Sep 24, 2025 · 30m · the-pitch
How Latin American Founders Keep Their Deals Alive
Ariel Puga · 12m spoken Jenny Fielding · 4m spoken Josh Muccio · 3m spoken Jesse Middleton · 1m spoken Paige Finn Doherty · 54s spoken Charles Hudson · 39s spoken Scott / Connor (Everywhere Ventures) · 19s spoken Scott Hartley · 2s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Chilean founder Ariel Puga pitches Finecto, an enterprise procurement and spend-management platform for Latin America, seeking a $1 million seed round on The Pitch. Despite geographic constraints from some investors, Ariel secures initial commitments and ultimately closes an oversubscribed $1.7 million round at an increased valuation.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Josh holds 17.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Josh as informed peer 3.1 Guest teaching 2.6 Guest disagreement 1.4 Josh pushing back 1.9
speaking balance: gold is Josh, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 10:27 Ariel reframes multi-country expansion strategy
Ariel politely but firmly rejects the conventional VC wisdom of mastering one country before expanding, asserting that multi-country validation from day one is mandatory for building a venture-scale LATAM company.
Hardest push from Josh ▶ 10:09 Jenny challenges simultaneous multi-country go-to-marketJenny presses Ariel on his go-to-market plan, pointing out that successful LATAM startups typically start with a single market like Colombia before attempting Mexico.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:03 Ariel details the failure of selling to purchasing managersAriel provides practical insights on enterprise sales dynamics, explaining why selling to enthusiastic procurement managers led to dead ends while pitching CFOs on forward visibility converted.
Josh holds their own ▶ 22:31 Josh explains diligence insights on target customer personasJosh demonstrates his fund's diligence depth by articulating why service providers represent a significantly stronger initial customer audience than Finecto's earlier target base.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Josh as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Josh pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Show Announcements and Newsletter Promotion | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Josh introduces the show and the investor panel before Ariel gives his initial opening pitch on enterprise procurement pain in Latin America. The mood is welcoming and structured as a standard pitch kickoff. | |
| Platform Architecture, Workflows, and ERP Integrations | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Investors probe into workflow incentives, department coordination, and ERP integration complexity. Ariel explains how Finecto provides native connectors and middleware APIs to compress implementation time from a year to weeks. | |
| Business Model and Pan-LATAM Go-to-Market Strategy | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Jenny questions Ariel on whether expanding across four countries simultaneously is riskier than proving a single market first. Ariel reframes the issue, explaining that single-country models fail to scale pan-LATAM and defending day-one cross-border validation. | |
| Differentiating Secret Sauce and Selling to the CFO | 3 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Jenny asks what Finecto's secret sauce is given widespread SaaS failures in procurement. Ariel explains his learning curve on the sales side, noting how pitching procurement managers failed and how pivoting straight to CFOs unlocked conversion. | |
| Fundraising History, Unit Economics, and Growth Trajectory | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Jenny asks about previous capital raised, monthly burn, valuation terms, and long-term exit opportunities. Ariel gives clear numbers, highlighting an exceptionally lean $7k/month burn rate and plans to monetize transactions on top of software. | |
| Investor Decisions and Formal Check Offers | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Charles, Jesse, and Paige pass for thesis and geographic fit reasons while praising Ariel's execution. Jenny offers a $100k check contingent on closing the round, and Josh offers $50k from The Pitch Fund. | |
| Post-Pitch Investor Debrief and Product Discussion | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | The investors debrief with Josh, expressing enthusiasm for Ariel's grit and capital efficiency while noting the pitch lacked a tangible product demo. Josh shares internal diligence insights regarding customer targeting. | |
| Due Diligence Call with Everywhere Ventures | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Everywhere Ventures conducts diligence on resilience and multi-country team culture. Ariel shares an anecdote about cold calling night security guards at past companies, followed by post-show narration detailing Finecto's $1.7M oversubscribed round. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Ariel Puga: Finecto reached over $100K ARR across four countries
“So, right now, in just six months, we have classed 20 enterprises across four countries. We reached over a 100,000 dollars in ARR with just a small team of four, and all with founder-led sales.”
Ariel Puga: Finecto is raising a $1 million seed round
“Now we are raising one million dollars to make procurement easy for enterprises.”
Puga: 90% of enterprise procurement integration needs are for accounting
“I would say that the main integrations that you need to operate Is accounting. That's critical for the operation. Right now, I would say that 90% of the need they have is for the accounting process, ok?”
Finecto can fully integrate enterprise customers in four weeks, says founder
“I remember my last experience An integration process could take over a year. It's super difficult. So when we did this, right now we were able to have a customer fully integrated, yes, for weeks.”
Puga: Finecto charges $20 per approver, averaging $1,000 monthly per company
“So right now we're charging 20 dollars per user in the last two, three months. Our average is about a thousand dollars a month per company.”
Puga: Building a billion-dollar LatAm startup requires multi-country expansion
“So we are not going to make it just with one country in Latin America. That's impossible. We're not going to make it. That's what I saw in the past.”
Puga: All of Finecto's initial enterprise sales were outbound and cold calls
“So all the sales were outbound. I still have the messages that I sent on social media, you know, and cold calling different.”
Fielding: Enterprise procurement is where software deals go to die
“Over the last decade of me investing, I've heard the procurement pitch many times. It's kind of where deals go to die. Everyone hates it. Many people have tried to have SaaS companies around this or SaaS solutions.”
Puga: Purchasing managers lack the authority to buy procurement software
“When we started, we made a mistake. What was the mistake? Prospecting the purchasing managers in, in every company. We got some calls with them and they say, I love your product. We want your product, but they didn't buy it. Jesse Middleton: No budget. Ariel P…”
Puga: Finecto expects to reach $1M in revenue in 2025
“So we expect to have a small, but really good team to reach a million dollars this year on scale.”
Puga: Finecto operates at just a $7,000 monthly burn rate
“Right now, with the four, it's about seven.”
Puga: Pure SaaS struggles in Latin America without transactional business models
“When you build a SaaS company in Latin America, Numbers are not easy to build a one billion company, but when you create a transactional model on your product, that changes.”
Charles Hudson passes on Finecto over procurement software scaling challenges
“I think I'm going to be out just because this is a category where I've had a really hard time finding companies that can scale, but you seem incredibly qualified to go after this, and In getting customers in four countries at this early point, it's something t…”
Jenny Fielding offers $100K check to Finecto conditional on round completion
“So with that, we are interested in a hundred K check. However, we would want the whole round to come together. So maybe slightly different than some of your other investors that kind of invest along the way. We would want to make sure that you're adequately ca…”
Fielding: Finecto's exit paths include regional banks and LatAm software providers
“I feel like a bank could buy him, you know, the SAP of LATAM can buy him. So it seems like there are some exit opportunities”
Middleton: Latin American venture exits lose 20% to 30% to tax friction
“One of the challenges is this like tax and excite, like everything you do there is then effectively costs you 20 or 30% more when you get your money out. So whatever your like goal is, like a billion dollar company is really a seven hundred million dollar comp…”
Puga: Cold calling night security guards generated $10k/month deals at Lemontech
“I found out that if you call companies, that call is redirect to a security guard. When I call during nights, I can talk to the security guard and ask for the number of the decision maker that I was looking for. So I always stay from seven to 10, ten-thirty in…”
Puga: Managing multi-country teams requires monthly informal visits and meeting employees' families
“My opinion about building teams in different countries is that you need to have people that really trust you, and you need to be there at least once a month outside of the office. I mean, having a beer, you know, and meeting their families. To me, that's cruci…”
The Pitch Fund invests $50,000 into Finecto alongside Hustle Fund
“50 K and Finecto alongside Hustle Fund, who'd already invested in the round.”