The J Curve with Olga Maslikhova – Details, episodes & analysis

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova break down the two forces reshaping tech and capital markets right now — the end of 40 years of global integration as the US-China tech split hardens, and the collapse of the services moat as AI lets companies scale from $0 to $100M in revenue in 24 months by replacing labor. This is the May 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets through a global lens.

We cover why China blocked Meta's $2 billion Manus acquisition and what the new US-led versus China-led ecosystem split means for global M&A, how SoftBank's blocked Arm-NVIDIA sale cost half a trillion dollars in value creation and why deals like it will keep happening, Anthropic's $50B round closing in 48 hours with secondary markets pricing ahead of the primary and what it reveals about AI's escape velocity, why Anthropic and OpenAI are forming joint ventures with Blackstone, TPG, Apollo, Sequoia, General Atlantic, and GIC to lock in compute capacity and guaranteed revenue, Plata's $5B round and why Qatar Investment Authority, US endowments, and long-only funds piled in alongside Valor Capital — and what mispriced Russian and Eastern European talent has to do with it, why data is becoming the last real moat and how Nubank, Revolut, CloudWalk, Mercado Libre, and JPMorgan are racing to train proprietary models on their own customer data, the radiologist paradox and what it predicts for tax accountants, lawyers, and every services job AI is supposed to kill, the legal AI startup Enter and the wild story of prompt injections hidden in PDFs filed to courts, why humanoid robots at $600/month today and $100/month in ten years will reshape global labor markets, Elon Musk and SpaceX as the "build potential, then monetize" playbook, and the $0 to $100M in 24 months phenomenon — why early movers in vertical AI are already hitting this scale and where the next opportunities will emerge across legal, wealth management, healthcare, and security.

Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Latin America is the third-largest fintech and payments market in the world — bigger than India, behind only the US and China. Gastón Irigoyen is Co-Founder and CEO of Pomelo, the fintech infrastructure company powering card issuing and processing for banks, fintechs, and global enterprises across eight markets including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Pomelo is backed by Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Kaszek, Monashees, and most recently Adams Street Partners in their first-ever Latin American investment.

In this episode of The J Curve, Gastón unpacks the contrarian playbook behind Pomelo: why the team went regional from day zero on a $10M seed round instead of nailing one market first, how they built a "plug and play" hiring engine that's stayed at 90%+ since founding, why they tripled revenue without adding headcount, and what it actually takes to win enterprise customers like BBVA, Santander, Bci, Bancolombia, Binance, and Bybit when nobody trusts an infrastructure startup. He also shares the Series B-to-Series C lessons most founders never document — including the end-of-year memo that turned rejections into investor trust — and his framework for the AI transformation a five-year-old company is now being forced to run.

This is a masterclass on regional-by-design strategy, B2B fintech go-to-market, founder-led fundraising in down markets, and building world-class companies from Latin America for the world.

Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Daniel Vogel is Co-Founder and CEO of Bitso — Latin America’s first crypto unicorn, valued at $2.2B and serving millions of users across Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia.

In this conversation, Daniel shares the pilot’s mindset of leadership and what flying small planes taught him about control, composure, and crisis management, the risk paradox of building in volatile markets from a culture defined by risk-aversion, the product decision that killed the competition — how owning the tech stack became Bitso’s unseen edge, the end game of crypto and why Daniel thinks AI agents will eat the crypto market before humans do, and the paradox of rivalry that turned competition into Bitso’s great source of discipline and growth.

Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Wednesday, April 13: For the final episode of The J Curve's LatAm Power Women in Tech Series I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Laura Constantini, co-founder and managing partner at Astella, Sao Paulo-based early stage venture capital firm with over $100M assets under management and over 50 companies invested including the likes of Omie and RD Station. Laura is the industry O.G., the pioneer among women investing in venture capital in Latin America. Laura is a co-host at "Astella around the world" show, where she interviews global VCs, LPs and thought leaders. Prior to starting Astella, Laura built an impressive career in Banking and M&A in Banco Santander and Cicerone Capital. 

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What prompted Laura to give up on successful career in finance and make a move into venture capital way ahead of the pack in 2008?
2) What were Laura's key learnings from the fundraising for Fund I and Fund II when interest rates were high and market knowledge about venture capital as an asset class low?
3) How does the decision making process look like in Astella?
4) What is the right time in a startup cycle to form a Board and what's the actual value of the Board for an early stage startup?
5) What is Laura's advice to founders raising in a highly liquid market?

Friday, March 25: For this episode I am thrilled to bring you my conversation with Mariana Donangelo, partner at KaszeK, Latin America's leading venture capital firm founded by MercadoLibre co-founder Hernan Kazah and its former CFO Nicolas Szekasy.  KaszeK has recently raised $1B across two funds and since 2011 has backed over 90 companies including tech unicorns Nubank, Creditas, QuintoAndar, Gympass, Loggi and Kavak. Prior to KaszeK Mariana led growth at Invoice2Go and worked in Accel where she was heavily involved with Accel's initiatives in Brazil and Latin America.  And finally, Mariana is a successful angel investor who backed some of the region's leading tech unicorns including Gympass, Nuvemshop and QuintoAndar super early.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What are the essential traits of great founders in general and in LatAm specifically?
2) What are the key pillars of LatAm market evolution Mariana witnessed over the last decade?
3) How does the investment decision making process look like at KaszeK?
4) What does it take to be successful in the business of venture capital?
5) What is Mariana's single piece of advice for first time founders?

Thursday,  March 17: For this episode, I am thrilled to  bring you my conversation with Monica Saggioro, co-founder at MAYA Capital, Latin American early stage venture capital firm, whose portfolio includes the likes of Alice, EmCasa, Gupy, Kovi, Merama, NotCo and many more. Prior to MAYA Capital, Monica was Head of Operations for RBI Latin America where she managed the operations of 1,800 Burger King restaurants across 30 countries in Latin America and prior to that Monica was Strategic Planning and Product Manager at Whirpool.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What does it take to raise money from MAYA? What does MAYA's investment process look like?
2) How did Monica's operational background impact her investment approach?
3) What does MAYA do to democratize the access to venture capital for founders based outside of tech bubbles in Brazil? 
4) What are the markets and industries Monica is especially excited about?
5) What are the ways to attract more females to tech and VC?

Tuesday,  February 22: For this episode, I am thrilled to  bring you my conversation with Courtney McColgan, a serial entrepreneur and the founder and CEO at Runa HR, one of the leading payroll software providers for SMBs in Spanish speaking Latin America.  Prior to starting Runa, Courtney was the CMO of Cabify, a taxi application for Latin America, where she grew the company from 3 cities and $20M valuation to 130 cities across 12 countries and a $1.5B valuation. Previously, she also worked in venture capital and finance at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Morgenthaler and Morgan Stanley.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What were the key leadership decisions Courtney had to make to navigate Runa HR through covid-19 crisis?
2) What are the critical elements of Runa's corporate culture?
3) How to think about fundraising? Does venture capital as a source of capital work for all kind of founders? And what was Courtney's rationale behind taking venture capital money?
4) What are the most important things founders have to get right to build scalable organizations?
5) What are the unique challenges founders face while building business in Latin America?

Thursday,  February 10: For this episode, I am thrilled to  bring you my conversation with Gina Gotthilf, co-founder at Latitud, a platform helping build the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America through a dedicated fellowship and fund.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What was it like to build Latitud amidst Covid-19 pandemic? And what is the value Latitud brings to the tech ecosystem in Latin America? 
2) What are the unique problems Latin America faces today that could become premises for  scalable tech businesses tomorrow? 
3) What are some of the growth hack tips Gina can share with entrepreneurs who achieved product / market fit?
4) How do you create a culture of psychological safety around failure?

Tuesday, February 1: For this episode, I am thrilled to  bring you my conversation with Milena Oliveira, founding partner at Volpe Capital, a brand new Sao Paulo-based early and growth VC firm with $100M AUM and the likes of Softbank, BTG. and Banco Inter affiliates among anchor investors.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) How did the legal environment in Brazil evolve over the course of the last several years?
2) What is the biggest challenge Latin American venture capital industry will face in the next few years? 
3) What are some important pieces of advice Milena has for the first time tech entrepreneurs in LatAm? 
4) What are three important truths everyone who wants to invest in Latin America should know?

Friday, January 21: For this episode, I am thrilled to  bring you my conversation with Bianca Martinelli, partner at Alexia Ventures, Sao Paulo-based early stage VC that invests in SaaS, data & analytics and AI that has recently raised $80M from some of the best entrepreneurs in the region and whose portfolio includes the likes of Merce do Bairro and Hashdex.

In today's episode we will learn:

1) What is the ultimate value a VC with global operational background can bring to Latin American table?
2) What are the distinctive qualities of entrepreneurs doing business in Brazil and LatAm?
3) What Bianca and team at Alexia Ventures look for in the founders when they evaluate investment opportunities?
4) What are the three biggest lessons from Bianca's 12 year tenure in Endeavor?
5) Why having mentors and role models is mission critical for personal and professional growth?