In 2026, Marcelo França and I were selected as Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Only about 1% of the companies that enter the global process are approved. But this story did not start with a yes.
In 2022 and 2023, Celcoin went through the selection and did not advance. At the time, we were still building the full platform, and putting payments, banking, and credit together looked, to some people, like a lack of focus. We took the feedback on board without changing our thesis.
We came back in 2025 with all three lines of business live, diversified revenue, and a clear strategy for each one. This time, approval was unanimous at every stage: in the interviews, on the local panel, and in the reference checks. The final board included Mudassir Sheikha (Careem), Veronica Allende Serra (Innova Capital), Mostafa Amin (Breadfast), Doug Storf (Swap), and Lisa Raggiri (Forward Arc).
Looking back, it was not the first time a “no” helped us. Celcoin was born in 2016 as a digital wallet for consumers. Within a few months, we saw that model would not scale, while the first fintechs were coming to us for the infrastructure we had built to run it. We dropped the original idea and moved to B2B before the term BaaS even existed.
Today Celcoin has more than 800 customers and eight acquisitions. Marcelo and I already invest as angels and mentor founders, and the Endeavor network expands that work with the next generation of entrepreneurs.