Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner at FJ Labs – Serial Entrepreneur & Investor in 700 Startups!

Miguel Armaza sits down with the legendary tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner at FJ Labs, a stage-agnostic Venture Capital fund that focuses on marketplaces and consumer-facing startups. Born and raised in France, Fabrice is amongst the world’s leading tech leaders. As an investor, he has over 250 exits on almost 700 investments. With impressive investments such as Alibaba, Lending Club, Delivery Hero, Betterment, Klarna, Stripe, Palantir and Rappi. As an entrepreneur, Fabrice co-founded OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. Having previously founded Zingy and Aucland, two highly successful sites. In this fun episode, we discuss: - Fabrice’s fascinating background - Investing during COVID - why FJ labs never stopped writing checks during the pandemic and why early-stage investing is actually better during crises - FJ Labs’ investing strategy and the kind of team and company they look for - Why he loves building and backing marketplaces - Fintech trends and verticals Fabrice is excited about and some of the common traits he’s observed in successful fintech founders - Investing mistakes and why he knew he was gonna regret passing on Uber… but did it anyway - The exciting democratization and explosion of tech Latin America - And a lot more! Fabrice Grinda Fabrice Grinda is among the world’s leading Internet entrepreneurs and investors. He has over 250 exits on 700 angel investments. Fabrice has served as CEO for three multinational companies and has an impressive track record as an early investor in Alibaba, Flexport, Delivery Hero, Betterment and Brightroll. Fabrice is currently running the startup studio and venture fund FJ Labs, which he cofounded with business partner Jose Marin. Fabrice was named the #1 Angel Investor in the world by Forbes Prior to FJ Labs, Fabrice was co-founder and co-CEO of OLX, one of the largest websites in the world with over 300 million unique visitors per month. The company operates in 30 countries and has over 10,000 employees. OLX is the largest classifieds site in India, Brazil, Pakistan, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Portugal and many other emerging markets. Prior to OLX, Fabrice was the CEO and founder of Zingy, a mobile content company, which he grew to over $200 million in annual revenues and profitability in 4 years. Fabrice started his entrepreneurial journey in 1998, at 23, when he co-founded and was CEO of Aucland. Soon after, Aucland grew into one of the largest auction sites in Europe. Before his entrepreneurial endeavors, Fabrice worked as a management consultant for McKinsey & Company. Fabrice holds a BA in Economics from Princeton University. He graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1996, and was awarded the Halbert White prize, given to the most distinguished economics student, as well as The Wolfe Balleisen memorial prize, awarded for best thesis. In his free time, Fabrice likes to travel the world, kitesurf, play tennis, and blog about his personal and professional life at www.fabricegrinda.com. For more FinTech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Miguel's Twitter: twitter.com/MiguelArmaza Miguel's Newsletter: https://bit.ly/3jWIpqp