Creating a Financial Ecosystem for Mexican SMBs — David Poritz, Co-Founder of Credijusto
Miguel Armaza sits down with David Poritz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Credijusto, a company focused on lending to the underserved and rapidly growing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market in Mexico. The company aims to provide products that are superior in price, speed of delivery and quality of customer experience. Credijusto uses a combination of cutting-edge software design, innovative applications of data science and advanced internal processes for decision making and product structuring.
Credijusto is backed by a world-class group of institutional investors, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Victory Park Capital, QED Investors, Point72 Ventures, Kaszek Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, Broadhaven Ventures, Ignia, Elevar Equity and John J. Mack.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, David Poritz has been passionate about all things Latin America ever since he can remember. Growing up, he would spend most of his free time visiting or learning about the region and developed a strong affinity with Latin America at an early age. He recognized it as an overlooked region with a lot of potential and always aspired to do something about it.
David attended Brown University where he studied Anthropology, with a focus on Latin American Studies. While in college, he also met Allan Apoj Pascal, a Mexican national with whom he developed a close friendship around their interests in the region. They kept in touch post-graduation and after witnessing the massive success of European and US B2B fintechs, the duo decided to join forces and launch Credijusto in Mexico.
Helping Build an Ecosystem
Just like David and Allan saw the opportunities being created by US and European fintechs, they also saw some of the industry challenges. They realized these markets were becoming extremely competitive, which was leading fintech startups to fight over pennies on the dollar. So, they took everything they liked from these ecosystems and applied it to an underserved market like Mexico, where small and medium-sized businesses lacked adequate financial products and services.
Over time, Credijusto has undoubtedly become part of the first cohort of successful fintechs in the region, but when the company raised its initial Seed round in 2015, VC investment levels in Mexico were negligible and almost no international funds were paying attention to Latin America. David and Allan recognized their challenge and realized a need to differentiate themselves early to improve their chances of success. They also realized very few local startups were “VC ready” and made sure Credijusto met all necessary standards in terms of governance, management team, and strategy. The approach worked and over the years Credijusto has secured hundreds of millions of dollars from some of the most prestigious funds in the world. They have also helped pave the way for a booming fintech ecosystem as many of their backers have since expanded their Latin American portfolios.
A Culture of Hyper-Transparency and Hyper-Communication
Building the right company culture was always important for David and Allan. They wanted to find the right mix to engineer a productive environment and realized establishing a culture of hyper-transparency and hyper-communication, built around a rapid feedback loop, would be key to create a differentiated company environment. David believes these two pillars have led to their success and have made them a high performing organization that thrives on these values. Making sure a rapid feedback loop and transparency are embodied at every level of the company has also helped them attract people who thrive in this setting and can internalize and accept feedback. More importantly, David is proud that this philosophy of accountability applies to everyone at Credijusto, Co-Founders included.
COVID and The Road Ahead
Over the last few years, skeptics would point to David that his credit models were unreliable because they had not experienced a financial downturn and the company would likely be unable to sustain the shocks of a recession. In that sense, COVID has been the ultimate test for fintechs like Credijusto and one of the most important outcomes of the crisis has been to prove the strength of their credit product. Their model has demonstrated remarkable resilience in this environment and Credijusto is showing they can not only thrive in boom times but also weather the storm in tough times.
Going forward, David and Allan aim to continue creating an ecosystem for SMBs and envision Credijusto becoming the primary financial provider for their clients. They have several new products in the works, are getting ready to launch a credit card for small businesses, and have more than doubled their headcount since 2019. In other words, they are just getting started!
David Poritz
David Poritz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Credijusto, is responsible for leading the finance and legal departments as well as all investor outreach and engagement, including relationships with banks, credit funds and equity investors. Prior to Credijusto, he was the Co-Founder & President of Equitable Origin, an organization focused on standards development and certification of responsible energy development. David was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford and holds an undergraduate degree from Brown University where he was a Harry S. Truman Scholar.
About Credijusto
Founded in 2015, Credijusto is a financial technology company focused on lending to the underserved and rapidly growing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market in Mexico — via products that are superior in price, speed of delivery and quality of customer experience. The company uses a combination of cutting-edge software design, innovative applications of data science and advanced internal processes for decision making and product structuring.
Credijusto is backed by a world-class group of institutional investors, including Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Victory Park Capital, QED Investors, Point72 Ventures, Kaszek Ventures, Thomvest Ventures, Broadhaven Ventures, Ignia, Elevar Equity and John J. Mack.
