#20 - Heavy Metal & RBF with Manolo Atala, CEO of Fairplay
Description
Our guest this week brings enthusiasm and excitement to RBF which sets the stage for a great conversation. We welcome Manolo Atala, Co-Founder and CEO of Fairplay, a LatAm-focused revenue-based financing platform headquartered in Mexico. Since launching in 2019, Fairplay has originated $220M in revenue-based loans, built a team of 127 people, and made a huge impact in Latin America. Manolo shares how they’ve done that, and covers his diverse career journey before Fairplay, spanning advertising, entertainment, and the successful establishment of high-impact companies. He explains Fairplay's spin-out of Nazca Ventures and the company’s impact on financing and funding in Latin America. Manolo and I discuss balancing growth with responsible underwriting, and the beauty of transparency in strategic partnerships, and Manolo shares his vision of building Fairplay into a $1 billion company to improve access to capital in Latin America.
Key Takeaways
[1:45 ] Manolo’s path to entrepreneurship.
[5:38 ] Being a musician.
[10:19 ] Launching Fairplay in 2019 and expanding geographically.
[11:12 ] What happened to Clearco?
[13:21 ] Lending is hard to do well and easy to screw up.
[18:02 ] The embedded lending space.
[19:02 ] What we can learn from Metallica.
[24:14 ] The importance of straightforward dialog with investors.
[32:46 ] How not to pitch equity investors.
[40:15 ] Automating underwriting.
[47:05 ] Originating more than $220 million.
[48:54 ] The future of Fairplay.
Resources:
RBF Network
Keith’s Twitter
Manolo: Fairplay | X | LinkedIn |
United States
