I first met Nicolas Rojas Nino over lunch in Palo Alto in the summer of 2023.
1.5 years later, I am excited to be an investor and partner to Nico, Daniel Ordóñez Rubiano, Felipe G., and the entire Dapta team.
Nico was in town in the summer of 2023 for a 500 LatAm boot camp and he shared his initial idea for Dapta (thanks René Lomelí Ojeda and Cecilia Ezquerro Souza for coming to my place!)
It was about connectors, workflows, developers, etc. which was far out of my area of focus as an investor.
I did not resonate with the idea but I really liked Nico.
Nico started a software development firm Imagine Apps at age 17, grew it to 70+ employees, and now was starting his second company.
Nico had the rare combination of being highly technical but also very marketing savvy with a large social media following (e.g., 100K followers across platforms).
During the lunch I asked Nico a lot of questions and encouraged him to crystalize his value proposition and target customer profile.
Fast forward 6 months, we met by chance in Miami.
Nico told me Dapta’s initial idea did not gain as much traction as they hoped so they worked hard to see how to leverage their product for a stronger value proposition.
The team executed a pivot and focused on helping SMBs use AI for sales and marketing.
I was intrigued by their direction but mostly I remember thinking Nico was the type of founder I like to work with: fast learner, thoughtful, listener, sense of urgency.
Fast forward another 8 months and we met again in Miami on my way to Colombia Tech Week.
We had scheduled a 1 hour meeting that turned into 2-3 hours of deep discussion on how they had evolved since the last time we met, the traction they were seeing, and his vision to build a global company.
Although NuMundo Ventures primarily invests in Fintech, Supply Chain, and Proptech companies, I was so impressed with this founder that I made the decision I wanted to work with Nico.
Over the coming months a group of us (Renzo Viale, Diego Bartoli) rolled up our sleeves to learn about Dapta, where early customers were seeing value, and how they were competing vs. all the other AI companies in their space.
During this process, the founders spent a week at my home and met with other founders (e.g., Roberto Peñacastro Ortega, Luis Mario Garcia,Fernando Huerta), learned best practices, and got served breakfast every morning 😀
So what is Dapta?
* Dapta is the fastest way for SMBs to use AI for sales, marketing, and operations.
* With a product-led growth strategy, thousands of SMBs around the world use the product.
* Customers start with a small implementation, see value quickly, and then expand their use of the product.
I believe Dapta can be an example of a company born in LatAm that becomes a global leader in its industry.
The journey is only beginning and I can’t wait to support this team for years to come!
