The J Curve with Julio Vasconcellos and Ana Martins, Partners at Atlantico: Five Big Ideas

Last week we released a special edition of The J Curve podcast with Julio Vasconcellos and Ana Martins, partners at Atlantico and THE TEAM behind Atlantico Latin America Digital Report, the most comprehensive report about tech trends in Latin America.

Few data points from the report that I found really curious:

1️⃣ Latin American SMBs represent 98%+ of businesses but only 25% of GDP (sounds like a huge opportunity for tech infrastructure providers for SMBs)

2️⃣ Usage per capital of Brazil’s instant payment PIX 2Xed that of India’s UPI, which is deemed as a global example of real-time payment system globally

3️⃣ The Latin American population feels more optimistic about AI than its American counterpart. 54% vs 31% of ‘very positive’ respondents. This data is even more surprising given that 63% of the Latin American respondents think that AI can perform some or most of their job vs 42% of the US respondents

Here are the FIVE big ideas from our conversation with Ana and Julio 🧐💡👇🏻:

1. Its ability to create value in a highly efficient way makes Latin America’s tech ecosystem globally competitive alongside with USA, India and China 💯

   In 5-6 years LatAm managed to deliver more billion dollar exits (~12 vs ~8), and more equity value ($80B+ vs ~$60B) vs India, while India got 25x the volume of VC dollars invested on a % of GDP basis

2. The next large stream of global tech companies will come from Latin America 🌎

   Existing track-record of successful IPOs paired with a dozen+ IPO-ready companies will lead the way and create the example for the next generation of founders

3. The real-world impact of PIX (Brazilian instant payment system) adoption and broadening access to digital money in Brazil and Latin America is massive 💰
   It boosts access to credit for previously unbanked and underbanked population and drives down the informality of local economies

4. Artificial Intelligence has a huge potential to address Latin America’s most pressing issues in education, healthcare and bureaucracy

   The biggest adoption hurdle is a shortage of talent

5. Agricultural sector represent a massive opportunity for future world leading tech companies coming out of Brazil 🧠

   Agribusiness GDP accounts for ~1/5 of the Brazilian economy. Brazil is the largest exporter of 5+ different commodities. As the world population is expected to reach 10B by 2060, Brazil will have to step up to supply the demand from this growing population

Ana’s book recommendation is Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind by Andy Dunn

You can watch the interview on YouTube here

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

If you want to learn more about Atlantico Latin America Digital Report 2023, you can download it here.

PS: On Thursday September 14 (tomorrow), we are releasing the new episode of The J Curve podcast with Lucas Vargas, CEO at Brazilian fintech Nomad. which we talk a lot about managing a high growth startup in market downturn, building scalable corporate culture, pursuing big bets in adverse environment, Lucas’s lessons from multiple startup M&As and is much more. Really great one for entrepreneurs and investors alike!

Thanks for reading,

Olga