he went on to found payment technology solution Zappedy and to have a $30 million exit to Groupon, where he stayed as Head of Local Engineering for 3 years.

It wasn't long before Francisco got back on the saddle and founded Maxxa, the largest insurtech company in Chile, and he scaled it up to over 25,000 SMB customers before looking for a new challenge.

When he felt ready to tackle the next big thing, Francisco decided to go back to his beginnings in the monetization space: he and co-founder Regina Ye started auction-based advertisement solution Topsort in 2021 hoping to bring innovation to marketplace advertisement.

Having just raised a $8 million dollar Seed Round at a $110 million valuation from names like Pear Ventures, Quiet Capital and FJLabs, I'd say they're well on the way to accomplishing their goals.

Today, Francisco and I are going over:

His successful exit strategy for Zappedy
The challenges of tech leadership roles
Topsort's journey from idea to Product-Market fit

Building something new? Apply for the Latitud Fellowship at apply.latitud.com

Building good sh*t in Latin America?

Learn about how Latitud can help you at latitud.com
Discover and pitch Latitud Ventures, your partner from 0 to 1 and beyond
Sign up for our weekly newsletter for founder insights and some tough love
And follow us on Linkedin / Instagram / Spotify to stay in the loop

Next Episode

#87 - Impact entrepreneurship on the blockchain: Brett Hagler, New Story

By 2030, the UN predicts that 3 billion people will be living without shelter. Today's guest is doing something to combat that.

Brett Hagler is a Y Combinator graduate, a published author and cancer survivor, but you may know him best for his non-profit New Story and for his impactful key note speaking.

Brett started New Story at 25 years old. In the years since they have funded over 2,300 homes, built 16 communities and raised over $25M, so it's no wonder they were named one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in the World four different times.

Having been featured in Forbes' 30 Under 30 and named one of the Top 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs, Brett is passionate about speaking on leadership and social entrepreneurship.

Today, Brett and I are talking about: