#20 - Heavy Metal & RBF with Manolo Atala, CEO of Fairplay

Our guest this week brings enthusiasm and excitement to RBF which sets the stage for a great conversation. We welcome Manolo Atala, Co-Founder and CEO of Fairplay, a LatAm-focused revenue-based financing platform headquartered in Mexico. Since launching in 2019, Fairplay has originated $220M in revenue-based loans, built a team of 127 people, and made a huge impact in Latin America. Manolo shares how they’ve done that, and covers his diverse career journey before Fairplay, spanning advertising, entertainment, and the successful establishment of high-impact companies. He explains Fairplay's spin-out of Nazca Ventures and the company’s impact on financing and funding in Latin America. Manolo and I discuss balancing growth with responsible underwriting, and the beauty of transparency in strategic partnerships, and Manolo shares his vision of building Fairplay into a $1 billion company to improve access to capital in Latin America.

Key Takeaways

[1:45] Manolo’s path to entrepreneurship.

[5:38] Being a musician.

[10:19] Launching Fairplay in 2019 and expanding geographically.

[11:12] What happened to Clearco?

[13:21] Lending is hard to do well and easy to screw up.

[18:02] The embedded lending space.

[19:02] What we can learn from Metallica.

[24:14] The importance of straightforward dialog with investors.

[32:46] How not to pitch equity investors.

[40:15] Automating underwriting.

[47:05] Originating more than $220 million.

[48:54] The future of Fairplay.

Resources:
RBF Network
Keith’s Twitter

Keith’s Linkedin

Manolo:  Fairplay | X | LinkedIn |