#183 - Benjamin Gleason (Kamino): the beginning of the Brazilian fintech revolution

PodKast de K Fund

In this week’s episode we chat with Benjamin Gleason, a key figure in the Brazilian and LatAm startup and tech ecosystem.

Born and raised in Missouri, Benjamin has spent the majority of his professional career in Brazil, across a wide variety of roles. His first tech role in the country was as the managing director and CFO of Groupon Brasil, at a time of incredible growth for the company.After that he co-founded GuiaBolso, one of the first fintech companies out of the region, which was sold to PicPay after raising $66m from notable funds such as Ribbit Capital, QED and others.

His last entrepreneurship endeavor is Kamino, another fintech play that aims to make it easy for Brazilians and founders to launch and manage their companies. This is the second appearance of one of Kamino’s co-founders on the podKast. We had Gonzalo Parejo a couple of months ago.

In this episode, we chat with Benjamin about the following topics

Brazil and LatAm:

• Landing in Brazil as a foreigner many years ago
• Launching a startup in the early days of LatAm startup ecosystem rising
• His view as an operator, but also as Endeavor mentor and investor for next 10 years in LatAm

Company building:

• Building everything cause there was nothing, and hiring talent
• Finding Product market fit and how he, as a founder with more experience, sees this process and deals with the discovery procedure

VC and investing:

• VCs back then and now and available infrastructure for growing business in LatAm
• How was the formation of your relationship with VC funds?
• How did you position yourself in the VC market to attract investors?
• And how was the process of selecting which VC managers fit best with your companies?

Life and motivations:

• Entrepreneurship and impact
• Involvement in NGOs

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