Mercado Libre Reached 2007 IPO With 25% of Its 2000 Funding Remaining
Hernan Kazah · How $100B Mercado Libre got started—& why it almost went bankrupt after 9 months. | Hernan Kazah,... · PMF Show · Jun 23, 2025 · at 18:49
Hernan Kazah is the co-founder of Mercado Libre. He discusses how capital discipline after the dot-com crash enabled the company to reach profitability and IPO without raising additional equity rounds.
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“That round was like, forty six million dollars. Into the bank and we ended up getting probably less than 40 because of the debt we had. But with that capital, that, that capital came into our bank account in May, 2000, and we went public in August, 2007. We're still probably a quarter of that round in the bank.”
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