Portfolio Spotlight: El Dorado

About the Guests: Guillermo Goncalvez (CEO) and Juan Andreu (CTO) are the co-founders of El Dorado. They’re building a stablecoin-powered “SuperApp” for Latin America, designed to help everyday people save, send, and move money using digital dollars (USDT), with local rails and mini-app experiences inside one product.

I still remember my first call with Guillermo.

It was early 2021. El Dorado was very early. Still in presentation mode, likely before real customer traction.

But even then, the signal was clear:

Guillermo wasn’t pitching hype. He was describing a structural, lived problem. And he sounded like someone who could build through it.

Back then, El Dorado wasn’t a “company with traction.” It was two founders, Guillermo and Juan, starting from zero.

The gap El Dorado is trying to close

In many Latin American markets, the problem isn’t “access to crypto.”

The problem is much more basic:

People need a simple, reliable way to protect value and move money. In real life, not in theory.

That’s the gap El Dorado went after.

What El Dorado does differently

El Dorado’s core idea is simple:

Make digital dollars usable for everyday people.

Today, they position the product as a stablecoin “SuperApp” built around mini-apps, with USDT at the center.

Publicly, the product highlights:

• Buy/sell USDT with local payment methods
• P2P marketplace
• A “Cuenta USA / Dollar account” experience with ACH/Wire rails
• “Earn” and “Card” listed as coming soon

They also list coverage across 13+ countries for parts of the product (P2P + “Dollar account” availability varies by country).

Why I invested (so early)

I invest globally at the earliest stages through Startupist Ventures.

And this was one of those cases where the bet was mostly on:

• A real problem
• A clear product thesis
• And two founders who felt like builders

At that stage, you’re not buying certainty. You’re backing the ability to figure it out.

The moment it became personal

Two years after our investment, Juan came to Istanbul.

We had breakfast together.

It felt like we’d known each other for ages. The kind of conversation you only get with people who’ve been deep in the trenches and learned fast.

Five years later

It’s been about five years since that first call with Guillermo.

In that time, El Dorado has:

• Reached millions of users (public signal: 1M+ downloads on Google Play)
• And continued expanding the product scope toward a true “money OS” for LATAM

They also closed their Series A last year (not sharing terms here).

If you want to see the very early days

We recorded a video with Guillermo back in 2021 on the Startup Istanbul YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtzR5w6EwiY

And a 2022 follow-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OAJ82vExDw

A quick note about how I invest

Through Startupist Ventures, I invest globally in early-stage startups.

I’m sector-agnostic on purpose. I like patterns, not categories. And I love meeting founders early, when it’s still messy and uncertain, because that’s where you really see who can build.

El Dorado was one of those early bets.

Also, over the last few weeks, I met a bunch of startups I found genuinely interesting.

This is not me promoting them, and it's not me trying to make any investment decision "transparent" publicly.

I just like sharing what I'm seeing. Strong teams, sharp ideas, and problems worth paying attention to.

Startups I Met Recently (Interesting Teams)

Stackbooster.io (Ukraine, USA) · DevOps / Kubernetes / Cost Optimization
AI-driven Kubernetes automation for autoscaling and right-sizing to cut cloud costs while keeping performance stable.

Giga Bank (Japan) · Financial Technology (Fintech)
A regulated mobile banking service that lets foreigners in Japan easily open a bank account, receive salary, transfer money, and track expenses, all in their own language. Recognized as the 1st place award winner by the Tokyo Financial Award in 2021.

Knowly.ai (USA, UAE) · Retail Analytics / FMCG Intelligence
An FMCG intelligence layer that unifies sales, trade, retail, e-commerce, and consumer data into one model for faster decisions.

Quantuslabs.ai (UK, Turkey) · E-commerce / AI Automation
Builds AI-driven agentic tools to help SMEs create and manage dynamic, multilingual product catalogs, integrate with platforms, and improve B2B product discovery and interactions.