- Sergio Furio, Thomas Floracks and David Vélez are mentors/advisors in Latitud;
- Latitud also has a podcast and a new club in Clubhouse called “Startups in Latin America”.
Three well-known startups‘ executives launched a new program for Latin America‘s entrepreneurial ecosystem in 2020. Latitud‘s program was founded by Brian Requarth, co-founder of the VivaReal real estate marketplace in Brazil; Gina Gotthilf, a Brazilian who has worked for Tumblr and Duolingo; and Yuri Danilchenko, former CTO at Escale. They came together to create a program offering mentoring and connections to startups in Latin America.
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Talking to LABS, Requarth said that the project’s idea emerged last year, in the middle of the pandemic, while he was chairman of Grupo ZAP (a company formed after the merger of two major portals for buying, selling, and renting real estate, ZAP and VivaReal) waiting for his transaction to be reviewed by the Brazilian antitrust authorities. He sold Grupo Zap to OLX in November 2020 for BRL 2.9 billion.
“I decided to distract myself by taking calls from many founders building their startups to see where I could help. I met Yuri Danilchenko and Gina Gotthilf around the same time and all of us share a passion for startups, entrepreneurships and community,” he said.
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The three entrepreneurs have strong connections to Brazil and Latin America. So, they decided to help entrepreneurs and share their experiences. “We were so impressed that we decided to organize this into a program bringing together high potential entrepreneurs with world-class mentors.”
Indeed, Latitud’s team has built successful teams and businesses featuring several Latin America’s stars as mentors and advisors, such as Sergio Furio (Founder and CEO at Creditas), Thomas Floracks (co-founder of VivaReal and CPO at LaHaus), David Vélez (co-founder at Nubank), Thomaz Srougi (founder and executive chairman of Dr. Consulta), Benjamin Gleason (founder of Guiabolso), Lara Lemann (co-founder of MAYA Capital), Deh Bastos (founder at Criando Crianças Pretas), Geraldo Thomaz (founder and co-CEO at VTEX) and many others.
“We built a large network, and we understand the challenges of going from 0 to 1. I think founders were attracted to the fact that we have lived this before. Also, we have an incredible network globally,” he said.
According to Requarth, Latitud is still figuring out “what it wants to be when it grows up,” but, ultimately, the community intends to be the place where entrepreneurs go to start the next big tech company in Latin America.
So far, Latitud has about 150 entrepreneurs in its community. Those who want to join the hub must apply and then go through an interview process.
“We are very selective, and the acceptance rate is in the single digits,” states Requarth.
Latitud also has a podcast and a new club in Clubhouse called “Startups in Latin America.” “We see these new mediums as a great way to share experiences and insights with a global audience. We plan to bring structured content about many topics related to founding, building, and raising venture capital.”
