I first met the Malga team about four years ago, back when I was still leading Vindi. From the very beginning, I was impressed by the quality of the founders and the strength of their product. During my ten years as Vindi’s CEO, I only witnessed a few true innovations in payment platforms — and Malga was one of them.

After a period of sabbatical and garden leave, I was honored when Alex Vilhena and Thiago Garuti invited me to come on board and help guide Malga’s next steps in strategy and growth.

About Malga

Founded in 2020 by Alex and Thiago, Malga is redefining how payments are processed in Brazil. Their mission is to bring technology and intelligence to the complex world of payment processing.

Brazil is one of the most competitive markets globally when it comes to payments, fraud prevention, and transaction intelligence. Malga is uniquely positioned — with the right timing, product, and team — to lead this new generation of innovation.

The company is backed by top investors, including Verve Capital, QED, Norte Ventures, Costanoa, Latitud, and IDEXO (TOTVS).

I’m truly thrilled to start this journey with Malga and contribute to shaping the future of digital payments in Brazil.

Learn more here: malga.io

I also shared what I’ve been up to since then and my perspective on the future of the ecosystem.

Apple Podcasts

Spotify Podcasts

The company announced it had received approximately 246 million votes in favor of the proposal and about 271 million votes against, with over 3 million abstentions.

To move forward with the dual listing, JBS still needs an additional 25 million favorable votes.

"I’d appreciate it if you could cancel all of today’s meetings".

Espírito Santo do Pinhal, located 190 kilometers from São Paulo in the Serra da Mantiqueira, has been attracting a growing number of entrepreneurs, investors, and top executives, earning it the nickname "branch" of Faria Lima. Traditionally known for coffee cultivation, the city has recently become a destination for wine enthusiasts, both domestic and international. This trend has led many "Faria Limers" to cultivate their own grapes and produce their own wines.

The transformation began in the early 2000s when the Guaspari family identified the highlands of Pinhal as ideal for viticulture, comparable to European vineyards, leading to the establishment of Vinícola Guaspari in 2006. Today, with 50 hectares of vineyards, the winery has received several awards, including the Decanter World Wine Awards 2024.

Currently, there are at least 39 winery projects underway within a 50-kilometer radius of the city's center. Over the past two decades, approximately R$ 530 million have been invested in the region, with tourism generating R$ 25 million in 2024 alone. The city has flourished, earning the nickname "Serra dos Encontros" and solidifying its place among the best Brazilian wine routes.

Sérgio Batista, former vice president of Mastercard, discovered Pinhal by chance. After years of enotourism worldwide with his wife, Luciana Guimarães, he participated in a blind tasting where he mistook a Brazilian Syrah from Guaspari for a French one. Impressed, they visited Pinhal and, in 2021, purchased land to establish Vinícola Merum.

Similarly, Fabiano Duarte, a former executive at Itaú and Mastercard, invested R$ 4 million in Vinícola Duarte. Ana Paula and Patrick Eckert, president of the pharmaceutical company GSK in Brazil, founded Vinícola Les Amis. Juliano Lourenço, after selling IClinic, partnered with Felipe Aversa to create Rancho Churrascada, a complex offering dining, lodging, and rural experiences. Rodrigo Dantas, co-founder of Vindi, chose to invest in coffee cultivation, noting opportunities as current producers age and younger generations show less interest in farming.

These initiatives highlight the region's potential, attracting professionals seeking new ventures and contributing to the economic and cultural development of Espírito Santo do Pinhal.

Read full article (in Portuguese) here.

Earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter stood at a loss of R$1.30. When combined with results from the previous three quarters, the company posted a 12-month EPS of R$5.23, significantly below market expectations.

2024 Performance

For the full year, Petrobras recorded a net profit of R$36.6 billion, marking a 70.6% decline from 2023. This downturn follows a stellar R$124.6 billion net profit in 2023, the second-largest in the company’s history.

Despite the profit slump, Petrobras maintained a robust operating cash flow of R$204 billion for the year.

Dividends ahead.

During a recent conversation with two friends, the topic of the toughest role in a business came up—being a founder or a C-level executive. Here's my two cents, shared in 10 pieces of advice. These are also valuable for executives at all levels.

1. Eliminate Recurring Meetings
   Meetings are a cancer in tech companies, especially startups. If you’re bold, eliminate slides and “flowery presentations” altogether. This is one of the most crucial pieces of advice I can give. Meetings filled with unnecessary slides are wasting company time and draining resources. Cut them out!

2. Define and Display Your Company’s Rules
   Write down your company’s core values and rules, then make them visible—on paper, on the walls, or as part of your culture code. This makes it easier to provide feedback when everyone knows what’s expected. Your company culture code is the foundation of success.

1. Kill Gossip and Intrigue by Promoting Transparency
   Gossip can destroy a company from the inside out. Good communication is key. Founders and executives often overlook or ignore negative comments circulating within the team. A quick, transparent email to all employees can sometimes be more effective than an all-hands meeting.

2. Don’t Get Comfortable with Large Cash Flows
   Even large companies must be prudent with money. In startups, cash flow can fluctuate rapidly. You may often need more capital than you have. Excess money in the bank can sometimes lead to complacency. Don’t be blinded by a fat bank balance—stay disciplined.

3. Dine with Your Competitors
   Innovation and market growth can be better achieved through collaboration, even with your competitors. Humble yourself, learn from them, and get insights into their approach. Competition forces you to improve your product, your distribution strategy, and make smarter decisions. Competitors can develop a market together.

6. Embrace Humility
   I’ve seen hundreds of founders fail because of their egos. Ego is a startup killer. Smart people can raise money and manage teams, but when they lose sight of the true meaning of building a company, they falter. One of the most humble entrepreneurs I know is David Vélez, CEO of Nubank—his humility has been key to his success. I always remember that.

7. Respect Your Time
   While some meetings and ceremonies are necessary, founders often get bogged down by unproductive meetings and time-wasting coffee invitations. Your time is your most valuable asset—don’t let it be swallowed up by distractions.

8. Take Care of Your Health
   Be an athlete—both mentally and physically. Exercise regularly to maintain a healthy life. This simple habit can transform everything about your work and mindset. Entrepreneurs and executives who exercise are often better equipped to handle the demands of running a company. What good is being a successful leader if you’re in poor health?

9. “Walk the Talk”
   It’s common for C-level executives to talk a big game about values, but actions speak louder than words. If you’re not practicing what you preach, people will see right through you. Hypocrisy doesn’t inspire respect or loyalty. If you lie in business, you’ll lie in life.

10. Identify Toxic People Early
    There are individuals who will drain the energy of your company. Whether it’s negativity, incompetence, or just plain toxic behavior—recognize these people quickly and remove them from your team. They will cost you more than you realize. I’ve been fortunate to work with incredible people throughout my career, but I regret not identifying the toxic ones sooner.

Send all the sons of bitches out!

These pieces of advice were inspired by conversations with Guilherme Barreiro, a fantastic executive I had the pleasure of working with at LWSA (B3:LWSA3).

Do you have any other advice for founders? Share it in the comments.

The high risk of providing loan credits to companies and consumer loans to people is a big challenge to the banks. Imagine for fintechs.

I know at least 20 cases of credit fintechs backed by VCs alleging to stop their operations. The only case that deserves a mention in this market is Creditas. They are publishing earnings frequently.

A small list of Brazilian credit fintechs

Capta Money, Intoo, Crediário, Jurus, Meu App Crédito, Easy Crédito, Planejei, Juntos com vc, Contas do Lar, Biz Capital, BxBlue, Finexa and Guruprev are some examples of Brazilian credit fintechs that stopped their operations in the last two years.

The Brazilian Central Bank Resolution CMN nº 5.159/2024 was created to help these startups, but the high costs to raise funds, delinquency, fraud and low margins are the real monsters to run a company like these.

One more time, the Brazilian credit market is in the banks hands.

NEWS: Yesterday afternoon a Hindenburg research short report leaked. This appears to have been a report that they initially intended to publish, but when they made the decision to close down, was instead shifted into SEC tip-off – referenced in his farewell address: “As of the last Ponzi cases we just completed and are sharing with regulators, that day is today.”

However, in a major legal cock-up for Hindenburg, the images from the unpublished draft were available on cached versions of Hindenburg Research's Website, and from these 25 images we can see that one of those Ponzi cases was XP Inc, which is a Brazilian Investment Management company.

The Case for a Ponzi Scheme

Returns are too good. One of the best ways to look for fraud is to simply looking at who is making the best returns. Funds like Gladius FIM CP IE are posting 2,492% returns over five years while benchmarks sit at 49%. Coliseu FIM CP IE shows a similar story with 693% returns. Unrealistically high returns are usually a red flag—especially when paired with sharp drawdowns and extreme volatility in stress tests.

Auditors are being blocked. KPMG has issued multiple qualified or abstained opinions for XP’s funds due to missing data. In one case, 92% of liquid assets couldn’t be verified. Either XP has terrible bookkeeping, or they’re hiding something.

Declining Inflows. Net inflows are down 36% YoY, and the company's reliance on market-making activity means it needs a steady stream of new money to keep the machine running. Sound familiar?

Stress scenarios for funds like Gladius FIM CP IE show extreme volatility, with worst-case losses nearing -59%. This instability suggests that XP's model could collapse if investor sentiment turns or inflows dry up.

Hindenburg’s track record with Tingo and iLearningEngines speaks for itself, and clearly they were trying to make the connection in their unpublished piece.

Position

I snapped up cheap puts, all of which seem to now be gone. still a good short though

This is huge. Why?

JBS is the biggest animal protein company of the world. Mantiqueira Brazil produces 4 billion eggs per year and exports to South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It is the largest egg producer in South America.

With this new deal, backed now by JBS group, Mantiqueira can be the most important egg producer in the world. JBS is not diversifying its portfolio only, as we know. It's a path to a total dominance in the protein business.

I had an opportunity to see one of the Mantiqueira's farms once. It's impressive!

Moove acquires Brazil’s Kovi

The mobility startup Kovi has been acquired by Uber-backed fintech Moove in a share swap transaction. The value of the deal is not being disclosed. Moove confirmed it was an all-share transaction, and Kovi is now wholly owned by Moove.

Kovi was founded in Sao Paulo in 2018 and is one of the leading platforms to rent cars to Brazilian app drivers. Moove is a mobility fintech that provides revenue-based vehicle financing to mobility entrepreneurs founded ion 2020 in Lagos, Nigeria.

Ladi Delano, Moove's CEO told to TechCrunch that the new company bumps the revenue to U$275 million.

According to Neofeed's portal, the deal was not an “excellent deal” for Kovi, because the valuation steps down, in comparison with the last funding rounds of the company.

Mobility and logistics are together a huge opportunity to invest in Brazil in these times.

According to the Brazil Journal article, Meta is giving strong evidences that the App Store was breaking the rules, sending and managing data after the downloads of the Meta’s apps (Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook). According to Meta, Apple is tracking all activities from the users.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company sustains the same battle in other parts of the world. Two years ago, in a podcast interview, he said:

“Not as altruistic as they claim.”

See the video below.

Long war ahead.

Al Hilal Soccer Club announced the end of the contract with the Brazilian soccer player.

Fabrizio Romano, an Italian journalist, also posted on Twitter:

Recently, Neymar gave an interview to Romário’ s TV and was provoked to answer about his comeback to Brazil. He didn't want to answer.

My five cents, Neymar will be announced soon as Santos Football Club soccer player. He needs to be in Brazil to play another World Cup.

Neymar will sign with Santos.

Marcio Appel is the founding partner of Adam Capital.

I agree. I wrote an article mentioning the war between Avenue and Nomad, see here.

Recently, on YouTube's channel, Nigro (known as Primo Rico) posted about a deal with BRL 115 million, which apparently is a secondary investment offering.

The probable buyer? XP Inc.

This is a simple personal guess. Thiago has history with this financial group…it's easy to suggest this. Maybe XP is only executing a call option from the past contracts.

The Grupo Primo it is a holding company that has several businesses within it: podcasts, consulting services, media platforms and financial products.

This is a simple personal guess. Let's wait for the formal communications.

Not only more.

Fintechs like Avenue and Nomad are battling to help Brazilians interested in diversifying investments, protecting assets, and investing in global markets. Their focus? The young people who want to buy Tesla, Facebook, Adobe and those famous international stocks.

It's a new world.

Avenue, the pioneer in this segment, was founded by Roberto Lee, a serial entrepreneur with strong history in Brazilian financial market. Lee sold the brokerage platform Clear to XP Inc. in 2014.

Nomad, on the other side, was created by a group of famous investors and successful Brazilian entrepreneurs.

Two high-level teams.

These two companies are the most famous solutions among the young Brazilians (Millennials and Gen X), but there's another dozen of solutions trying to participate in this party. Other good cases, just to mention, are Wise (the famous english fintech) and the traditional houses like XP Inc. and BTG.

The liquid society

A significant number of young Brazilians are not only interested in buying cars, or buy houses. Zygmunt Bauman (1925-2017), an extraordinary philosopher, said that the world is becoming a liquid society. One of the marks of liquid modernity is the process of individualization. In contrast to earlier periods where social identity was largely shaped by collective affiliations, individuals in liquid modernity are expected to construct their own identities.

I have a son of 24 and a daughter of 17. I am watching them working, studying and learning to make money very close. They and their friends have a different mindset to manage money, and the relationship with possessions is very, very different from ours.

Younger people are living in a liquid society.

In our view, Avenue and Nomad are well positioned: fast-growing, sexy marketing and excellent product (we tested all the solutions mentioned in this post).

Wise, for example, is focused on people traveling and Brazilians interested in sending money worldwide. It's a very common solution for students receiving money from parents to manage monthly expenses.

Kristo Käärmann, CEO of Wise, gave an interview to the portal Neofeed and reveals an important strategy to amplify the focus to startups and companies. It's a risky move. We know Brazil very well: "Build for people or build for companies." Conta Simples, the leading corporate bank focused on supporting middle and enterprise companies, isn't interested to having people as customers.

Let's be honest, Wise has a good presence in Brazil.

XP Inc. (NYSE: XP) and BTG (B3: BPAC11) are preferred by people escaping from the traditional banks. Baby boomers and rich people trust more to use institutions like these two.

EY has an important vision about new generations consuming financial services, and the Nubank (NYSE: NU) effect, is more than a proof that our market is changing.

Nubank makes a real disrupt in the Brazilian financial market. The bank (founded in 2011) has reached 100 million customers. It's phenomenal!

“The idea that Gen Z professionals would embrace one career for life, perhaps like their parents did, has been debunked. Instead, they are pursuing “episodic” careers that are rich and varied. Their work preferences and expectations have changed dramatically since the pandemic – and they are not afraid to buck some norms to get what they want”, says Stefanie Coleman (EY Director).

Millions of young people are seeking to work globally, and this changes everything in financial services. This is the vision of EY, Nubank and all types of fintechs as we know.

Avenue and Nomad were born for this new generation.

The battle of the best experience and product

I give much credit to a product built with a good UI/UX. Avenue and Nomad have a good experience in both. In my opinion, even in fintech apps, where security is the main feature, the easiest KYC (know your customer), ease to make transactions, and understanding the numbers, are the mandatory features to use a bank. Especially, an international bank with numbers in other currencies.

Simple is hard to make in technology. So, I congratulate Avenue and Nomad. They understand very well the necessities of the new generation.

The bad news: both of the fintechs are not able to invest in or buy in cryptocurrencies directly.

Avenue has the focus on trading international stock and has a good portfolio of financial products. It's really simple to invest in the platform; it's easy to search stocks, funds, bonds and the dashboards, have a good user interface. It's very simple to exchange currencies in the app.

The fintech has an important detail in their history: after raising U$25 million with VC funds, Itau (the biggest Brazilian bank) bought an important stake (35% of shares) of the fintech. This partnership with Itau has an important advantage in terms of distribution (Avenue is being pushed inside Itau app), and Itau has big money to finance the Avenue strategy.

Nomad is focused in customer experience to use money outside Brazil: Nomad's credit cards are very good, complete and give the user, all they need. It's very simple to invest money and easy to open an account, like Millennials like.

Recently, the fintech announced the superstar Will Smith as their “poster boy.” Impressive!

I am a huge fan of Nomad's marketing.

Nomad acquires two companies to improve the strategy: the Brazilian startups Melhor Câmbio (exchange fintech) and Husky (a money transfer app). Until now, Nomad raised U$197 million with VC funds.

Brazil currently has 70 million people under 20 years old.

This battle just begins.

These two Brazilian companies are trying to combine the two strategies into one.

After years of Lan Chile and Tam merging and turning in Latam, Azul and Gol will try to make the same. ABRA (the most relevant Gol's investor) and Azul have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and will wait for regulatory approvals.

Bad to competition, bad to customers.

Looking back and analyzing the deal with Lan and Tam, we can predict the future: challenging.

Both stocks rose on the announcement today.

Warren Buffet doesn't invest in airlines. Commercial aviation has low level margins; in Brazil it is not different.

João Carlos Mansur’s firm is being considered as one of the Brazilian companies that could open an IPO in the next Brazilian market window.

Recently, Reag acquired the companies Economatica, Quasar Investments, Bom Pra Crédito, Empirica, CondoCash and other assets.

Real Estate is one of the focuses of the firm too.

The deal was made through the investment vehicle Iduna Fund (BRL 307 million capital), owned and managed by Reag.

With 92 rooms inside the countryside of São Paulo, the “Dona Carolina” is one of the most traditional farm hotels in Brazil. The transaction closed in 2024, July. The sellers are the Marino and Stefani families, who ran the hotel administration until then.

The Reag portfolio managers choose the hospitality house Hotelaria Brazil to manage the new phase of the hotel.

I’ve emailed Reag investor relations channel, asking for information about the price, but I didn’t receive any answer.

The sale price was not disclosed. We estimate a deal around BRL 200 million.

This is an important move for the Brazilian bank and will connect these customers to 22.000 stores.

For those who don't know Nubank, the bank reached 100 million customers last year.

In Brazil, OXXO has more than 500 stores and is filling the spaces with the Americanas stores, which are slowly dying.

Last week, Nubank invested in Tyme Group, the market didn’t like it.