La Frontera: Bridging Startups and VCs Across the Americas

Cyrus Bakhshi, Thomas Barrett

Welcome to "La Frontera," a podcast dedicated to exploring the dynamic startup and venture capital ecosystem in Latin America. We dive into the innovations, opportunities, and challenges unique to the region. Our goal is to bridge the gap between founders in the region and international investors by providing founders with access to high-quality resources and funding and investors with the insights and guidance to invest with confidence. You can explore all of our newsletters and be notified of future episodes here: https://www.lafronterapodcast.com

  1. JAN 7

    Fintech Storytelling, Building Credit & Credibility with Andrew Endicott, Gilgamesh Ventures

    We sat down with Andrew Endicott, GP at Gilgamesh Ventures and former co-founder and president of Petal—one of the earliest fintech companies to challenge traditional credit underwriting by using cash-flow data instead of credit scores. It’s one of those conversations that looks like a fintech episode on the surface, but ends up being something deeper: a discussion about how people make decisions inside complex systems, how founders earn trust over time, and why Latin America continues to produce some of the most compelling fintech businesses in the world. Andrew brings a rare mix of perspectives to the table. He’s a lawyer by training, a founder who built inside U.S. financial regulation, and now an investor who’s spent years developing pattern recognition across the U.S. and Latin America. He’s thoughtful without being academic, opinionated without being dogmatic—and refreshingly honest about what he doesn’t know. We talk about fintech complexity, regulatory tradeoffs, the capital cycle behind lending businesses, storytelling as companies scale, and the “light-bulb moment” that led to Gilgamesh’s LatAm thesis. We also wander into employee compensation, investor psychology, and why spending time away from screens might be one of the most underrated founder skills. If you’re a founder building in fintech—or an investor trying to understand why some teams win and others stall—this episode is pure gold.

    1h 10m

About

Welcome to "La Frontera," a podcast dedicated to exploring the dynamic startup and venture capital ecosystem in Latin America. We dive into the innovations, opportunities, and challenges unique to the region. Our goal is to bridge the gap between founders in the region and international investors by providing founders with access to high-quality resources and funding and investors with the insights and guidance to invest with confidence. You can explore all of our newsletters and be notified of future episodes here: https://www.lafronterapodcast.com