Hernán Kazah

Background

Hernán Kazah is the co-founder and managing partner of Kaszek, Latin America’s largest venture capital firm ¹. Before launching Kaszek in 2011, Kazah co-founded MercadoLibre in 1999 alongside Marcos Galperin and Stelleo Tolda while they were MBA students at Stanford Graduate School of Business ². MercadoLibre became Latin America’s largest technology company and the first Latin American company listed on NASDAQ ². Kazah served as COO of MercadoLibre for nine years and as CFO for three years before departing to launch Kaszek ¹.

Prior to MercadoLibre, Kazah worked as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble and as a finance analyst at both the United Nations Development Program and the Ministry of Economy of Argentina ¹. He graduated magna cum laude in economics from the University of Buenos Aires (1989-1994) and earned an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business (1997-1999) ^{1 3}.

Kazah co-founded Kaszek in 2011 with Nicolás Szekasy, who also served as CFO of MercadoLibre ⁴. The firm has grown from a $95 million debut fund to managing over $3 billion across nine funds and has invested in more than 129 companies across Latin America ^{5 6}.

Kazah was selected as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 1999, received the “Outstanding Young Persons of Argentina” recognition from the Junior Chamber International in 2004, was chosen as an Established Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2009, and was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 in Argentina ^{1 7}. He currently sits on the boards of portfolio companies including Zup, DrConsulta, BelezaNaWeb, Technisys, MadeiraMadeira, PetLove, GetNinjas, GuichêVirtual, Loggi, and DigitalHouse ¹. He also serves as a board member at LAVCA (Latin America Venture Capital Association) ¹.

Stated Thesis

Kazah and Kaszek publicly describe their investment approach as founder-first and industry-agnostic. On the Kaszek website, the firm states it seeks “entrepreneurs that are great visionaries who have the capacity to inspire, lead and execute, to move society forward and produce a better future” ⁸. Kazah has said: “We remain industry agnostic. We invest mainly in extraordinary founders” ⁹.

In a LAVCA interview, Kazah stated: “We focus a lot on founding teams…If we find an entrepreneur that we really like, committed to what he/she is doing, and with lots of energy and a great vision, we immediately find ourselves enthusiastic about an industry that maybe we hadn’t considered before” ⁴.

Kazah has emphasized that the Latin American market opportunity is driven by deep social inequities: “Almost everything comes down to fintech” in the regional tech and startup space, and industries from healthcare to education to food are leaving large populations underserved ¹⁰. He has noted fintech opportunities are shifting “maybe more on the B2B side than B2C” ⁹.

Kaszek’s stated ethos rests on three pillars: “unrelenting passion,” a “founders first” investment philosophy, and “long-term focus,” recognizing that “perseverance and focus win the race as it takes decades to build longstanding iconic companies” ⁸.

Inferred Thesis

Based on Kaszek’s portfolio of 129 verified ventures ⁶ and Tracxn data covering 277 investment rounds ¹¹:

Sector distribution: Fintech is the dominant sector with 51 investments (approximately 39% of total verified portfolio), followed by enterprise applications/SaaS with 35 investments (27%), consumer/e-commerce (approximately 15%), and the remainder split across healthtech, edtech, foodtech, proptech, logistics, and cleantech ¹¹. This aligns closely with Kazah’s stated emphasis on fintech but understates the significant enterprise software allocation.

Stage distribution: 60 investments at Series A (the largest cohort), 38 at Seed, 17 at Series B, and smaller allocations at Series C and growth stages ¹¹. The average seed check is $4.96M and the average Series A is $17.2M ¹¹. The early-stage fund targets 20-30 companies per fund with checks from $500K to $25M, while the Opportunity Fund backs 10-15 companies at $10M-$50M ¹².

Geographic concentration: Approximately 50% of investments are in Brazil, 25% in Mexico, with the remainder across Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and other Latin American markets ¹³. The firm maintains offices in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Montevideo, and São Paulo ⁸.

Founder profile patterns: Kazah shows strong preference for founders who have firsthand experience with the problems they are solving in underserved Latin American markets. The MercadoLibre experience appears to shape an appreciation for founders building fundamental infrastructure (payments, logistics, financial access) rather than purely consumer-facing products.

Co-investor patterns: Sequoia Capital (via Sequoia Heritage) has been an LP since Kaszek’s first fund ¹⁴. At the deal level, Kaszek has co-invested frequently with Tiger Global, Andreessen Horowitz, SoftBank Latin America, and QED Investors across fintech deals ¹⁴.

Notable gap: Despite claiming to be “industry agnostic,” the portfolio is heavily concentrated in fintech (39%) and enterprise SaaS (27%). Sectors like healthtech, edtech, and cleantech are represented but at far lower levels than the stated breadth would suggest.

Exit track record: 41 exits recorded, including the IPO of Netshoes (2017), acquisition of PedidosYa by Delivery Hero, acquisition of VivaReal by Grupo ZAP, acquisition of Love Mondays by Glassdoor, and the Nubank IPO (2021) ⁹. The portfolio includes 13 unicorns ¹¹.

Portfolio

Based on 129 verified ventures from Kaszek’s website and public sources. This table covers a representative sample of notable investments. Kaszek invests at the firm level; Kazah’s personal involvement is confirmed via board seats on several of these companies.

Note: Many investment years are approximate (~), based on company founding dates or earliest known Kaszek involvement. Exact round dates could not be independently verified for all entries. This table represents approximately 23% of Kaszek’s 129 known ventures; the full portfolio is listed at kaszek.com/companies ⁶.

In Their Own Words

“We witnessed firsthand the tremendous opportunity that technology had in the region and the lack of support for entrepreneurs.” — Hernán Kazah, LAVCA member profile ⁴

“We focus a lot on founding teams…If we find an entrepreneur that we really like, committed to what he/she is doing, and with lots of energy and a great vision, we immediately find ourselves enthusiastic about an industry that maybe we hadn’t considered before.” — Hernán Kazah, LAVCA member profile ⁴

“We usually tell our entrepreneurs to dream of creating a company that eventually can be worth a billion dollars, but not to reach a billion users. There aren’t a billion users in the region.” — Hernán Kazah, LAVCA member profile ⁴

“We remain industry agnostic. We invest mainly in extraordinary founders.” — Hernán Kazah, Bloomberg Línea, April 2023 ⁹

“Most of the best companies emerge in times of crisis. It was the case of MercadoLibre, it was the case of Nubank.” — Hernán Kazah, Bloomberg Línea, April 2023 ⁹

“We’re sure that many Mercado Libres will emerge over the next 10 to 15 years in Latin America.” — Hernán Kazah, Americas Quarterly, 2023 ¹⁰

“The market is changing and has improved with the interest rate cuts in the United States. They’ve been slower than we expected a year ago, but it’s happening.” — Hernán Kazah, Bloomberg Línea, January 2025 ¹³

“The two most important pain points or challenges that typical entrepreneurs have are, on the one hand, how to grow efficiently and the other is how to add talent to the team.” — Hernán Kazah, Insignia Business Review podcast, March 2023 ¹⁸

What Founders Say

“They’re not going to get fooled by the grow-at-all-costs (mindset). What’s really constant with (Kaszek) is that no matter where the tide is, (they always) clear out the noise and focus on fundamentals.” — Carlos García, founder and CEO of Kavak, Americas Quarterly, 2023 ¹⁰

“Kaszek had great timing going into Latin America, which the big VCs in the U.S. were ignoring.” — Gabriel Gruber, co-founder of Exactly Finance, Americas Quarterly, 2023 ¹⁰

Matías Muchnick, co-founder and CEO of NotCo, has stated that the experience of Kaszek’s founders and the breadth of their network provided significant help as NotCo expanded beyond Chile into broader Latin America. Through a Kaszek-sponsored retreat at Stanford University, Muchnick was introduced to a professor who became an advisor, and that professor subsequently connected him with Bezos Expeditions, which invested in the company ¹⁹.

Sources