LatAm 'plays on hard mode' according to VC Mercedes Bent

Equity

TechCrunch

News, Business, Entrepreneurship, Business News, Technology

4.2 • 372 Ratings

🗓️ 23 August 2023

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Mary Ann spoke with Mercedes Bent, Partner on the early stage team at Lightspeed Ventures and co-lead of Lightspeed’s LatAm region and angel fund. The pair chewed through a number of topics, including: How and why Mercedes started investing in Latin America, and why she thinks the region is more resilient than others Why we're early in the hype cycle when it comes to the intersection of AI and fintech Why generative AI and fintech aren't always the best combination and much more. Equity is back on Friday with our weekly news roundup! Talk to you then! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to Equity a podcast about the business of startups
0:15.0	where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. I'm Marianne
0:18.9	Asavado. This is our Wednesday show where we sit down with a guest think
0:22.0	about their work and unpack the
0:24.0	rest. Today we're joined by Mercedes-Bent partner on the early stage team at Light
0:28.4	Speed Ventures and co-lead of Light Speed's Latam Region and Angel Fund.
0:32.8	I'm super excited to have Mercedes on the show.
0:35.2	We're going to chat through a number of things,
0:36.9	but mostly about the current venture funding landscape
0:39.5	as it relates to Latin America, FinTech, and AI.
0:43.6	Mercedes, welcome to the show, how are you?
0:46.3	I'm great.
0:47.3	Thanks so much for having me today.
0:48.8	Yeah, now we're so excited to have you.
0:50.8	First off, I'm really excited to be interviewing you. I know we've gone
0:53.6	back and forth over the years on various deals and when I've written about
0:56.5	companies that you've invested in. But honestly today was the first time that I
1:00.6	actually read your bio on the LightSpeed site and I was
1:04.4	excited to learn we have a few things in common one I too was born in North
1:08.1	Carolina and I haven't read Anne of Green Gables I did watch the series on Netflix with my daughter.
1:14.0	Oh, wow, okay, a lot.
1:16.0	Yeah, I can never watch television things for books I've imagined in my head because it just ruins
	...

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