Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta: LATAM's New $500M Growth Fund; Investing Billions at SoftBank | E1042
Marcelo Claure (guest), Harry Stebbings (host), Shu Nyatta (guest), Narrator
In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Marcelo Claure and Harry Stebbings, Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta: LATAM's New $500M Growth Fund; Investing Billions at SoftBank | E1042 explores bicycle: Betting Big on Latin America’s Overlooked Growth-Stage Gap Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta, former leaders of SoftBank’s Latin America fund, discuss launching Bicycle, a $500M growth equity fund focused on Series B–D in Latin America.
Bicycle: Betting Big on Latin America’s Overlooked Growth-Stage Gap
Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta, former leaders of SoftBank’s Latin America fund, discuss launching Bicycle, a $500M growth equity fund focused on Series B–D in Latin America.
They frame Bicycle as a concentrated, high‑involvement firm investing mostly their own capital, blending Marcelo’s operating momentum with Shu’s disciplined investing to alter portfolio companies’ trajectories.
A major theme is that Latin America is structurally under-capitalized at growth stage yet macro‑favored (nearshoring, commodities, large local markets), with Brazil and Mexico as the core opportunity.
They reflect candidly on lessons from SoftBank (be more selective, avoid FOMO bets like FTX, don’t over-index on markups) and outline a vision to become for Latin America what Sequoia China is for Chinese founders.
Key Takeaways
Target the under-served growth-stage gap in Latin America.
Early-stage and late-stage capital exist in LATAM, but Series B–C is a ‘desert’; Bicycle positions itself to lead these rounds, price risk, and act as a catalyst for additional capital.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Concentrated portfolios and real partnership beat scattershot ‘beta’ venture.
Bicycle plans to back only ~10–14 companies, insisting on mutual enthusiasm and deep engagement instead of placing dozens of small, passive bets across the market.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Putting significant personal capital in the fund changes behavior.
By committing over $200M of their own money, Claure and Nyatta say they stop thinking in abstract “bets” and approach each deal as a long-term, personal partnership with the founder.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Operators plus disciplined investors create a stronger value-add model.
Marcelo focuses on momentum, operating scale, and altering company trajectories; Shu balances that with risk analysis, conservatism, and structured investing—an explicit operator–investor hybrid model.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Great founders still want coaching and hard truths, not isolation.
They reject the idea that top founders ‘don’t need’ investors, arguing that the best founders actively seek honest, sometimes uncomfortable feedback and high-quality board discussions.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Avoid FOMO and don’t invest in what you don’t understand.
Reflecting on SoftBank’s FTX loss, Marcelo emphasizes never again backing hype-driven opportunities without deep understanding, even if ‘everyone else’ is investing.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Latin America’s macro and structural dynamics are improving sharply.
Nearshoring to Mexico, critical commodities (like lithium) in the Southern Cone, sophisticated financial markets (especially Brazil), and rising local exits suggest the next decade could be LATAM’s best.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Notable Quotes
“Work and play are not different things. They are the same thing, which is life.”
— Shu Nyatta (describing a Marcelo Claure quote he admires)
“There’s one fundamental basic rule of life, and most people don’t follow it…and that is, you gotta do what you love.”
— Marcelo Claure
“Average founders want to be left alone. Good founders want to be coached. Great founders want to hear the truth.”
— Shu Nyatta
“Operating is a science, investing is an art. If you can combine both, I think we’re going to have something really, really special.”
— Marcelo Claure
“Tourist capital is done… I want people to be busy thinking about the US, thinking about China, thinking about Europe, and we’ll do our thing in Latin America.”
— Marcelo Claure
Questions Answered in This Episode
How will Bicycle practically ‘alter the course’ of a company’s trajectory beyond capital—what specific interventions or support will they provide?
Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta, former leaders of SoftBank’s Latin America fund, discuss launching Bicycle, a $500M growth equity fund focused on Series B–D in Latin America.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What metrics or signals will they prioritize when underwriting a Series B in Latin America, given the local macro and pref-stack complexities?
They frame Bicycle as a concentrated, high‑involvement firm investing mostly their own capital, blending Marcelo’s operating momentum with Shu’s disciplined investing to alter portfolio companies’ trajectories.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can early-stage LATAM founders best position themselves to be attractive to focused growth funds like Bicycle in 18–24 months?
A major theme is that Latin America is structurally under-capitalized at growth stage yet macro‑favored (nearshoring, commodities, large local markets), with Brazil and Mexico as the core opportunity.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What guardrails will Bicycle use to avoid repeating SoftBank-era mistakes around over-deployment and FOMO in future hot cycles (e.g., AI)?
They reflect candidly on lessons from SoftBank (be more selective, avoid FOMO bets like FTX, don’t over-index on markups) and outline a vision to become for Latin America what Sequoia China is for Chinese founders.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If Bicycle’s ambition is to be a ‘Sequoia China of Latin America,’ what does that imply for their future fund sizes, local presence, and non-capital services to founders?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
There's one fundamental, basic rule of life, and that most people don't follow it and they say they do. And that is, you gotta do what you love.
(instrumental music) Chaps, I am so excited to make this happen. First, thank you so much for joining me in person.
It's a pleasure. Like I said on Twitter, this is the Abbey Road of venture.
(laughs)
You're a lot bigger than in Zoom.
Do you know what? So are you, Marcelo.
Right.
So I think we have that in common.
Mm-hmm.
Listen, I love a good, uh, romance and love story, and so when we go back to the beginning of Bicycle and the first conversations, can you take me to those discussions and how that formation talk really came to be?
Uh, I met Shu a few years back, who was referred to me as I was dividing SoftBank into two. And a little people told me that I should have somebody called Shu join my team. So I called him one day and or his ki- your kid was giving birth the same day-
M- my wife was giving birth.
... your wife was giving birth to a new kid. Your first one.
No, second one.
Second one. And it was my kid's birthday, so we immediately bonded because that was special.
Our two daughters were born on the exact same day, and that's when we met.
Yeah.
(laughs)
So we wanted to... I wanted to have a new talent join what I was doing at SoftBank. And Shu's background is fantastic. He can tell you all about it. And we immediately liked each other. We work well. We decided to open the SoftBank Latin American Fund together.
Yeah.
And we just had a blast, you know, finding founders, helping make Latin America better. So when it was time to do something new, you know, we both look at each other and say, "Hey, maybe we should go do something together."
Now, you said you didn't read the questions beforehand. That's great 'cause I just decided to go off schedule. Um, when you think about yourselves as partners, what is Marcelo world class at? And Marcelo, what is Shu world class at?
Marcelo is... I call him the master of momentum.
Hmm.
Nobody else generates momentum like Marcelo does. Any, any idea, any geography, any topic, if you want somebody to get the ball rolling, he'll do it. And it's impressive to see because often it means bringing together all these different people and capital and spheres of things into one project is incredible, uh, incredible. I've never seen anything like it. And so the, the gift is you just get this momentum that comes from the sky, like manna from heaven, and you have to do something with it. And so I've learned that you get out of the way of the momentum and then you try and capture that magic and push it forward in an organized way with a team. And we've done that now a few times in a row.
Install uListen to search the full transcript and get AI-powered insights
Get Full TranscriptGet more from every podcast
AI summaries, searchable transcripts, and fact-checking. Free forever.
Add to Chrome