Pomelo is the fintech as a service (FAAS) platform for Latin America, founded by former Mastercard, Mercado Pago and Naranja X executives. The startup took some of its first steps during the Latitud Fellowship program, where Gaston Irigoyen, Hernan Corral and Juan Fantoni joined the second cohort.Latitud had the privilege of being Pomelo's first check, later introducing the founders to over 25 funds globally. Now, they're raising $9M to build Latin America's fintech infrastructure, in one of the largest seed rounds in the history of LATAM’s tech ecosystem."We were looking for local flavor, global access, and lots of hustle", says Gaston – and they got it.Led by monashees and Index Ventures, the round also includes funds like QED and Scifi, as well as some of the most prominent angels and entrepreneurs in the region – Max Levchin (Paypal & Affirm), Biz Stone (Twitter), Angela Strange (a16z), Harry Stebbings (20VC), Martin Varsavski and the founders of Marqeta, Rappi, Auth0, Kavak, Loft and RecargaPay.Pomelo allows fintechs and embedded finance players to build digital accounts with compliant onboarding processes, as well as issue prepaid and credit cards throughout Latin America.In this chat:Pomelo's solution to a huge problemHow they put their team togetherHow the seed round played outNext steps after the fundingTheir experience at LatitudGaston's unconventional advice for foundersThis is the first episode of Altitud, a segment of Latitud Podcast where we talk to the founders of the future high-flying companies in Latin America, hosted by Brian Requarth and Tomas Roggio.#VamosLatamBuilding 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

Cristiano Rocha is a seasoned engineer who started his career as a Master’s Student in Artificial Intelligence. Fresh out of university, he bootstraped his first company for about 8 years, back when venture capital in Brazil was almost unheard of. As a young founder, he established a reputation as a knowledge management evangelist and community management especialist.Almost by accident, Cristiano also became an expert in M&A, when he merged with another 2 companies in order to gain strength and get funding. This 3-way joint venture was called Affero Lab, which grew into the largest Corporate Training company in Latin America and was eventually sold in 2015.A hiatus got Cristiano into angel investing, but he missed the thrill of building. About a year after the exit, BizCapital was born to help Brazilian small businesses fund their operations in a fast and simple way through an online lending platform. And this time, they decided to play the traditional stage-financing VC game.In this episode, Cristiano compares his fundraising experiences and shares a few lessons he's learned as a second-time founder. Stick around to learn:How you can think of M&A as a viable growth strategyThe thought process behind going down the venture routeA few good practices around managing communitiesAnd how technical founders can not only build the best products, but also the winning productsBuilding 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