Ivan Montoya, founder and managing partner of NuMundo Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss the SF Bay as it was in the late 90s, his journey to becoming LATAM's super angel and the decision to start his own fund.
Ivan Montoya, founder and managing partner of NuMundo Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss the SF Bay as it was in the late 90s, his journey to becoming LATAM's super angel and the decision to start his own fund.
You can find Ivan Montoya on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanmontoya1/ and learn more about NuMundo Ventures at https://numundoventures.com/.
Learn more about Flowlie and how the platform can help you screen deals faster and discover the right connections from your network at https://www.flowlie.com.
Stay up-to-date with all our episodes by checking our website at https://www.thevcarchitects.com, following us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/thevcarchitects, and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thevcarchitects.
The VC Architects (Ep. 6) - Ivan Montoya (NuMundo Ventures)
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Ivan Montoya: [00:00:00] Hello, I'm Ivan Montoya. I'm the general partner of NuMundo Ventures, and we back exceptional Latin American founders focused on fintech, prop tech, and supply chain.
Vlad Cazacu: Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in and welcome to the VC Architects, the podcast where we share the real stories behind new VC fund managers and the blueprints used to make them successful. My name is Vlad Cazacu and I'll be your host today as we interview Ivan Montoya, a friend and a ridiculously successful angel investor having backed Jeeves, Yumi, Chipper cash, and more at the early stages.
Vlad Cazacu: In this episode, we go back to the Bay Area as it was in the 90s and follow the story of the man who became LATAM's super angel. For more information about starting and growing your venture fund, including show notes, highlight clips, and exclusive scenes, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @TheVCArchitects, as well as on our website at TheVCArchitects.com.
Vlad Cazacu: This episode is brought to you by Flowlie, the number one choice for deal screening and network management used by hundreds of investors from [00:01:00] 50 plus different countries. Now, let's dive right in.
Vlad Cazacu: Ivan such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate you accepting our invitation to discuss more about your background in NuMundo
Ivan Montoya: Ventures.
Ivan Montoya: Great. Great to see you again, Vlad.
Vlad Cazacu: I think we're going to have a very interesting conversation here. I got a chance to know you a little bit better over the past year and I think you have a very interesting story into venture through this LATAM Super Angel experience over the past couple of years, but we'll get to that in just a second. I'm curious to start this episode at the very, very beginning of your journey: the mid to late nineties fellow immigrant moving to the Bay Area, experiencing the tech ecosystem in probably one of the most exciting times that has ever been.
Vlad Cazacu: Tell us a little bit more about how the Bay Area was during that time.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, it's funny to look back on it in retrospect, but we didn't, you know, [00:02:00] kind of didn't know what was happening until maybe two or three years into it. But when I moved out, it was early September, late August of 2025. And I think Netscape had just gone public and I was about to go to business school at Stanford.
Ivan Montoya: And I remember at the time, like, what is a browser? What is this mosaic thing? Right. And I remember obviously the valley had a long reputation and Sandhill road was already established, but it was nothing compared to what it is now. And what was more surreal was it was like a feeling of being in Hollywood.
Ivan Montoya: If you're an actor, right? You would know somebody who got a part in a movie, right? And it's like, oh, they acted with Tom Cruise. Well, I remember talking to a friend of mine who is in the business school class, maybe two before me. And he's like, yeah, you know, there was this guy in our class.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, he was okay, whatever. But check out his company. Like, what is it? It's like eBay. I'm [00:03:00] like, what's eBay? He's yeah, it's going public. He's going to be the richest guy in our class, whatever. It was just like. Yeah, to him, it was like this random guy in his business school class. And that person ended up being this guy named Jeff Skull, who's done amazing things.
Ivan Montoya: But it was just like, it was just magic was happening. Right. And super exciting, for sure. Very exciting time. And I find
Vlad Cazacu: it hard to kind of not get entrenched in this, magic that was probably going on during that time. But I have a feeling you started angel investing a little bit later on in your career, not during the late nineties.
Vlad Cazacu: So I'm curious of understanding your entry path into angel investing and moving, making the move from an operator at Silicon Valley based organizations to actually an investor and supporting new founders. Yeah,
Ivan Montoya: um, so there's probably two key things or a couple of key things. One is you know, look the same way it is for investors that there's a power [00:04:00] law.
Ivan Montoya: It's true as operators, right? I worked in a lot of companies a lot of startups. There was a lot of high risk stuff. Some worked out, some didn't, but thankfully one of them did right. I was employed 20 at a company that ultimately ended up getting sold for a billion dollars. And so that provided some liquidity, right?
Ivan Montoya: I was still working and, doing operational roles at other startups, right? Taking, but at this point now I'm starting to swing more for the fences, taking higher risks joining companies a little bit earlier. And. In the middle of that experience I did my first trip to Columbia in 24 years.
Ivan Montoya: So I'm originally from Columbia, but hadn't, you know, I was there in 1989, the summer that one of the, I guess the presidential candidate that was leading was assassinated and we left the country the next day and didn't go back for 24 years. And so this comes back again, another connection to Stanford.
Ivan Montoya: One of my classmates was a senator at the time. He invited me to come down. We go down. I remember [00:05:00] thinking Bogota was definitely better than it had been for a long time, but still not the way I remembered. And then we went back in 2018 when my eldest daughter graduated college. So we have four kids.
Ivan Montoya: So it was the six of us, my brother and his family. We went to Medellin, Cartagena, Bogota, and it was just like night and day. And I remember particularly Medellin was. Very motivating experience. The energy level of the city how beautiful it was. And just the feeling, right. Uh, positivity. And so I got back summer of 2018 and called up a buddy of mine, Cuban American guy who I'd known since undergrad, he'd Atlassian as a venture partner at Excel.
Ivan Montoya: His name's Alex Estevez and I call up Alex. I'm like, Hey, Alex, I don't know what it was like to be in China in the year 2000, but I think Latin America has hit an inflection point. And I think the next 20 years are going to be very big in tech. We need to get involved somehow. We need to back founders.
Ivan Montoya: And he got a cold [00:06:00] LinkedIn request from a founder in Columbia. And he said, Oh, you're Colombian. You need to meet Ivan. It's pre pandemic. They come out to Menlo Park. I put in a 25 K check. And there's more to that story but basically that was my beginning. I had liquidity, I've been wanting to do stuff. I think I've been inspired. I don't think I've ever told anybody this, but, um. I've been listening to This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis since it first came out. Uh, so gosh, 2008. I mean, it's been a long time and he wrote this book, Angel.
Ivan Montoya: And I always remember thinking like, ah, that seems like that would be fun to do. And then when I invested in pick up. I remember thinking to myself maybe this is my window. Maybe, I'd always want to do something in Latin America because of the violence and other stuff decided it wasn't right.
Ivan Montoya: Maybe the window had reopened. So that's how I got involved with angel investing.
Vlad Cazacu: Interesting. And for everybody listening, Angel is an amazing book. Everybody should read it. If you're [00:07:00] passionate about the space offers a very down to earth playbook of how to get started. I'm glad you mentioned that.
Vlad Cazacu: It's interesting to hear that your very first investment was not actually based in Silicon Valley. So I'll have to ask this, what prevented you from starting angel investing earlier, being surrounded by the Silicon Valley founders and builders throughout the late nineties and early 2000s.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah. Uh, so, wow, that's a really good question.
Ivan Montoya: I've never even thought about it, but the short answer, I'll tell you this. I mean, two things. One, you need some liquidity, right? So. For a chunk of my career, I didn't have that. I think the second thing is I found as an operator, you're all consumed about your startup. It was very hard for me to look up and look around.
Ivan Montoya: I wish I had. Right. But it's super hard, I think. That's why I'm always, I don't know if I'm amazed or horrified. CEOs do a lot of angel investing, as [00:08:00] long as they're not spending a ton of time and they're sharing their wisdom, that's great. But I found it all encompassing to be at a startup and I wasn't even the founder, right?
Ivan Montoya: But you just feel like you got to give it your all. So my guess is that's the primary reason. And then just inertia. I mean, this thing kind of came out of the blue and I was motivated, right? I think for me. It was, you know, there's obviously a sense of pride in being from Columbia. And so there couldn't have been a better opportunity for me to get back involved in this part of the, or to get involved in this part of the ecosystem.
Vlad Cazacu: And, we have this first check written from a seemingly out of the blue opportunity, a cold LinkedIn message, not even to you, but to a friend of yours. And now you're saying, okay. There may be something here. I think this is my, as you said, window of opportunity to start marrying my background and my heritage in Latin America with the opportunity that I'm seeing with some of the capital and experience that I've been accumulating over [00:09:00] the years.
Vlad Cazacu: So how did that one investment transform into almost 50 investments over the duration of a number of years?
Ivan Montoya: So, uh, two things. So this is great. I have not talked to anybody about Angel. I think I got inspired by Jason's story with his investment in Uber. So that sort of opened my eyes to the idea that, you know, you could get involved early and something incredible could happen, right?
Ivan Montoya: And so I read the book. I also did a lot of research on angel investing. So one of the founders of benchmark capital, Andy Radcliffe he's also, he's now the CEO and I think he's a co founder of wealth front. And he wrote a lot or there've been interviews where they asked him about angel investing because wealth front, I'm sure people at Wealthfront might correct me if I'm wrong here, but a lot of the early clients for Wealthfront were employees at Facebook and other places that went public had all this liquidity and here was this tool to help them.[00:10:00]
Ivan Montoya: You know, manage your wealth systematically. And so for them, a lot of those folks had liquidity, they could do angel investing and so on. And so Andy would talk about how if you're going to do angel investing, well, he's like, you have to at least do 30 investments. If you only do 10, it's like you probably shouldn't get started or you should be comfortable.
Ivan Montoya: That it's all going to zero because the odds that you are going to have enough deal flow and also expertise at that point are very low. So I knew that I wanted to do 30 plus investments when I started. However and I knew I wanted to have a focus, right? I couldn't be pure generalist.
Ivan Montoya: So I'm like, okay, let me focus on Latin America to differentiate myself and build expertise. But I just thought it was going to take me 10 years. So I thought I would do three or four investments a year over 10 years and that's how I'd get to my 30. But the time I got super accelerated for a lot of factors, but the biggest one was [00:11:00] COVID.
Ivan Montoya: The pandemic just changed everything with Zoom and, the ability to be meeting founders anywhere on the planet, not having to travel to Mexico City, not having to travel to Santiago, Chile or something like that.
Vlad Cazacu: And at what point did you acquire the LATAM Super Angel title? At what point were you now one of the most active angels in the region, traveling to the area, meeting a lot of founders and being one of the best networked investors in the space?
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, you know, it was gradual. There's a lot of luck involved, right? There's it's a combination of luck and hustle is what I would say. So the luck part was as after I put in my check into pick up, I was trying to find all these VCs who maybe put would put money in.
Ivan Montoya: And of course, this was in the era where If they couldn't drive from Sand Hill Road to the company, they're not investing. But one of the investors, a guy named Gary [00:12:00] Little who launched a firm called Canvas Ventures and invested in MuleSoft and Lending Club and a lot of other really interesting companies.
Ivan Montoya: He said, you should talk to this guy, Peter. I hear he does emerging markets. This guy was Peter Livingston. So I don't know Peter. So I get connected to Peter from Gary. We chat, we get on a Zoom call, his syndicate ends up putting in 500k into, uh, To pick up, I believe that was his first syndicate ever on angel list.
Ivan Montoya: Or if it wasn't, it was very early, at least his first Latin American one. And it turns out that Peter went to business school with a bunch of other folks who've done unbelievable things in Latin America, and by no means is he specialized in Latam. He does investing all over the world, but it turns out that David Velez from NuBank, the Uribe brothers who were Colombians, very prominent. La House is one of the companies that they founded. Dileep from Jeeves, a whole bunch of people. And so just by the chance that I got [00:13:00] connected to Peter was huge. And so then, yeah, Peter would introduce me either via AngelList or directly to other investment opportunities.
Ivan Montoya: And then the pandemic hit and so I could have a lot more calls, right? And so I think the second Latin American angel investment was a company called Belva, which is out of Barcelona and they do open banking. So for me, it was like, Oh, it's applied for Latin America. And then there was just a bunch of other ones that, that started to do really well.
Ivan Montoya: And in 2021, I decided to do this full time. I'm like if I can do this for the rest of my professional career, I'm going all in. And so in 2021, I think it was. I think I did 10 investments roughly in 2020. Another 10 in 2021, got very involved in the entire ecosystem. All of the communities accelerators.
Ivan Montoya: I got very close to the team at latitude. And where the name Super Angel came from was [00:14:00] I did a fellowship with them, an angel fellowship, and I got voted the Super Angel from the other angels in the class, if you will. And so I'm like, all right, well, I'm the Super Angel, right?
Ivan Montoya: And in the U. S. there was a guy named Ron Conway, who was, I think, the original Super Angel. So I think back in the early 2000s, he was the OG of angel investing in the Valley. And so I'm like, okay, well maybe I'm the Ron Conway of Latin America, you know, so. And hence the title
Vlad Cazacu: was acquired.
Vlad Cazacu: Yeah. So, you know, by popular choice, which is the right way to acquire a title, never self assuming it. But there's one thing to invest out of your own balance sheet of your hard earned money through a variety of different things, including the exit, including salary and other investments that you've done.
Vlad Cazacu: And there's another thing of investing other people's money and getting that fiduciary responsibility to someone else's capital, which could be a larger portion of their assets or a smaller portion of their assets. And you have [00:15:00] to be respectful of both of those. So I'm curious, what was the genesis of saying "angel investing is great, but I think this is the right time to be a GP and start NuMundo Ventures".
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, so it was a slow build up. I definitely did not anticipate doing this. It was a very organic process, where I'm investing and then, some of the early ones, like I, you know, it's a power lie investing in this company called Jeeves and that thing just took off.
Ivan Montoya: Another company called Foodology, another company called 99 Minutos, and these are all companies that have done really well. And so then some of the folks who are with me through part of the journey, there's mentors, like this guy, Gary, that I mentioned, Alex, who I mentioned at the very beginning, just start to say, hey, maybe.
Ivan Montoya: Maybe you should do a fund one, you know, maybe you should raise a fund. And I started doing more research, kind of thinking through like, does [00:16:00] Latin America need another fund? Is there a space for me? What's my edge? What's, you know, all of these things that you need to think through. I think I didn't fully realize how much I just started an entrepreneurial journey.
Ivan Montoya: I didn't think of it that way, which was probably good in some ways. It was very naive, like probably many founders before you start, but for me it was like, oh yeah, you know, we'll raise X amount and then go from there, but my thesis very early on was that there was room for a different approach to early stage investing in Latin America. In particularly an approach that maybe is rooted in the valley, right?
Ivan Montoya: And I'll just give you an example. And this is feedback I got from founders that really led me to start this. And I don't mean any disrespect when I say this, but Latin America is a very status driven society and it's probably like much of the world, right? And you could argue even in the U S there's cities that are very status driven. One of the unique things about the Bay area, especially the startup scene. It [00:17:00] doesn't matter where you come from, what you look like. If you got a good idea or if your company has traction, people get excited and they want to support you.
Ivan Montoya: And as an operator, I've worked with young founders who are incredible, whatever. And so I always have an attitude of never underestimating anybody because you just don't know. You could be meeting the next Bill Gates, the next Mark Zuckerberg, the next Steve Jobs, right? You know, you just don't know. But I think in a lot of the developing world in particular, that is not the way things work, right?
Ivan Montoya: If you meet with a wealthy person in Latin America, it's like, Hey, who's this guy? You know, right? Maybe your family for 100 years has been at the top of the economic pyramid, right? And so there's just a different dynamic. Where did you go to school? Did you go to school in the US? Did you go to school here?
Ivan Montoya: Right here? It's like, I don't know. It could be a dropout, right? There could be whomever, right? And so I think. What ended up happening is more and more founders are telling me that my [00:18:00] approach was very different. The way I interacted with founders was very different. The way I did essentially, I invert the funnel.
Ivan Montoya: I do my due diligence deeply and I help founders before I invest. And so I think it allows me to take risks, which many investors won't. You know, in Latin America, and they're not blind risks. I've seen the founders operate. So I thought there was room for something a little bit different.
Ivan Montoya: And I also felt, you know, we were just beginning to see the beginnings of the. Bubble bursting. Right. And I felt that there was going to be a big gap at pre seed and seed. And so at that point I'm like, okay, it's time to go, right?
Ivan Montoya: This is my, it's like the second window opening.
Vlad Cazacu: And it's very interesting that you mentioned this different approach, taking a more Bay area way of doing things that felt novel to the founders in Latam, and I think some people may believe that once you say, [00:19:00] well, I'm becoming more inclusive, right? I'm now willing to go beyond the status game and start treating everybody with respect and seeing that there's opportunity everywhere, especially in an ecosystem that doesn't have the same supply of capital that let's say the United States and other European countries have, you're pretty much just opening the floodgates to a lot of deals and a lot of opportunities and probably to a point of being overwhelmed.
Vlad Cazacu: So I'm curious, how have you approached. Just overall deal flow and deal screening in an area where you clearly have a differentiated edge as a capital
Ivan Montoya: provider. Yeah. So, you know, that for whatever, for maybe for many reasons has never been an issue for me in terms of getting obviously inbound, a lot of referrals, right.
Ivan Montoya: After having invested in over 40 companies in Latin America, my primary source of deals are other founders. And then the other positive thing, and then I'll get to your [00:20:00] question about how I scream, then is thankfully, a lot of founders say nice things about me. And so when I do outbound, I do a decent amount of outbound where I'll hear about a company through somebody else saying, Hey, this company is really interesting.
Ivan Montoya: I'll reach out on LinkedIn or whatever way I have to connect with that founder. And it's almost a hundred percent conversion rate. But to answer your question, it's a little bit brute force. I meet a lot of founders. Like my model is I take a lot of first meetings and I have a schedule on my calendar.
Ivan Montoya: It's like, it's almost like office hours for a professor. I just meeting after meeting after meeting and I tried to add value in the meeting the way my meetings typically goes the 1st, 20 minutes. I say nothing. I'm just listening. Right? And then we have basically 10 to 15 minutes of what I would call professional brainstorming where I'm engaging with them, whatever.
Ivan Montoya: Uh, if I can help them immediately, right? If there's something that I can assist [00:21:00] them that takes very little kind of a low calorie support, I do it immediately. But then what happens is, let's say I meet with 300 founders or 500 founders, whatever it is on an annual basis, maybe out of all of those meetings, I will meet a founder where the metrics are taking off. Like something looks really unusual. You see something like there's a signal of product market fit already, or it could be a situation where there's a space that I've been looking to do something in for a while, because I think there's an opportunity. And then I meet a founder doing something really interesting and novel in that space.
Ivan Montoya: I'm like, Whoa, I think this could work. Right. So then the funnel narrows and I would say. Maybe 10 or 12 a year. I basically, I do a joke. I have a freemium product. I start to help them immediately. So with those folks, I get involved. Maybe we meet on a weekly basis, whatever the cadence makes sense for that founder.
Ivan Montoya: And I started helping them if they're good to go. [00:22:00] I started introducing them to other investors. Usually they need a little bit of help in polishing on the pitch deck. The pitch deck ends up being like a strategic. It's not like a tactical thing. It's like the direction of their company. Right. And they ask a lot of questions.
Ivan Montoya: I introduced them to other operators here in the U S and then after one, anywhere from one to three months, I've got a lot more insight into the founder, I've got a lot more insight into the space I've seen them operate. I S and we can see if there's a fit. You know, like, do they like working with me?
Ivan Montoya: Do they think I'm a pain in the ass? Do they, do I like working with them, right? And then, you know, if there's a mutual fit and there's an opportunity to invest, then I invest. So at that point, I'm, I've way more conviction. Obviously if the founders like me, they want me on the cap table, not really competing with other people at that point.
Ivan Montoya: I'm kind of an end of one at that point, because I built that relationship and I've helped them for free. But typically [00:23:00] there's a big filtering process to get to that point.
Vlad Cazacu: And I feel like we're maybe going the unusual route on this episode, but how are you playing with other investors? And we'll get the chance to speak about NuMundo Ventures in a second, but your role in the ecosystem, value first, helping those founders, getting them to a point where you feel they're investable because now you're ready to put money in, but there may be other investors around the table. What's your role in the larger venture ecosystem from a co investment perspective?
Ivan Montoya: So I'll talk a little bit about the fund. Maybe not super specifics, but I'll talk a little bit like, um, yeah, this is a fun one, right? So it's a smallish fund one. Um, so I am in no circumstance am I going to take up the full round ever at best.
Ivan Montoya: You know, I'm, I don't know, 5 percent ownership. And that would be if I get involved really early with a company with a [00:24:00] very early valuation, right? So by definition, I need to help these founders raise capital. And so I'll give you an example. I invested in a company in January of 2022, at the time as an angel.
Ivan Montoya: So my check was about 20 K and immediately like, like that day, I introduced them to two other investors who then put 400 K two weeks after I did. My goal, frankly, especially at this stage, is to be the best lead gen for all the bigger pools of capital who are interested in the spaces that I'm in, right?
Ivan Montoya: I had a call yesterday with, um, early stage fund based in Mexico. It's like 120 million fund. And yeah, it's just like, yeah, I, you know, there was a founder of a company I backed, uh, from Chile. He's the founders in Mexico City. And basically, I'm lining up meetings with all these investors. He's not doing an official fundraise right now, but he will be in a few [00:25:00] months.
Ivan Montoya: And yeah, I'm, you know, my job is to be greatly Jen, right? I want to be signal, to the series a investor to the pre series a investor, right? And that's another source of my deal for him, right? Because Yeah. Hopefully, uh, they have good results with the referrals I send them and they want more and vice versa.
Ivan Montoya: If they see a company that's way too early, but they think is promising, they send it to me.
Vlad Cazacu: It's a symbiotic relationship. The moment you lead with good deals and good value. But I'm curious to understand from the perspective of "you're now signaling to other investors that this is a good company".
Vlad Cazacu: Signals, it's a very tricky topic because they're, they may be perceived the way you want them to be perceived or maybe perceived in a different way. Are you sending introductions to other people before you make your investment or only after you made that investment? Do you have skin in the game in that opportunity?
Ivan Montoya: That's an interesting point. I will do [00:26:00] both. But it's almost always when I'm in some form of due diligence. And the reason I do both, there's some cases where, well, I shouldn't say some, in many cases, I bring in other investors to get their perspectives. Right. Um, Hey, what do you think of this company?
Ivan Montoya: Right. I really like X and Y, but I'm curious to hear what you have to think. And sometimes you disagree. There was a company I was with talking to an investor earlier today. They passed. He shared with me why they pass. I'm like. Well, you know, those are fair points. I hope that you look at them again in a few months and you still think they're cheap because they're kicking butt and you know, they've addressed the areas that, that you have concerns.
Ivan Montoya: So I will definitely, make introductions, but I'm always explicit. I've invested, I haven't invested, whatever. But it's usually for companies that I'm excited about. And then there's sometimes you meet founders, this literally happened last week at some point, I went to go meet a founder who is 500 [00:27:00] startups company. And I met this founder two years ago. Ecuadorian and we'd stayed in touch and I did some, a deep dive, but ultimately he wasn't raising capital or whatever it was. He's in Palo Alto because 500 startups having some session and politics like, Hey, I'm in town or whatever.
Ivan Montoya: Let's go meet. I take him out to lunch and another person at that, in that same group, a Colombian founder who actually is based in Miami, a company called DAPTA. His name is Nico. He said, hey, can I join you guys for lunch? So I'm like, yeah, no problem. We join and he's doing this very technical startup with APIs and it's not my area of expertise. But, um, I know the founder of Platzi or one of the co founders of Platzi, a guy named Christian. And he is partnered with one of the engineering managers of Airbnb, a guy named Federico, and they do very technical founder led startups. So I immediately reach out to Christian.[00:28:00]
Ivan Montoya: We later organize an event the next day. I invite all the folks from 500 Startups from LATAM to my house. We have an event. Christian says, I'm there. Christian meets with Nico, right? And then, then I post on LinkedIn. Then I get this company, this one big 120 million VC firm's like, Hey, I saw you met with Nico from Dapta.
Ivan Montoya: What do you think? Right? And so I, you know, and that's, I think, part of. Yeah, I'm just doing it to be a good actor in the ecosystem. Right. And I'm super transparent. Hey, this, it sounded really interesting, but it's not really my thing. You should take a look at it. Turns out they're like five other people I'm affiliated with.
Ivan Montoya: Hey, tell me what you thought of Nico. So, you know, it's, it's, I think part of. Of what I, how I do what I do. Right. You know, just being positive player in the ecosystem. And hopefully karma comes back in a good way. Right. I was going to
Vlad Cazacu: say one of our previous episodes, our guests share that she's building a karma mountain every single day.
Vlad Cazacu: And at [00:29:00] some point it's, it's just going to come back. Right.
Ivan Montoya: Um, but, but that just as an example, so I'm helping that founder. I've not invested, I'm super transparent, but I'm doing it also because I think what he's doing is super interesting. And I want to get input right from other folks.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And I can't believe we're half way through this episode and already now we're getting to Numundo, but I want to spend a little bit of time on Numundo ventures. In a few sentences or less, what is the thesis behind Mundo ventures? And how did you come to that realization this is a thesis worth backing and worth pursuing.
Ivan Montoya: Sure. So NuMundo ventures invests in pre seed and seed stage startups. In Latin America that are focused on FinTech prop tech and supply chain. And that's the core of what NuMundo venture invests in today. There's a couple of reasons why.
Ivan Montoya: The focus and why and specifically Spanish speaking Latin America. Um, so one of [00:30:00] it is just my personal journey. I knew as an angel very early on again. I have to, you know, credit, um, not in person, but, you know, the input of people like Jason Calacanis and, and Andy Radcliffe, I knew as an angel investor, I needed to build an expertise in a few areas.
Ivan Montoya: And FinTech prop tech and supply chain is a massively broken area in the economies in Latin America, arguably globally. There's a ton of friction, a ton of things to, to do, uh, but in Latin America, you know, if you look at supply chain and mobility, I forget what it is, but out of the 10 worst trafficked cities in the world, I think like five of them are in Latin America.
Ivan Montoya: You've got the near shoring, which was an opportunity back a few years ago. Now it's like a big deal. I saw a metric today that Mexico is approaching China in terms of exports to the U S for the first time in maybe 30 years. FinTech, anyway, I'm sure people can do research, but there's just tons of opportunities.
Ivan Montoya: And in real estate is, you [00:31:00] know, the biggest asset category just in general. And there's a ton of friction. You still have, you know, their rules where if you rent an apartment in Latin America, you have to get a co signer who's not a relative who's basically says, yeah, Vlad is good for the money. It's like this archaic thing from 100 years ago, because the credit scoring system and other things, it's a low trust environment.
Ivan Montoya: So there's all these things where in those 3 areas, it's just so much room for opportunity and for impact. Um, and so those were, you know, I said, hey, let me pick a few areas that are very big. That have big problems that could have meaningful impact on millions and millions of people. And then over time, over what's called the four years I was angel investing.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, I did a lot of investments. I met a lot of founders. I learned a lot of stuff. I met a lot of other investors to invest in those areas. So by focusing. It allows me to add more value, right? Both in terms of whatever suggestions or assistance I might be able to [00:32:00] provide the founders, but also connecting them with other investors who can maybe add more value than I can.
Ivan Montoya: So I think that's a big thing. And then the other piece was what we discussed earlier today or earlier in the conversation, which was I think that there's this big gap in, especially what I would call overlooked founders and overlooked founders. It's ironic because in Latin America as a category, you would say, Hey, that's an overlooked area, right? But even within Latin America, I think there's huge bias, huge bias, right? And so I'm what I would call an equal opportunity investor, right? So, you know, there's a woman, um, Daniela is one of the co founders of Foodology. I mean, she has the classic profile. She went to HBS. I think she worked at McKinsey. She's phenomenal and her metrics are incredible. I'm like super excited to back her right at the same time. I backed, as you know, a 20 year old founder who never went to college and at this point has raised, I don't know, [00:33:00] 7 million in the last year. He's got a company that's approaching 4 million in ARR, cashflow positive, the guy's unbelievable, you know?
Ivan Montoya: Um, so, you know, I can do both of those, right? Because I think there's a new, a different way to evaluate these early stage companies that we talked about. Right. So. Absolutely. And
Vlad Cazacu: can definitely do a plus one on the founder that you mentioned, truly, truly incredible story there. And you're right in the sense that like, not a traditional background and requires a different mentality, a different investment philosophy to be able to accept that as part of the risk of running business in an attempt to find the next big thing, which is right. Like we would call it a pure venture capital strategy, which sometimes is forgotten by a number of people in the ecosystem, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Vlad Cazacu: We're now at the point of Ivan has now a track record, [00:34:00] has a clear investment strategy. There's market pool and there's a lot of positive signals around him that say, this is what you should be doing. This is worth pursuing. And now we got to the very first LP, the very first person who said. I agree with you, Ivan, here's my money.
Vlad Cazacu: Walk us a little bit through that first conversation and how did it happen? Because I think a lot of people think this part of fundraising as a GP is really shrouded in mystery. And one of our goals at this podcast is to demystify a little bit that experience.
Ivan Montoya: So I would say when you're raising capital for a fund, there are some parallels to a startup.
Ivan Montoya: And then there's some big differences, but I think getting the 1st LP in many ways is very similar to a startup, right? The 1st, it's like, if you were to build concentric circles around your network, and obviously this depends if you've. Or if you are a [00:35:00] spin out of a bigger VC firm, it might be different because you might be able to bring LPs with you.
Ivan Montoya: Right. But as somebody who is an operator slash angel, I don't have the benefit of that. Right. So, uh, even though I may have a reputation with founders, I actually have to build almost from scratch that reputation with LPs and it takes time. So at the beginning, it's not that different than a founder launching a company, it's friends and family, right?
Ivan Montoya: It's. And I call it in the world of venture capital homes. I call it really rich friends and family. So, you know, it's people who've known me for a long time or and on top of that, they were part of this journey. The first LP was Alex, right? The guy who gave me my first lead for my first angel investment, right.
Ivan Montoya: Who knew I went to when I had the idea to do anything in Latin America back in 2018. Um, and so, you know, I, I reached out to a bunch of [00:36:00] folks that I knew who were aware of everything that I've been doing over the last few years who had mentored me throughout that process and said, Hey, You know, um, you know, you reach out, you have those discussions. It is different. I think you in the lead up maybe to the previous question talking about investing other people's money for sure. But at the core, they're making a bet on you. At this point, right? And so there's some folks in your network that are willing to do that, right? If you've worked with them, if whatever, right?
Ivan Montoya: Uh, and that's, I think, the common path for the first LP.
Vlad Cazacu: And how does it feel to now have to sell yourself? As an investment manager that are then being on the other side of the table, investing and doing due diligence on others. Like how has your story about your ability to pick the right winners changed, throughout your fundraising experiences?
Vlad Cazacu: You maybe got maybe more comfortable speaking about
Ivan Montoya: that. Yeah. [00:37:00] Um, let's just say I learned a lot. I think one of the biggest insights happened when I was meeting with a fund of funds And I don't know why this didn't dawn on me earlier, but they asked me for an investment memo. And that would seem like, yeah, that seems like a normal thing to ask for.
Ivan Montoya: Right. But nobody had ever asked me that. And I realized, especially with a solo GP, but this would be true for partners or whatever, if you have more than one GP, ultimately you are the product, you know, with a company, the founder or the management team or the team as a whole is part of the equation. And I have perspectives on how big of a part or whatever, but, but it's part of it, it's not the entirety, right?
Ivan Montoya: What is the product? What is the market? Whatever. But for a GP, you're the product. So the investment memo shows them, how does the product work? Like, what are the things you care [00:38:00] about? What do you look at? Right. And so they want to, if they don't have the relationship with you, and so they don't have other data points on how hard you work or your thought process or whatever, they have to quickly format.
Ivan Montoya: Right. And I think that's been, it's been both Very interesting intellectually, but also humbling because you realize, like, it's hard to short circuit that process, right? I've had single call closes, but that's the exception. Most of the time. It's like you got to build a relationship because you are the product.
Ivan Montoya: And you have to have trust. So I think that's different. And then the other thing I would say is, when you keep having to answer, what is your edge, right? At the beginning, you know, I'm probably still need to work on this, but it might be a little bit loosey goosey. And then at some point you're like, Oh yeah, I gotta be very crisp right?
Vlad Cazacu: And was there at any point where you doubted if [00:39:00] starting a fund was the right decision?
Ivan Montoya: Not sure I've ever doubted, like I'm committed one way or the other. I'm doing this for the rest of my life. So it's happening. Right. And maybe it's a smaller fund, maybe it's a bigger fund.
Ivan Montoya: Right. So, but I will not, you know, as, as the younger kids say, I'm not going to lie. Um, this has been a pretty tough fundraising environment, right? And the irony is in, you know, I think founders of startups might feel this way too. It's like they have so much capital. You hear about dry powder and all this stuff, right?
Ivan Montoya: I mean, you're talking about very, there are a lot of wealthy people on this planet and they're still wealthy despite everything that's happened in the stock market and so on. But it's, they feel less wealthy. They feel less optimistic, right? And so they pull back or they have to have allocation decisions.
Ivan Montoya: Right. And we can get into all the theory of asset allocation, but it's been frustrating at times. But the cool news is, you know, I remember telling a founder once this about [00:40:00] interest rates, it's incredible how quickly sentiment changes with liquidity and interest rates. And I'm not, you know, I can't predict the future. If I did, I'd be doing something else. Probably. I don't know. Maybe I'm doing the same thing, but it's just with more capital, but, um, but. You know, interest rates went up and then all of a sudden just boom, everything ground to a halt and now interest rates are flattening out. People are more optimistic. Oh, you know, NASDAQ, you know, S and P has been doing well for a little while, you know, and, and so you're starting to see sentiment change.
Ivan Montoya: But as they say, I'm not going to lie. It's been, there've been times have been tough. It's like, and you really empathize on the entrepreneurial journey that you're on. Right. I think I did not really realize how much I've become a founder of a financial services firm.
Vlad Cazacu: I feel like this is a consistent message that we got across around the empathy towards the [00:41:00] founder fundraising process from GPs who went through the fundraising process for their first and second fund. Especially for those who had to build the LP network rather than inheriting it, as you mentioned, by being a spinout from a different fund, which is interesting to also see the other side of the coin.
Vlad Cazacu: I do have one final question before we head into the rapid fire. Part of not being able to close a particular LP is the market is their expertise in what you're doing is their understanding and their connection or alignment with your thesis.
Vlad Cazacu: And sometimes is the mistake of the GP and a lot of people discuss about it, but this is the podcast where we really peel back the curtain and discuss it. So our final question on the VC architects is walk us through one of the fundraising mistakes you did that really changed. They really taught you a lesson that otherwise you would not really [00:42:00] learn it the same way.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, I would say I'd give two, um, one was, and it seems so basic that like, I'm almost embarrassed to share, but I think at the beginning, look I've got a fun focus on Latin American startups, you know, that instantly makes me a niche among potential LPs. Right. So I, sometimes people will talk about fundraising with a dating analogy.
Ivan Montoya: Right. And so I sort of figured, well, you know, it has to be your type, like there's gotta be this mutual set of interest. Right. And if it isn't, it isn't there. Right. And so I think I was much more passive. And let's call it an LP follow up. It was more like, yeah, they met me. They heard my pitch. If they want to invest, they'll invest.
Ivan Montoya: Right. And so I think there are probably many opportunities that either died on the vine or took a lot longer to close, [00:43:00] or now I'm reactivating, right? Because you have to hustle like in the same way, like I hustle to meet founders or I hustle to respond to them or I hustle to whatever, you know, look, LP has got a million other meetings going on.
Ivan Montoya: That moment that you meet with them is the one time they're focused on you. And there's like a half life after you hang up the zoom call. Where they, you know, maybe they're like, Oh, this guy had this really cool story about he was an angel, whatever. And he's got a totally different approach.
Ivan Montoya: Yeah, that is unique. And then everything else fills up their day. And a week later, they're not thinking about you anymore. And they got other priorities versus. You know, uh, and, and I, I, I think I felt it, but I also got that advice from, uh, some other folks who'd been through this before. I got feedback from this guy, Eric Bahn at the hustle fund.
Ivan Montoya: He said he would have all of his docs ready to go in an email prior to attending the call. And as soon as it was [00:44:00] done, he basically would make some customization to the email and press send because he was right. If you don't do that, It's an incremental 5, 10, 15 minutes to get that thing out.
Ivan Montoya: You go grab a glass of water. You go to the restroom before you know it. It's like that evening you send out that email and you know. Every second counts. So that's a big lesson. Very
Vlad Cazacu: interesting. It's a very similar parallel to running enterprise sales and always be chasing and always be closing.
Ivan Montoya: This is, this is an enterprise sale.
Ivan Montoya: It's a consultative long sales cycle. And you know, if you were selling a million dollar piece of software, you don't just like, okay, they'll get back to me. No, you go, you're proactive, you're aggressive until they literally tell you, Hey, I'm, I'm out. Right.
Vlad Cazacu: That's a, it's a good analogy to a million dollar piece of software.
Vlad Cazacu: Cause at the end of the day, it is a potentially a million dollar check. Regardless of their usual investing, it's a large sum of money that people are going to be expecting some level of [00:45:00] support throughout that sale process.
Vlad Cazacu: Curious to jump really quick onto some of the rapid fire questions Maybe more about you rather than NuMundo Ventures to paint a little bit more of a colorful picture of who Ivan really is.
Vlad Cazacu: And we usually start with this question, which is what is one thing that people don't know about Ivan Montoya that they should know about him?
Ivan Montoya: I can name Almost any song, a pop music from the eighties in, you know, less than 10 seconds, most of the time in two or three seconds, interesting, like a human Shazam for the eighties.
Vlad Cazacu: Wow. Okay. So someone must really their homework throughout that period. Most recent book slash podcast slash article slash conversation that recently changed significantly the way you view the world or a specific topic. Hmm.
Ivan Montoya: [00:46:00] Wow. Um, well, uh, I think so. I went on a very long run this Sunday and I knew it was, it was like two hour run.
Ivan Montoya: And so I needed a podcast that would last that whole time. And so I listened to an interview in Spanish of the founder of Rapi. So I got to listen to him for two and a half hours, and I think I had preconceived notions around Rappi, and particularly around how fast they had to burn cash to grow that business.
Ivan Montoya: And so I think I had a mental model of who he was. And then after the interview, I had a totally different mental model. Uh, and I would say in a very, very positive way. Not that. I had a negative view of him before, but it was, uh, I was very impressed, very impressed.
Vlad Cazacu: Interesting. I was really hoping you'd say that you binge watched the VC Architects from episode one to the latest release, but we'll, we'll, we'll take this one as well as an answer.
Vlad Cazacu: Um, a [00:47:00] person that you've consistently looked up to throughout your career, if such person did
Ivan Montoya: exist. Wow, this is kind of an interesting, this is very, uh, getting to the core. Um, well, I mentioned this because he's a very prominent person in the ecosystem. So I worked with this guy when I was at McKinsey in 1997, 98 timeframe, a guy named Rich Wong.
Ivan Montoya: And Rich at McKinsey was bar none, for sure the highest energy of anybody I'd worked with. And there are a lot of high energy people and McKinsey. And the guy was incredible. And then he went left. He recruited several of us to join him at a company called covet communications, which was an early provider of DSL technology, broadband.
Ivan Montoya: So back, back in the day. Things were dial up and this was the beginning of moving to broadband and rich was just phenomenal. And it was there were good times or bad times. He goes off, joins Accel [00:48:00] and has a stellar career there. I don't know where he is in the hierarchy there, but he's very high.
Ivan Montoya: He backed a company called Atlassian. Where my friend Alex ended up becoming the CFO. And I remember being in the middle of all of that during that recruiting process. And, um, no, the guy is phenomenal and his reputation among founders. I saw, I read an article that the Atlassian founders wrote, and I know how much of your audience knows about Atlassian, but basically they launched a company where cashflow positive from the beginning.
Ivan Montoya: Um, I think their market cap is 40 billion right now. And that's, it's taken a big hit over the last few years. I think the founders when they went public on two thirds of the company. So talk about like amazing. And, uh, and you, you, you see in the article, what were, what did we learn over the 20 years?
Ivan Montoya: There's the year they took the investment from Accel and there's a picture of rich. And it was talking about picking the right investor. And so I think in what I do. My aspiration is to have founders think of me the way [00:49:00] founders think about Rich. So Rich would be the guy.
Vlad Cazacu: Fantastic answer. And last but not least, a longstanding tradition here at our firm and a lot of other organizations that we've been part of, which is ending the conversation with a moment of gratitude.
Vlad Cazacu: And it's a hard question because you're only allowed to pick one and we've only made one exception, but I'm not going to admit this publicly. One person that you would like to give a point of gratitude. Regarding your work at Numundo Ventures, your work as an angel investor, or overall as a participant in the venture ecosystem, who deserves to be recognized?
Ivan Montoya: Well, I will, I will say an obvious answer first because I need to say it. And then I'll give you maybe a second answer. The obvious answer is my wife, right? Because this is an entrepreneurial journey. Maybe we'll just leave it at this. Like I've talked to a lot of other folks who've launched funds and they have all said, make sure [00:50:00] your significant other is up for it because it's, especially fund one is so hard, uh, and there's ups and downs and all this and yeah, she is.
Ivan Montoya: She's been an operator, she works in product management, and she's worked at companies like Coursera and eBay and Flexport. I mean, she's got hard work. And here I am, you know, meeting with founders and, you know, largely having a blast, right? Uh, whereas, you know, she's in, in grind out mode. So, definitely my wife, Hillary.
Ivan Montoya: Fantastic.
Vlad Cazacu: My gratitude goes to you Ivan for taking the time to join us on this podcast, really, really much appreciate it. I think a lot of people will learn a lot about your investing strategy or investing style, but also the real opportunity that Latin America presents. And the fact that there are people, uh, spending their time back in Latin American founders and hopefully building a better future for us also really much appreciate what you do and appreciate you taking one hour to share this story with [00:51:00] our audience and the larger ecosystem.
Vlad Cazacu: Thank
Ivan Montoya: Yeah. Well, Vlad, thank you very much. I think the way we met is the way I meet a lot of founders. Yeah. I heard good things about you. We reached out, we connected. So I'm just super happy, uh, to be on the podcast with you and help you in any way I can.
Vlad Cazacu: Appreciate it. And hopefully to have you again at NuMundo Ventures Fund 2 whenever that happens.
Ivan Montoya: Thank you very much.
Vlad Cazacu: What a great conversation. If you enjoyed it, make sure to like and subscribe to our podcast and be on the lookout for a new episode in two weeks featuring another amazing fund manager and their story.
Vlad Cazacu: This podcast was made possible by Flowlie. If you're a fund manager, angel investor, family office, or syndicate lead who receives a lot of deals or simply wants help sorting through the noise, create a free account today on Flowlie at flowlie.com, that's FLOWLIE.com, and get access to an AI assisted deal screening engine and network manager that will [00:52:00] dramatically improve how you work.
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Vlad Cazacu: That's it for today's episode. See you next time.