Shu Nyatta
@snyatta
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Immigrant. Entrepreneurs are the most powerful change agents that have ever existed. Co-founder @bicyclevc. Global Board Member @endeavor_global
MIA
Joined February 2009
Lagos-based founder just told me “Nairobi is Africa for beginners” 😂.
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The most consequential IPO in Latin America since Mercado Libre. The most valuable neobank in the world. The proof that the future is being build in Latin America. Congratulations NuBank!!
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How it started (first delivery) —> How it’s going (2nd most valuable startup in Latin America)
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Figma raised ~$300M total, for a $20B outcome . LatAm founders: stop spending capital on balance sheet lending, paid marketing, physical infrastructure and consumer subsidies. Start building software.
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The Thiel Fellowship is probably one of the most remarkable and successful innovations in education ever conceived.
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CFO is the most neglected role in startups. As you scale, a great CFO can be a super-power; a mediocre one can derail you. CFOs aren't for "financial reporting." The best are strategic counterparts to CEOs and bridges to investors. Recruit GREAT talent to the role vs. "box-check".
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Kudos to Marc Andreessen for independent thinking and avoiding recency bias . VCs take financial risk but rarely seem to want to take social risk. Marc doesn’t seem to give a f*ck what Lady Whistledown thinks.
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Born in Africa, whole career in the US, invested globally. I have no natural bias in favor of or against any region. I believe Latin America, particularly Brazil and Mexico, are the best risk/reward in venture capital over the next 5-10 years.
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First IPO from our Latin America Fund. The future is being built in Latin America!
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Mexico City might be the most vibrant, delicious, fun, invigorating city across all of the USMCA.
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Startups are not a business, they’re a process of inquiry. You’re not buying revenue, you’re buying probabilities linked to a curious and tenacious team. That’s why “multiples” is almost always the wrong discussion to have.
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This has got to be the coolest image on any flag in the world. Change my mind
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A lot of wealthy LatAm families are scared of investing in the future of LatAm - they want to invest in the future of the US instead. Same dynamic in Africa. You can’t expect global capital to flow to you if you don’t show local conviction first.
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Fundraising is a vulnerable, humbling endeavor. I apologize to any founders I've ever shown up late for, not listened to with enough attention, given surface-level feedback that doesn't help them improve, taken too long to say yes or no.
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Silicon Valley fetishizes young founders - fearless, no scars, high confidence. In my experience the average non-white founder is older; they need time to be “ready” to take founder risk, socially and financially. This is a source of bias in the system.
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Never been more bullish on LatAm tech than I am now. Huge problems to solve, in every category, with more incredible founders (from all over the world) seizing the opportunity. The future is being built in Latin America.
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Just spoke with an experienced LatAm founder. “High inflation, high interest rates, fear of recession, general macro and political uncertainty, limited access to capital. This is a home game!”.
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I've been thinking about immigrants and taking risk. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and go for it
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LatAm has produced world-class, multi-geo companies across categories: Fintech (NU), Gaming (Wildlife), Auto Commerce (Kavak), Real Estate (Quinto Andar), Creators (Hotmart), Wellness (Gympass). These are not copycats, they are BENCHMARKS. The future is being built in LatAm.
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Vamos LatAm founders!.
From @WeWork to @Softbank, @marceloclaure and his partner @snyatta join to discuss his next stop leading the Latin America-focused venture fund @BicycleVC:
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Investors (VC in particular) often talk about “my” founders and “my” companies. You firm is a minority shareholder, and you are an employee of your firm. Neither founders nor companies belong to your firm and certainly not to you. They are not collectibles. Words matter.
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Normalize group jogs/rides on business trips instead of cocktails.
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Individuals matter. Leadership matters. Tenacity matters. But teams matter the most. @marceloclaure has taught me more than anyone in my professional life. Grateful for our time together, and wishing you godspeed on your new adventures!!.
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SoftBank Latin America believes web3 is a juggernaut and we must become "crypto-fluent" or we will be irrelevant. So we did two weeks of "crypto-school" for our team at the end of last year. Here is our curated reading list:
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The future of venture capital: curious, rigorous, optimistic storytellers @packyM @djrosent @gilbert @mariogabriele
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@Lisaney83 @Paulinojean @FrancisSuarez Dubai - how it started, how it’s going. There’s a whole lot you can do in 25 years. What will Miami be in 2045?
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VC is *such* an exclusive club in the US - exhibits worst symptoms of aristocracy and incumbency (recent e.g.: Rabois calling hustler solo VC a "third tier VC"). This behavior doesn't seem to happen as much in other geos, because everyone wants the whole ecosystem to grow/thrive.
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Average founders want to be left alone. Good founders want to be coached. Great founders want to hear the truth.
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Board meetings are not for reporting. They’re for collective problem solving. If your board isn’t doing this, it’s a massive missed opportunity and probably a waste of everyone’s time.
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2 years, over $2B invested in almost 30 incredible LatAm founders. We finally got around to launching our website. Come see what we’re all about. The future is being built in Latin America
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“I’ll drop out of Stanford to start a company” is such a different decision for an immigrant. You’re not making a choice just for you. You’re making a choice for the whole community that helped you get there, has high hopes for you, and that you will need to explain yourself to.
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Office hours and mentorship are nice, but capital is better. Stop the excuses, put your money where your mouth is. That’s what we’ve tried to do over the past year. A lot of work left, and we’re here for it
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Yes I'm a minority. No I don't want to drive the diversity agenda. You do it.
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Total value of unicorns globally is about $3T. Sounds like a lot. But total value of global public equities is close to $100T. Private tech is only 3%. So much more to build!.
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It’s fine to admire Elon Musk for his incredible technological and business accomplishments . It’s also fine to acknowledge that he also seems to be an impulsive mess sometimes and shouldn’t be trusted for thoughtful solutions to war or hostile takeovers.
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2022 will be a watershed year in the history of LatAm tech. There may be 10+ high quality NASDAQ/NYSE IPOs. This will prove to investors & employees that equity has real value and kick off an even bigger startup boom in 2023. The golden years aren’t here yet - they’re coming!.
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Officially landed with the whole family (and pup) in Miami. Here to stay!
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Effective CEOs and managers at established companies tend to manage by P&L. Effective founders and managers at startups manage by KPIs. Nobody talks about “the P&L”. It’s because P&Ls are lagging indicators and KPIs are leading indicators. This makes ALL the difference.
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The future is being built in Latin America. We’re here to help make that happen.
Thrilled to announce the launch of @SoftBank Latin America Fund II, which will commit initially $3B in innovators and entrepreneurs in the Latin America region. Together with our first LatAm Fund, we’ll be investing $8B in LatAm!
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“If Spotify, Amazon, Toyota and Citibank had a kid” you get Kavak. True business model innovation and global ambition, hecho en Mexico. Now the 2nd most valuable startup in LatAm, and just getting started…
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This is becoming a regular occurrence now for LATAM. A true coming out party in 2021 for the region
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Since we launched The Opportunity Fund for founders-of-color 4 months ago, we have made over 15 investments across industries. There’s no pipeline problem. Meet our founders here:
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@mattturck Buffett talked somewhere about how every day you’re either reinforcing the moat or the moat is crumbling. Moats aren’t like math problems (“there I solved it”) but rather like gardening - weeding and fertilizer and watering are constantly needed.
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Early in my career I used to look down on sales. Now I realize anything worth doing is sales. It’s all sales.
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All these companies almost died. Mercado Libre (~$60B market cap).PayPal (~$120B).Nvidia (~$600B).Tesla (~$1T). It's not a straight line and it's not a foregone conclusion.
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Miami can distinguish itself from all other tech centers or global city states by being the place where people with PURPOSE come to build a BETTER future
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I’m new to early stage investing. It’s a different business from growth investing. Reminds me more of the music industry, and the relationships between labels, A&Rs and artists.
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I believe in the power of youthful optimism but Silicon Valley over-fetishizes youth when it comes to investing. Valentine started Sequoia at 40. Gurley joined Benchmark at 33. Yet today firms pass over 30-something candidates for being “too old” - I think it’s a massive error.
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One of the most common startup mistakes, especially in emerging markets, is hiring “credentialed” leaders from traditional companies. Promote your OWN stars, don’t look outside for validation. What you’re doing is NEW.
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Founders serve as lighthouses in uncertain times, when traditional safe havens are not so safe any more. Their job is to navigate ambiguity on your behalf and find a way to create value
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These types of cohort charts are extremely rare and very, very beautiful 🤩 . Congratulations to NuBank on raising the bar
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LatAm venture funding has collapsed after last year’s euphoria. Q3 ‘22 is the lowest funding for the 3rd quarter since 2018
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We’d love to hear from Black, Latinx, Native American founders - here’s how:
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2021 was feverish for VC in LatAm, but even so VC as % of GDP was still way below other regions. 2022 was a return to sanity, but capital to LatAm fell much more than other regions . Conclusion: There is no stable capital base for LatAm, just “pendulum capital” from elsewhere
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My favorite NuBank earnings slide. The power of serving the under-served is you learn how to underwrite them way better than anyone else. Underwriting the affluent is a commodity - but the gap btn Nu and Market widens significantly as you move down the pyramid
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“Unicorn status” may be one of the most toxic ideas to come out of the last cycle. Being a *dollar* unicorn was fetishized by founders, celebrated by media, chased by investors in every ecosystem, often to the detriment of the companies themselves.
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Normalize down rounds. It’s ridiculous how much contortion is done to avoid them. Valuation moves in both directions - private markets should use this cycle to make peace with that fact.
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The things Masa was saying in 2015 when I joined SoftBank, which were widely ridiculed (AI is coming, compute needs will be exponential, NVDA is the most amazing company) are now "market consensus." Having public conviction before anyone else is a lonely game.
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Overlooked founders inherently have the grit required to match this tough moment in the markets. And more importantly, they can generate great returns. They are an undervalued asset class
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Brave entrepreneurs backed by patient capital are one of the most powerful drivers of human discovery and progress that have ever existed.
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We analyzed years of headlines from FT & WSJ. How Latin America is covered is strikingly negative vs other regions. Cartel, corruption, currency….Here’s the latest from The Economist: “A land of useless workers” - headlines shape perception; perception shapes capital allocation
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Finally learned to ski. I get what the fuss is about - it’s incredible.
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We’re in a full-blown CAC crisis across all companies that rely on typical digital channels to find customers . There is a trillion dollars of equity value to be captured by building efficient digital acquisition machines that do not rely on GOOG or FB.
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Twitter, Stripe, other folks facing layoffs: transition = adventure. There are GREAT companies being built in Latin America that could benefit massively from your experience. São Paulo + Mexico City are incredible places to spend time. You can work remote. DM me if intrigued.
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Simple/powerful definition of emerging market: a place with low trust. It's why Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey are so attractive for startups. You don’t just reduce friction/increase convenience like most developed-market startups. You fill a trust vacuum - MUCH more valuable.
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Simplest definition I can think of for an emerging market: a place with low trust . That’s why Brazil, Mexico, Nigeria are such attractive places for startups. You don’t just reduce friction like developed-market startups. You provide trust - ultimately MUCH more valuable.
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All this noise leads me to admire NuBank even more. The only new fintech (crypto or other) that has successfully SCALED a complex risk management operation. In Brazil no less!. I believe the reason is risk management was always CORE to the DNA not a footnote in service of growth.
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I truly believe we are in the midst of a Latin American tech renaissance.
.@snyatta, a SoftBank partner who co-leads its $5B LatAm Fund says: "Technology in LatAm is often more about inclusion rather than disruption. The vast majority of the population is underserved in almost every category of consumption.".
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By 2100 Nigeria will have more people than China. 5 of the top 10 countries by population will be in Africa. How should that change what we’re building today?
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The African population S curve is just starting to take off while China and India taper. The future is Africans
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How much does the world misunderstand Latin America? . My 80 year old Kenyan dad, living in Kenya, kidnapped at one point, reluctant to wander around after dark, recently warned: “Be careful in South America son, we hear it’s really dangerous”.
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Latinos start more businesses per capita than any other racial group in the US. But the broad venture community doesn't believe in them. We at @OpportunityFund do. 45% of our founders are Latino/a and we have put real capital into their hands.
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Wonderful thing about Miami - it's a big tent. Everyone partners, everyone is welcome. Proud to be working with @JoinAtomic to bring world-class developers to this cold, depressing winter destination ;)
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NuBank has roughly the same market cap as Capital One. This feels like a moment worth celebrating.
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The entrepreneurs are there. You just need to care enough to look.
Managing Partner @SoftBank @snyatta talks about the creation of their LatAM and Opportunity funds. "What we've realized is - if you show up, they will come so to speak. The entrepreneurs are there.".#BloombergInvest @CarolineHydeTV
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The best founders are good at lots of things. One of those things is picking a clear, simple, ambitious KPI to describe what everyone in the organization should ultimately care about. Eg for Musk & SpaceX it’s cost per ton to orbit/Mars. That’s it - that’s the whole strategy.
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My favorite Masa quote: we’re all in a boat of some sort. Most of the world is focused on the waves right in front of them. Stay focused on the shore in the distance - that’s the only way you get anywhere.
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Why do so many people expect underrepresented founders to be building businesses that “make the world a better place”? Don’t burden a founder with your expectations. They just want to build a business, man.
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The most consequential aspect of startups isn’t tech or growth or valuation. It’s the fact that people who used to be salaried employees become equity owners. This is what creates the short term passion and mid term angel networks that make an entire ecosystem thrive.
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I love technological breakthroughs. However, I find myself feeling anger on behalf of teachers everywhere whose lives have suddenly been rocked by ChatGPT-assisted homework/essays. How are they supposed to deal with this? Is it OK that OpenAI unilaterally released a monster?.
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"The future is being being built in Latin America" is now conventional wisdom. We couldn't be more proud of the founders we have been privileged to partner with so far - you did this!.
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Why I like risk/reward for Brazil/Mexico VC: .- Big pop + $$ (~340M, > pc GDP vs India, Indonesia, Turkey, ~ China).- Liquidity! 20+ yrs of IPOs/M&A in US.- 1 winner funded per category.- US competitors won't prioritize these mkts.- High LT earnings power (look at incumbents).
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Unpopular opinion: Investment banking is the best thing you can do as a new graduate who is curious about business. You internalize foundational concepts, learn how to work fast, learn service-orientation, and gain a truly valuable superpower: attention to detail.
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Two extremely rare traits:. 1. Ask to learn, not to talk. 2. Listen to understand, not to reply.
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Legendary & lasting VC firms (Benchmark, Sequoia, USV) are different flavors of ice cream but seem to share one very important, core value in common (& different from almost all other firms): radical collaboration. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork.
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LatAm was an afterthought for global tech investors for a long time. We planted a flag in 2019 and these overlooked founders proved what overlooked founders always prove: excellence exists everywhere.
In nearly 2 years since launching the @SoftBank #LATAM Fund, we have proven why the Latin American region is truly unstoppable. $3.5B invested in 48 incredible companies, now worth $6.9B FMV. Incredibly grateful for these amazing founders and a truly world-class team @SoftBank.
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Latin America is under-capitalized for all the wrong reasons. There is so much to build and we’re honored to be in a position to support the builders of LatAm!.
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15% of freshmen at Harvard in 2019 had parents who went to Harvard. At MIT, which doesn’t have “legacy preference” for admissions, that number was 2%. Legacy preference disproportionately benefits rich white kids. It is deeply un-meritocratic and absurd. It should be abolished.
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Prototypical founders (e.g., White/Bay Area-based) often find brilliant ways to make things better/faster for those already living in the future. Less typical founders (e.g.,Black/Mexico-based) often focus on building the future for everyone else.
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