La Frontera Podcast, Episode 2 - Reimagining Private Debt: Fintech, Fundraising & the Future of LatAm Capital Markets

We had such an amazing conversation with Valentina, and are excited to share with you all! She’s truly one of a kind, with unmatched energy, passion for solving complex problems, and sharp intelligence when it comes to structured debt markets. We encourage you to listen to the entire episode, follow the link below!

Episode 2 Summary

In this episode, we sit down with Valentina Valencia, the founder and CEO of Vaas, to talk about how she’s shaking up private debt markets in Latin America. We cover her journey from Silicon Valley to Colombia, how she landed Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) funding without even having a product, and the wild inefficiencies in Mexico and Colombia’s structured debt systems that Vaas is tackling.

Valentina gets real about building trust in a conservative industry, what founders often get wrong when entering regulated markets, and how she approached scaling Vaas across Latin America. Plus, we dig into Colombia’s growing startup ecosystem, why local VC funding is still a struggle, and why Mexico still requires $500 notary stamps for loan transfers. 🤯

Vaas: The Company Behind the Mission

Vaas is a fintech startup revolutionizing private debt markets in Latin America by automating and verifying asset-backed transactions. By eliminating manual paperwork, expensive notary requirements, and inefficient loan structuring processes, Vaas makes it easier for lenders to trust and fund loans.

• Founded: 2021

• Stage: Early-stage (Seed/Series A)

• Total Funding Raised: Over $5 million

• Investors: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), NAZCA, and others

• Mission: To modernize Latin America’s private debt market through automation and transparency

From Colombia to Silicon Valley... and Back

Valentina’s story isn’t your typical tech founder tale. Born in the U.S. but raised in Colombia, she went to an international school, then made her way to San Francisco, where a chance encounter led her to PayJoy, a fintech lending startup.

She started in customer experience, but her love for capital markets and finance quickly took over. Soon, she was working on structuring debt deals, specifically for small credit lines in Mexico and Colombia—where she saw firsthand how broken the system was. Bureaucracy, inefficiencies, cash drag—ripe for disruption. 💡

What’s the Deal with Structured Debt?

If you’re confused about structured debt, don’t worry—we got you (or rather… Valentina does). Imagine you lend your friend $100 and they put up their plant as collateral. 🌿 Sounds fair, right? But how do you know the plant is real?

What if they just send you a photo of a plant instead? Or worse—what if they already gave that same plant to someone else as collateral? This is exactly the problem in asset-backed lending.

In private debt, the "plant" could be an invoice, a house, or an entire fleet of trucks. 🚚 Vaas makes sure these assets actually exist, verifies ownership, and ensures they’re not being double-counted in multiple loans.

Why LatAm? A Market Ripe for Disruption

Debt markets in Mexico and Colombia are stuck in the past. If you want to assign assets to a trust, you don’t just upload a DocuSign—you need to print it, sign it, notarize it, and pay $500 per signature. 📜💰

This process slows down transactions, creates cash drag (aka money just sitting there doing nothing), and makes lending expensive. Vaas digitizes and automates everything, so money moves faster, and lenders can actually trust the collateral backing their loans. 🔥

Building Vaas: From Wireframes to a World-Class Team

With a big problem to solve, Valentina needed a killer team. First, she hired a developer from Ukraine to create the first wireframe (cost: $1,000)—just enough to prove the concept. 💻

Then, she pitched an ex-MercadoLibre engineer, who loved the challenge and became Vaas’s CTO. The first customer? A fintech company she had worked with before, who understood the problem so well that they invested in Vaas. 🚀

Raising from Andreessen Before a Product

How do you raise from a16z with no product, no revenue, and no team? 🤔

For Valentina, it came down to two things:

1. Deep industry knowledge—She wasn’t just solving a random problem; she lived and breathed structured debt for years.

2. Trust & Relationships—She had already helped startup CFOs understand their own debt structures, and when it was time to raise, those same people vouched for her.

Enter NAZCA, a top LatAm VC. Valentina was connected to NAZCA through her personal/professional network, and they, in turn, introduced her to Andreessen Horowitz along with vouching for her.

Scaling Vaas Across LatAm: The Challenges of Expansion

Expanding from Colombia to Mexico came with a whole new set of challenges.

• Mexico has more competition—Lenders already had long-standing trust-based relationships with existing players.

• Outdated infrastructure—Unlike Colombia, Mexico still relies heavily on paper-based approvals. 📄

• The notary tax—Every single asset transfer needs a physical notary signature to be legally binding. Yes, even in 2024. 🤦‍♂️

To win in Mexico, Vaas had to prove it was not just another competitor, but a fundamentally better solution. It’s working. 💪

Colombia’s Startup Scene: Thriving, But Starved for Capital

Colombia has a vibrant startup ecosystem, thanks to companies like Rappi paving the way. But funding is another story. Unlike Mexico, Colombia never created national incentives for VC investment.

• Pension funds don’t invest in startups—So there’s no big pool of local capital. 💰

• Most founders rely on foreign investors—Mexican and US-based funds dominate.

• Local governments (Cali, Antioquia) are stepping in—But it’s not enough to close the funding gap. 🚧

Final Takeaways

• Private debt markets in LatAm are a mess—but that’s also why Vaas is a huge opportunity.

• Trust is everything in finance. No one cares about your product unless they trust you first. 🔑

• Founders, be patient. Selling into financial markets takes time. ⏳

• If you’re raising VC money, know your industry inside out—investors fund expertise. 💡

Valentina is on a mission to fix structured debt markets in LatAm, one transaction at a time. With Andreessen behind her and a growing market need, the future of Vaas is looking brighter than ever. ✨

Follow Valentina for more insights

Check out Vaas’ podcast, All You Can Debt!, here:

All you can DEBT | Podcast on Spotify

Thanks for reading!

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