AF

Andres Fontao

Transforming finance for the better in Latin America.

New York City Metropolitan Area

Invests in

Stages:

  • Min Investment:

    $100,000.00
  • Max Investment:

    $5,000,000.00
  • Target Investment:

    $1,500,000.00

Work Experience

  • Co-Founder & CEO

    2014

    FINNOSUMMIT is the leading high-impact networking, content and events platform in Latin America for the transformation of finance for the better. Since 2014, FINNOSUMMIT organizes the largest Fintech conference in Latin America, where entrepreneurs, financial institution executives, investors and the most influential players in the Fintech ecosystem gather to seek, generate and implement new opportunities for the transformation of the financial services industry. FINNOSUMMIT is a Finnovista group company, committed to the development of the Fintech ecosystem and drives Fintech knowledge in the region through the development of studies and periodical publications on the state and latest trends in Fintech innovations. The FINNOSUMMIT community is composed of more than 40,000 financial services innovators, who on a daily basis look for Fintech trends, news, data, insights and reports to understand the future of Fintech and financial services.

  • Co-Founder

    2012

    Finnovista is the leading ecosystem-driven corporate innovation and venture capital firm committed to the development of the Fintech ecosystem and the transformation of finance for the better in Latin America. Finnovista builds partnerships with the most visionary startups, investors and companies to solve big challenges in financial services by unleashing the transformative power of entrepreneurship and collaboration. The company provides its corporate clients with disruptive innovation services to develop key organizational skills, explore partnerships and generate tangible results in collaboration with the ecosystem.

  • Co-Founder & Managing Partner

    2016

    Finnovista.vc is a venture capital firm that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed stage Fintech companies in spanish-speaking Latin America. Finnovista.vc is the venture capital arm of Finnovista, an organization that has played a pivotal role in developing and orchestrating the Fintech ecosystem in Latin America since 2013. Finnovista.vc is the first VC partner for Fintech entrepreneurs. We combine earliest-stage capital and Fintech ecosystem know-how and know-who to create the Fintech leaders in Latin America. Fund I (vintage 2017) successfully invested in 42 pre-seed and seed Fintech startups, having helped create the Fintech 1.0 leaders of Spanish-speaking LATAM. Our investments include Fintech leaders such as Flink (exited 100x return), Dapp (exited 61x), Atrato , Prometeo , Vexi , BDEO, Finerio Connect, Facturedo, Tu Identidad, Prestanómico, Contalink and Koibanx, among others. As of 2024, Fund I has returned 6.5x multiple to its investors (MoiC) and 230% return in Distributed Paid-In capital (DPI).

  • Partner

    2020

    Rainmaking is a corporate innovation and venture development firm. We help the world’s most influential companies build and scale new businesses. We work with organizations of all shapes and sizes, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 corporates, to solve challenges across the ever-changing landscape of innovation.

2016 - 2024

  • LATAM Co-Founder and Managing Partner

    2016 - 2024

    Launched Startupbootcamp in LATAM, creating the largest Fintech pre-seed and seed platform in the region with two world-class Startupbootcamp programs and supporting 45 companies that later became Fintech leaders in the region. Startupbootcamp FinTech is an intensive acceleration program helping Fintech startups build a scalable business model with over 400 leading mentors, partners and investors from the financial technology ecosystem. Startupbootcamp Scale Fintech is the leading Fintech growth program in Latin America, helping startups with a validated business model, on the verge of raising their Series A round, to overcome the scaling barriers inherent to these type of companies in the region. Startupbootcamp is the world's largest industry-focused startup accelerator network. We have accelerated (and invested) in 1600+ startups which in turn have created over 7000+ jobs, raised over €1.9B in funding and 76% are still active to date.

  • VP, Business Development Latin America

    2012 - 2012

    Responsible for defining go to market strategy for Latin America and Caribbean basin, performing market sizing, proposition development, client and channel prospecting.

  • Director, Product Marketing Europe

    2011 - 2012

    Performed a hybrid role of executive mobile banking consultant, marketing, and product marketing in Europe during Clairmail's expansion into the region.

2007 - 2011

  • Head of Mobile Banking

    2007 - 2011

    A senior member of the Innovation team at Bankinter, I was responsible for product management and product marketing of mobile financial services across lines of business (retail, commercial, payments and brokerage.

2005 - 2007

  • Senior Manager

    2005 - 2007

    Participated in a wide array of consultancy projects in Spain and throughout Europe, advising incumbent mobile operators and licensed start-ups on entry, marketing and arpu-up strategies. Also participated in business case analysis and operations model and planning for MVNOs in Spain.

2003 - 2005

  • Co-founder

    2003 - 2005

    Co-founded a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP) in Spain; partner responsible for development of corporate strategy, business plan and fundraising process.

1999 - 2001

  • Mobile Products Manager

    1999 - 2001

    Led the strategic direction for mobile products, identifying and developing new products jointly with Marketing and Sales departments.