Fintech across Latam with Gaston Irigoyen (Episode 51)
In this episode, I sit down with Gaston Irigoyen, CEO and founder of Pomelo.
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Show notes
In this episode, I sit down with Gaston Irigoyen, CEO and founder of Pomelo.
Gaston Irigoyen is the CEO and Co Founder of Pomelo, a Latin American payments infrastructure company serving more than 150 customers across Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Puerto Rico. Since its launch in 2021, Pomelo has raised $160 million from investors including Kaszek, Monashees, Index, Insight, QED, and Endeavor Catalyst.
Before Pomelo, Gaston was CEO of Naranja X, where he helped build Argentina’s largest neobank to 9 million customers and cardholders. He also held leadership roles at Restorando, founded Guidecentral, and spent more than five years at Google, including as Manager of YouTube Partnerships. He is also a lecturer in entrepreneurship, fintech, and fundraising at Universidad de San Andrés.
With him, we will talk about the struggles of building a fintech company in Latam, but also the importance of payment rails and the complexity of managing payments globally.
In this episode
Gaston Irigoyen, co-founder and CEO of Pomelo, explains how his experience at Google and YouTube and building the Argentine neobank Naranja X led him to create a single payments infrastructure for Latin America, handling licences and card issuing and processing across eight markets. He describes raising a $55 million Series C, going global with a new card programme and beyond cards, and how Pomelo fully supports stablecoin settlement. He also discusses agentic payments and advice for founders.
Chapters
- 0:00Introduction and Pomelo
- 1:35From Google to founder
- 3:21A first exit: Guide Central
- 6:32Why Pomelo was built
- 9:34Why Latin America is fragmented
- 14:08No passporting in Latin America
- 16:12Raising a $55 million Series C
- 18:22Fundraising in any market
- 21:44Combining local and global investors
- 27:23Stablecoins at Pomelo
- 37:02Incumbents and agentic payments
- 43:26Building an international team
- 46:57Advice for founders
Key facts
Gaston was one of Google's first employees in Latin America and later worked on the team that first monetised YouTube in Europe.
His first startup, Guide Central, a mobile content app for creators, was sold to wikiHow after about four years.
Gaston previously built the Argentine neobank Naranja X; his co-founder Hernán spent 12 years at Mercado Pago.
Pomelo, founded in 2021, handles regulatory and card network licences itself so customers can issue and process cards across eight Latin American markets with one integration.
Companies expanding across five Latin American countries used to need 30–50 infrastructure partners.
Pomelo raised a $55 million Series C co-led by Kaszek and Insight Partners, taking total funding to $160 million; the round took three months from kickoff to close.
Pomelo's customers include BBVA, BCI, Bancolombia, Binance, Bybit, ARQ, Lemon and PayJoy.
Pomelo launched a global card programme that can issue and process in more than 150 markets and hired a former Mastercard, Santander and SoFi executive to lead it.
Pomelo's treasury and settlement are fully mirrored in fiat and stablecoins, and about 20–25% of its customers now use stablecoins.
The first ChatGPT e-commerce purchase in Latin America was made with a Pomelo-issued card tokenised for an agent.
Pomelo is expanding beyond cards into real-time payments and stablecoins.
Latin America is the third-largest fintech market after the US and China, but with 20-plus separately regulated markets there will be no passporting as in Europe.
In mature markets infrastructure is easy and distribution hard; in emerging markets it's the reverse.
Card networks' acceptance gives cards an edge for agentic payments online, even though account-to-account payments could suit agents well.
Questions and answers
Why was Pomelo built?
Building a neobank across Latin America meant patching together dozens of local infrastructure partners, which Pomelo replaces with one.
How do stablecoins help card programmes?
Networks settle stablecoins 24/7, so customers need less pre-funding and have more working capital.
What is Gaston's advice to founders?
Be passionate, choose co-founders carefully, solve a real problem and think 20 years ahead.
People
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