Welcome to Tech Talents! In this newsletter, I share real-time key talent movements in the LatAm tech ecosystem, including founders entering and exiting stealth mode, executive-level movements in unicorns, and partner-level changes in local VC firms.
Here’s a quick look at what you’ll find in this week’s edition:
🎊 Startup Launches: Westy, FirstLayer & more
🤫 Talents Entering Stealth: Ex-Lead Data Scientist at Nubank, ex-Head of Operations at Buser Brasil & more
🦄 Unicorn Movements: New Chief Technology and Product Officer at Dock
📖 Recent Reads: The price of Tokenmaxxing, unemployment and AI & more
🤝 Tech Talents Match: Vagas em startups brasileiras, atualizadas diariamente. Acesse aqui.
Let’s dive in…
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🎊 Startup Launches
Founders who have just publicly announced what they are working on.
Westy
Overview
Startup Description: Fintech that optimizes spend and margins via an AI-powered corporate account offering 5% card cashback and up to 15% savings per sale.
Industry: FinTech
Team Size: 7
Time in Stealth: 2 years
Founder Profile
Ariel Amar - Co-Founder & CEO at Westy
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Top University, Ex-Corporate
Previous Experience: ex-Co-Founder at Lemon Energia, ex-Executive Board Member at BOZZA, and ex-Equity Research Analyst and Associate at Itaú BBA, with studies at Insper.
Headquarters: São Paulo, Brazil
Co-Founder: Sebastiao Almeida (CTO)
Ask for an Intro: Click here
DuctorApp
Overview
Startup Description: Technology platform that helps investment advisors scale, automate operations, and serve thousands of clients efficiently.
Industry: FinTech, SaaS
Team Size: 2
Time in Stealth: 2 years
Founder Profile
Daniel Calonge - Co-Founder & CEO at DuctorApp
Founder Highlights: Investor, Previous Exit
Previous Experience: ex-CIO at Toro Investimentos, ex-Co-Founder and CEO at Monetus (acquired by Toro, a Santander company), ex-Investment Manager and CEO at Mach Investimentos, ex-Investment Manager at GRP Investimentos, and ex-Managing Partner at Aviário Montana, with studies at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
Headquarters: Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Co-Founder: Breno Oliveira (CTO)
Ask for an Intro: Click here
FirstLayer
Overview
Startup Description: AI platform enabling autonomous, end-to-end enterprise workflows by integrating with core systems to handle complex reasoning and decision-making.
Industry: AI, SaaS
Team Size: 14
Time in Stealth: 3 years
Founder Profile
Marcos Voltolini - Co-Founder & CTO at FirstLayer
Featured as a Stealth Founder in Tech Talents #8
Founder Highlights: Ex-Big Tech, Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Previous Exit
Previous Experience: ex-Co-founder & CTO at Mercê do Bairro, ex-Engineering Lead at Nextdoor, ex-Co-founder & CTO at Pixel Labs (acquired by Nextdoor), ex-Co-founder & CTO at Flert, ex-Co-founder & Engineering at Egoobe, and ex-Trainee at Oracle.
Headquarters: São Paulo, Brazil
Co-Founder: Diego Libanio (CEO)
Ask for an Intro: Click here
+4 other Announced Startups over the past two weeks with Tech Talents Pro
🤫 Talents Entering Stealth
Talents with relevant experiences who have just entered stealth mode.
Eduardo Leveque Ozuna – Co-Founder & CFOO at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Masters, Top University, Ex-Big Tech, Ex-Corporate, Ex-Consultant
Previous Experience: ex-Regional Head of Sales (CO-MEX) at Frubana, ex-Head of Online Sales at Fitzer Hard Seltzer, ex-Sr. Regional Sales & Ops Manager - UberEats Latin America at Uber, MBA from The Wharton School, Bachelor in Economics from ITAM.
Headquarters: Mexico City, Mexico
Time in Current Position: 2 months
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Bruno Lerner – Founder at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Technical Founder, Masters, Top University, Ex-Big Tech, Ex-Corporate, Ex-Consultant, Unicorn Experience
Previous Experience: ex-Lead Data Scientist at Nubank, ex-Chief Technology Officer at Meetal, ex-Head of Artificial Intelligence at Dattos, ex-Senior Machine Learning Engineer at Outbrain, ex-Data Scientist at Waze/Google, Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from Instituto Militar de Engenharia.
Headquarters: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Time in Current Position: 1 month
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Fernando Seguim – Founder & CEO at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters, Ex-Corporate, Ex-Consultant
Previous Experience: ex-Senior Engineering Manager | Core Banking & Ledger at Nomad, ex-Head of Engineering and Products | ID One & Conta Digital at Bankly, MBA in Strategic Business Management from Escola Conquer, Bachelor’s in Information Systems from FIAP.
Headquarters: São Paulo, Brazil
Time in Current Position: 1 year, 8 months
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Pedro Rodriguez – Founder at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Masters, Top University, Ex-Big Tech, Ex-Corporate, Unicorn Experience
Previous Experience: ex-Head of Operations at Buser Brasil, ex-Senior Operations Manager at Uber, MBA from FIA, Bachelor’s in Automotive Engineering from Polytechnic University of Turin.
Headquarters: São Paulo, Brazil
Time in Current Position: 1 month
Ask for an Intro: Click here
Douglas Picolotto – Co-founder at Stealth Startup
Founder Highlights: Serial Founder, Technical Founder, Masters, Ex-Corporate, Ex-Consultant
Previous Experience: ex-Solutions Architect at Warren Brasil, ex-Software Engineer / Systems Analyst / Solution Architect at Promob Softwares Solutions, ex-Systems Analyst at DATASUL Saúde, Bachelor’s in IT from Universidade de Caxias.
Headquarters: Nova Petrópolis, Brazil
Time in Current Position: 1 year, 5 months
Ask for an Intro: Click here
+4 other Stealth Founders over the past two weeks with Tech Talents Pro
🦄 Unicorn Movements
Promotions, new hires, and other movements in local unicorns’ executive-level.
Daniel Peralles – Chief Technology and Product Officer at Dock
Previous Role: EVP Data & Digital Transformation at Pipefy
Previous Experience: ex-Technical and Business Advisor at Click Planos, ex-Technology & Digital Transformation Advisor at Distrito, ex-Chief Information Technology Officer at V4 Company, Bachelor’s in System Analyst from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas.
Headquarters: Brazil
Time in Current Position: 1 month
📖 Recent Reads
My quick takes on interesting articles, news and data that I’ve come across recently.
Many companies are reporting explosive growth in their AI bills. By April, Uber had already burned through its entire 2026 AI coding budget, and Microsoft revoked its developers’ Claude Code licenses months after rolling them out. Critics read these as proof that AI adoption is financially unsustainable.
I’d argue the opposite. This spend is a signal of how much usage these tools are pulling out of employees. On price, the pressure points downward, not up, as per-token prices have already fallen significantly over the past year. With a crowded foundational-model layer and Chinese labs competing aggressively on price, a continued race to the bottom on tokens looks more likely than not. The cost story to watch isn’t the headline bill, it’s the gap between tokens spent and value shipped.
Many are blaming AI for the loss of recent-graduate jobs in the US. But recent NY Fed research sheds light on another relevant variable in the youth employment equation: remote work. Results reveal that the "unemployment gap" (between young and older college grads) is higher for "remotable occupations," as the chart below shows. Five years after the post-pandemic reopening, weekday office visits are still at ~70% of pre-pandemic levels as remote and hybrid arrangements have proven sticky. It's still early to measure AI's labor impact, and the reality is that several variables shape employment, so we should keep that in mind before jumping to conclusions.
As AI evolved from simple chat responses to actually delivering work, offering strategic and operational advice, many began wondering how consulting firms would adapt to stay relevant in this new reality. It looks like many are betting on changing their billing model: moving away from the traditional labor-based, hourly-rate approach toward fixed fees, packaged solutions, or outcome-based pricing, where firms get paid on pre-agreed improvements to their clients' metrics. None of these routes are easy, but I think the firms that manage to adapt, along with new entrants into this space, have a huge opportunity ahead of them to become truly AI-native, both internally and externally, helping their customers adopt this technology efficiently.
🤝 Tech Talents Match
Vagas em startups brasileiras, atualizadas diariamente.
O Tech Talents Match agora conta com uma página que centraliza vagas abertas em diversas startups do Brasil. Procure por vagas filtrando por estágio da empresa, área funcional, setor de atuação e senioridade. Demonstre interesse por vagas com o seu nome, LinkedIn e e-mail e te conecto com os recrutadores responsáveis, se fizer sentido.
Contratando para o seu time?
Se você tiver vagas abertas e quiser acessar esse pool de talentos, entre em contato ou preencha esse forms com a sua vaga.
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