Latitud Co-Founder Brian Requarth on building world-class tech companies in Latin America

Hi from Mexico City. Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream Podcast we travel to one of the most exciting regions in the startup world – Latin America, which has seen venture backed funding dollars of $14.8B flowing into the region in 2021 come in higher than the prior 6 years combined.

Brian Requarth comes onto the podcast to talk about building the company that he wish he had when he was an entrepreneur in Latin America.

He’s the co-founder of Latitud, the a16z and NFX backed infrastructure and accelerator for startups. With Latitud, he’s building the operating system for venture backed companies in the region.

We had a fascinating conversation about why founders and investors should be #LongLatAm. We discuss:

* Why LatAm is such an exciting region to invest into right now.

* How community is the new lean startup and the equivalent of Stanford of the internet.

* How the confluence of talent, capital, size of the market, and opportunity make LatAm a region of focus for VCs.

* Why Latitud will play a critical role in developing the startup ecosystem in LatAm.

When he sold Brazilian online RE marketplace Viva Real for $550M several years ago, he had to pay over $100M in capital gains taxes due to incorporation errors made early on. It was quite the expensive mistake and one that he hopes to help fix with Latitud for the next generation of founders.

Brian is a serial entrepreneur who also worked with ZAP Imoveis, which was owned by Grupo Globo, Latin America’s largest media company.

As an angel investor, Brian has invested in over 150 tech startups in Latin America, so he’s quite familiar with the inner workings of starting a company in the region.

Thanks Brian for coming on the show to talk about such an exciting region in the startup world.

You can listen to this episode of Alt Goes Mainstream on Spotify here, Apple Podcasts here, and Transistor here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit altgoesmainstream.substack.com