#28 - Why M&A should be part of your playbook: Cristiano Rocha, BizCapital

<p><b>Cristiano Rocha</b> is a seasoned engineer who started his career as a Master’s Student in Artificial Intelligence. Fresh out of university, he bootstraped his first company for about 8 years, back when venture capital in Brazil was almost unheard of. As a young founder, he established a reputation as a knowledge management evangelist and community management especialist.</p><p>Almost by accident, Cristiano also became an expert in M&amp;A, when he merged with another 2 companies in order to gain strength and get funding. This 3-way joint venture was called Affero Lab, which grew into the largest Corporate Training company in Latin America and was eventually sold in 2015.</p><p>A hiatus got Cristiano into angel investing, but he missed the thrill of building. About a year after the exit, <b>BizCapital</b> was born to help Brazilian small businesses fund their operations in a fast and simple way through an online lending platform. And this time, they decided to play the traditional stage-financing VC game.</p><p>In this episode, Cristiano compares his fundraising experiences and shares a few lessons he&apos;s learned as a second-time founder. Stick around to learn:</p><ul><li>How you can think of M&amp;A as a viable growth strategy</li><li>The thought process behind going down the venture route</li><li>A few good practices around managing communities</li><li>And how technical founders can not only build the best products, but also the winning products</li></ul>