David Vélez
David Vélez (born 1981) is a Colombian billionaire banker, engineer, and entrepreneur who is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Nubank, the largest digital bank in Latin America and one of the largest fintech companies in the world. Under his leadership, Nubank has grown from a startup founded in a São Paulo apartment in 2013 to a publicly traded company serving more than 100 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.
As of 2025, Forbes estimates Vélez's net worth at approximately US$10.7 billion, making him the wealthiest person in Colombia and one of the richest individuals in Latin America. His fortune derives primarily from his stake in Nubank, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange in December 2021 at a valuation exceeding $45 billion.
In 2021, Vélez and his wife Mariel Reyes Milk signed the Giving Pledge, committing to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes during their lifetimes.
Early life and family background
David Vélez was born in 1981 in Medellín, Colombia, into an entrepreneurial family with deep roots in business. His father co-owned a button factory, and he came from a large extended family where entrepreneurship was the norm rather than the exception—his father had eleven siblings, all of whom ran their own businesses.
Growing up in Medellín during the height of Colombia's drug cartel violence left lasting impressions on the young Vélez. One early memory that shaped his worldview was leaving a shopping center just moments before it was bombed. The violence struck even closer to home when his uncle was kidnapped.
When Vélez was nine years old, his family made the difficult decision to leave Colombia and relocate to Costa Rica to escape the endemic violence. This experience of displacement and starting over in a new country would later inform his understanding of how difficult it can be for outsiders to navigate established systems—a perspective that proved valuable when he set out to disrupt Brazil's entrenched banking oligopoly.
In Costa Rica, young David worked in his father's button factory and on the family farm, gaining practical business experience from an early age. He proved to be an exceptional student, developing a passion for financial markets while attending a German-language preparatory school.
Education
Stanford University
Vélez graduated as valedictorian from his Costa Rican prep school and won admission to Stanford University in California. At eighteen years old, he moved to the United States to begin his undergraduate studies.
At Stanford, Vélez earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Management Science and Engineering, graduating in 2005. The program combined technical training with business fundamentals, providing the interdisciplinary foundation he would later apply to building a technology-driven bank.
Stanford Graduate School of Business
After several years in finance and venture capital, Vélez returned to Stanford in 2010 to pursue a Master of Business Administration at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He completed the MBA in 2012.
His time at Stanford GSB proved transformative, not only for the education but for the connections he made. The university's emphasis on entrepreneurship and its network of investors and founders would prove invaluable when Vélez launched Nubank.
Early career
Morgan Stanley
After completing his undergraduate degree at Stanford in 2005, Vélez joined Morgan Stanley as an investment banker in New York. This experience in a major Wall Street institution gave him deep exposure to financial services and capital markets.
General Atlantic
Vélez subsequently moved to General Atlantic, a global growth equity firm, where he focused on investments in Latin America. This role provided him with a unique vantage point to observe the dynamics of emerging market financial services and identify opportunities for disruption.
Sequoia Capital
In late 2010, while Vélez was pursuing his MBA at Stanford, Sequoia Capital recruited him to evaluate whether the legendary venture capital firm should open an office in Brazil. Although Sequoia ultimately decided against establishing a Brazilian presence at that time, they recognized exceptional talent in Vélez.
From 2011 to 2013, Vélez worked as a partner at Sequoia Capital, leading the firm's Latin American investments from São Paulo. This period gave him unparalleled insight into Brazil's technology landscape and, crucially, into the frustrations that consumers and businesses faced with the country's oligopolistic banking sector.
Founding Nubank
Identifying the opportunity
During his time at Sequoia in São Paulo, Vélez experienced firsthand the dysfunction of Brazil's banking system. As a foreigner attempting to open a bank account, he encountered bureaucratic obstacles, excessive fees, and poor customer service that were standard practice among Brazil's dominant banks.
Brazil's banking sector was controlled by a small number of large institutions that operated as an effective oligopoly. Fees were among the highest in the world, customer service was notoriously poor, and financial inclusion remained limited despite Brazil's large middle class. The constitution itself contained protections limiting foreign investment in banks—an unusual level of regulatory entrenchment.
Vélez saw an opportunity to build a different kind of bank: one that would be digital-first, customer-centric, and free from the legacy costs and attitudes of traditional institutions.
The founding team
In 2013, Vélez co-founded Nubank in São Paulo with two partners who would prove essential to the company's success:
Cristina Junqueira: A Brazilian businesswoman with an engineering background who had previously worked as a product manager supervising credit card portfolios at Itaú Unibanco, one of Brazil's largest banks. Junqueira brought deep expertise in Brazilian banking operations and product development. She was introduced to Vélez through mutual contacts and shared his frustration with the status quo.
Edward Wible: An American who had studied computer science at Princeton University before working at Boston Consulting Group and the technology-focused private equity firm Francisco Partners. Wible completed an MBA at INSEAD in France before joining as co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. He provided the technical leadership needed to build Nubank's digital platform.
Seed funding and launch
Vélez leveraged his Sequoia connections to secure initial funding. In June 2013, Sequoia Capital led a $2 million seed round, with participation from Kaszek Ventures, the Latin American venture capital firm founded by MercadoLibre alumni Hernán Kazah and Nicolas Szekasy.
The founding team operated from an apartment in São Paulo, building the technology platform that would power their first product: a no-annual-fee international Mastercard credit card managed entirely through a mobile application.
The purple card revolution
Nubank launched its distinctive purple credit card in 2014. The product was radically simple compared to traditional Brazilian credit cards: no annual fee, transparent pricing, and an intuitive mobile app for all account management.
The response was overwhelming. Brazilians frustrated with incumbent banks flocked to Nubank, and the company built a waiting list of hundreds of thousands of potential customers. Word-of-mouth growth accelerated as satisfied customers shared their experiences.
Nubank growth and expansion
Navigating regulatory challenges
As a foreigner founding a financial institution in Brazil, Vélez faced significant regulatory hurdles. Brazilian law required a presidential decree for foreigners to receive banking permits—a process that took years to complete.
The company also faced opposition from incumbent banks, which lobbied for regulatory changes that would have crippled Nubank's business model. In 2016, a proposed change to credit card payment timing would have required Nubank to find billions in working capital overnight. The company survived this threat through a combination of lobbying, public relations, and strategic positioning as an ally rather than adversary of regulators.
Rather than fighting regulatory authorities, Vélez adopted a strategy of being "the kid in the front row" who consistently exceeded compliance requirements. This approach gradually won over skeptical regulators and created barriers to entry that protected Nubank as it scaled.
Major funding rounds
Nubank attracted an extraordinary roster of global investors as it scaled:
- September 2014: $14.3 million from Sequoia Capital, Kaszek Ventures, and Nicolas Berggruen
- June 2015: Series B led by Tiger Global Management
- 2017: Became a "unicorn" with valuation exceeding $1 billion
- 2018–2021: Additional rounds from Goldman Sachs, DST Global, and others
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway made two investments totaling approximately $1 billion in Nubank stock, before and after the IPO—a significant endorsement from one of the world's most respected investors.
NYSE IPO (December 2021)
On December 9, 2021, Nubank completed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange through its holding company, Nu Holdings. The IPO raised $2.6 billion and valued the company at approximately $45 billion on its first trading day—making Nubank one of the most valuable financial institutions in Latin America and larger by market capitalization than many traditional Brazilian banks.
The successful IPO made Vélez the richest person in Colombia, surpassing longtime leader Luis Carlos Sarmiento Angulo in Forbes' billionaire rankings.
Geographic expansion
Beyond its Brazilian base, Nubank has expanded into other Latin American markets:
Mexico: Launched in 2019, the Mexican operation has grown rapidly in a market with similar dynamics to Brazil—large population, underdeveloped banking services, and high fees from incumbent institutions.
Colombia: Vélez's home country, where Nubank launched operations to compete with traditional Colombian banks.
As of 2024, Nubank serves approximately 100 million customers across its three markets, with Brazil remaining the largest by far.
Personal life
Marriage and family
David Vélez is married to Mariel Reyes Milk, a Peruvian-American entrepreneur and economist. The couple has four children, with their youngest born in 2022.
Mariel Reyes has her own distinguished career in social impact. Before meeting Vélez, she worked for ten years at the International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group. In Brazil, she founded Reprograma, a nonprofit startup that teaches computer programming to vulnerable women, particularly Black and transgender women who face barriers to entering the technology industry.
The Vélez-Reyes family has lived in Brazil for more than a decade.
Philanthropy
In August 2021, David Vélez and Mariel Reyes signed the Giving Pledge, the commitment initiated by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates for billionaires to donate the majority of their wealth to charitable causes during their lifetimes or in their wills.
In their pledge letter, the couple explained their philosophy: life is finite, they cannot wear two pairs of shoes at the same time, they want to enable their children to build their own paths through self-development, and there is an urgent need to invest wealth now to improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
In 2022, Vélez and Reyes launched VélezReyes+, a philanthropic platform focused on education, democracy, and entrepreneurship in Latin America. The platform invests in these areas because the couple believes they are the pillars through which they can increase opportunities for Latin Americans.
In 2023, the Lemann Foundation announced a partnership with VélezReyes+ to accelerate social impact in Brazil, combining the resources and expertise of two of Latin America's most prominent philanthropic organizations.
Controversies and criticism
Competition with traditional banks
Vélez and Nubank have faced intense opposition from Brazil's banking establishment throughout the company's history. Traditional banks lobbied regulators, questioned Nubank's business model, and attempted to use regulatory levers to hamper the fintech's growth.
The 2016 regulatory threat—a proposed change that would have required immediate payment to merchants rather than the standard 27-day delay—was widely seen as an attempt by incumbent banks to crush their digital competitor. Nubank survived, but the episode illustrated the risks of challenging entrenched interests.
Data collection practices
Nubank's digital-first model involves collecting extensive data on customers. The company reportedly maintains approximately 10,000 data points on each customer—information used to make credit decisions, personalize services, and improve products.
Critics have raised concerns about the concentration of such detailed personal and financial information, though Nubank maintains that it follows strict data protection protocols and uses the information to benefit customers through better products and more accurate credit assessments.
Roberto Campos Neto appointment
In 2024, Nubank announced that Roberto Campos Neto, the former president of Brazil's Central Bank, would join the company as Vice Chairman and Global Policy Head after completing a mandatory six-month cooling-off period.
The appointment generated controversy due to concerns about the revolving door between financial regulators and the institutions they oversee. A regional court later reopened an investigation into Campos Neto's offshore holdings, reviving debate over potential conflicts of interest—though this investigation related to his tenure at the Central Bank rather than his Nubank role.
Awards and recognition
- Simón Bolívar Order of Democracy (2024) – Conferred at the rank of Grand Knight by the Congress of the Republic of Colombia in recognition of his entrepreneurial achievements
- Forbes Billionaires List (2025) – Ranked 236th worldwide with net worth of $10.7 billion
- Forbes Richest Person in Colombia – Following Nubank's IPO in 2021, became Colombia's wealthiest individual
- Giving Pledge Signatory (2021) – Joined Warren Buffett and other billionaires in committing to donate majority of wealth
Legacy and impact
David Vélez's creation of Nubank has had profound effects on Brazilian banking and Latin American fintech more broadly:
Financial inclusion: Nubank has provided banking services to millions of Brazilians who were previously unbanked or underserved, offering access to credit cards, savings accounts, and other financial products.
Competition: The success of Nubank has forced traditional banks to improve their digital offerings, lower fees, and enhance customer service—benefiting even those who don't use Nubank directly.
Fintech ecosystem: Nubank's success has inspired a wave of fintech entrepreneurs across Latin America and demonstrated that technology companies can compete with entrenched financial institutions.
Talent development: The company has trained thousands of technology and finance professionals who have gone on to start or join other Brazilian startups.
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