A venture firm for builders

Henrique and Pedro were coding and launching companies in their teens. By the time they met, when they were 16, Pedro had already built software to make Siri speak in Portugese and Henrique had started a video game company. (Both were recipients of Apple patent infringements along the way, but that’s a different story.)

They sold their first startup, pagar.me, to go to Stanford in 2016. That’s when we first met them—or, actually, that’s when a few engineers we knew at Harvard told us we had to drop everything and meet these two engineers from Brazil. So we did. And they were right.

Pedro and Henrique were in full explore and learn mode—focused on finding the right next idea to build an incredible company around. We were amazed by their curiosity, desire to learn, and ability to devour information and iterate on ideas. We spent hours working with and learning from them as they explored different directions, including the thrilling but short-lived Veyond VR phase.

We were lucky enough to write them their first check when they pivoted to fintech and launched Brex, then helped place three of their first engineers. We’ve invested in every round since.

Diego knew he'd start a company—eventually.

But first, he wanted to spend more time learning. Learning from founders, learning the ropes of a high-growth early stage startup, learning about the data analytics space. Learning what would make him a better founder. Eventually.

We connected him to Digit as employee 12 and the first data scientist. Within four years, he was running the data team and half the engineering organization.

He felt the itch to start something, but he wasn’t sure what the “something” was yet, and he didn’t want to leave his job until he knew. We knew as long as he was building something he cared about, we wanted to be behind him.

A few months later, Diego became our first Entrepreneur-in-Residence. And he’s officially found his idea: Able, an AI-driven platform that reduces the global cost of access to capital for businesses.