• Venture Capital Mx
  • Posts
  • VC Mx: Eric Schwartz: Operating & Investing in Fintech Across Borders

VC Mx: Eric Schwartz: Operating & Investing in Fintech Across Borders

Eric Schwartz is a fintech operator & angel investor with a track record of building credit products and supporting startups across emerging markets, with a focus on Latin America.

In partnership with

Find out why 1M+ professionals read Superhuman AI daily.

In 2 years you will be working for AI

Or an AI will be working for you

Here's how you can future-proof yourself:

  1. Join the Superhuman AI newsletter – read by 1M+ people at top companies

  2. Master AI tools, tutorials, and news in just 3 minutes a day

  3. Become 10X more productive using AI

Join 1,000,000+ pros at companies like Google, Meta, and Amazon that are using AI to get ahead.

Eric Schwartz has built his career at the intersection of fintech, capital markets, and emerging economies. From helping scale Payoneer’s working capital business from zero to $1B in originations, to playing a key leadership role at Covalto—one of Mexico’s most prominent fintech lenders—Eric has been on the frontlines of innovation in credit and growth financing across multiple continents.

But his impact goes beyond building fintech platforms. As an active angel investor, Eric has quietly backed some of LATAM’s most promising founders, bringing global expertise to local opportunity. His journey reflects both the complexity of financing in emerging markets and the optimism of someone who believes smart capital can drive systemic change.

The potential for growth in Latin America is immense. By aligning global expertise with local insights, we can create financing solutions that truly empower entrepreneurs and drive long-term impact in emerging markets.

Eric Schwartz

Payoneer Working Capital: Global SME Expansion Unit

At Payoneer, Eric led Strategy, Partnerships, and Capital Markets for its working capital business—a team responsible for deploying billions in financing to SMBs around the world. Payoneer, a global payments platform for cross-border commerce, recognized a growing demand for short-term liquidity among digital businesses.

One of the biggest lessons from that experience? 

Scaling a credit business isn’t just about how much capital you can access. It’s about building trust with borrowers and learning to underwrite risk in markets where traditional data just doesn’t exist.

Eric Schwartz

The team operated across North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania, adapting their financing models to local market dynamics. In emerging markets, this often meant rewriting the playbook. 

You can’t rely on FICO scores or clean financial statements only. You need to understand the business context deeply, sometimes down to how many trucks they have on the road or how seasonal their revenue is.

Eric Schwartz

Eric's early attraction to capital markets came from this exact tension: building scalable credit solutions in environments where information is scarce and risk is high.

There’s something intellectually honest about lending. You can’t fake the numbers forever. It either works or it doesn’t.

Eric Schwartz

Covalto: A Bet on Mexico’s SMEs

After Payoneer, Eric was drawn to Covalto (formerly Credijusto), one of Mexico’s leading fintech lenders. Covalto set out to build a full-stack platform offering fair, tech-enabled credit products to the country’s underserved SMEs.

Backed by top firms like Kaszek and QED, Covalto has built products ranging from term loans to revenue-based financing and credit lines. But what truly sets it apart is its deep integration into Mexico’s financial infrastructure combining proprietary underwriting models with strong regulatory relationships and capital markets access.

What convinced me was the scale of the opportunity in Mexico. There are millions of SMEs here that banks simply won’t touch. Covalto is building for them not just with tech, but with a real balance sheet.

Eric Schwartz

In a market where many lenders still rely on manual underwriting or outdated scorecards, Covalto's tech-enabled approach has allowed it to operate at speed and scale. 

We’re proving that you can lend responsibly and still build a large business especially in markets where the demand is high and the competition is slow.

Eric Schwartz

Why Latin America Still Matters

Despite its challenges currency volatility, political instability, and fragmented infrastructure Eric remains bullish on Latin America. Why? Because the demand is real, and the problems are solvable.

I have this phrase I say sometimes, “LATAM is a lie” not because it’s hopeless, but because people try to treat it like one unified market. It’s not. Brazil is nothing like Mexico. Argentina is nothing like Colombia. You have to go deep, not broad.

Eric Schwartz

The region’s financial ecosystem is still early in its evolution. That means there’s white space to build, and founders are often closer to the problems they’re solving. “The best LATAM founders I know aren’t copying the U.S. They’re building for local truths things most outsiders can’t even see.”

From Operator to Angel Investor

Eric’s path into angel investing was organic. After years of operating, he wanted to support the next generation of founders especially those solving hard infrastructure and capital access problems in Latin America.

“When I started angel investing, I stuck to what I knew: fintech, logistics, and marketplaces. But over time, I started to see real opportunity in less obvious spaces like compliance software, embedded finance, or vertical SaaS in traditional industries.”

I’ve been wrong in both directions passed on things that went on to raise from top funds, and backed teams that just couldn’t execute. But each one teaches you something. Mostly about human nature.

Eric Schwartz

When evaluating a new deal, Eric focuses on asymmetric upside and capital efficiency. “If it needs $50M to prove product-market fit, I’m probably not your guy. I want to see leverage tech or operational that scales without insane burn.”

Unlike VCs, angels often get to build real relationships with founders. That proximity especially in the early days can be an unfair advantage.

Playing Where You Have Edge

Eric’s decision to focus on Latin America Mexico in particular came down to two questions:

“What are the best markets to play in? And what are the best markets for you to play in?”

While he still taps into his U.S. network especially around stablecoin innovation and cross-border payments his ability to add value and build trust runs deeper in Latin America. In his words:

In VC, it's all about sourcing the best deals. For me, that's Latin America.

Eric Schwartz

It's not that the U.S. doesn't present opportunity it absolutely does. But access, edge, and community matter. In Mexico, Eric sees top-tier founders building in overlooked areas, where capital is not only scarcer but often less strategic.

In the U.S., to get into some of these opportunities, you’re looking at a couple more zeros. Here, your relatively small check can still carry real weight if you bring value.

Eric Schwartz

Why are credit tools still underbuilt in emerging markets?

One of Eric’s biggest focus areas is around credit: specifically, how founders in Mexico and across Latin America access and structure debt.

Accessing credit for SMEs that are profitable in Mexico is hard. Accessing credit for unprofitable startups is even more of a challenge.

Eric Schwartz

Many founders don’t want to dilute themselves by raising equity just to build a credit book. But institutional credit lines are expensive, slow, and full of restrictions.

That’s where promissory notes come in short-term, flexible debt agreements backed mostly by trust.

If you find a founder that you trust and think they’re a prudent manager of risk, promissory notes can help them get to a place where institutional credit is finally worth it.

Eric Schwartz

These notes let startups gather data points, test credit models, and prove their risk framework all without handing over equity too early. Eric has personally done private lending in the region using this approach.

But size matters.

A $100K note could power 1,000 microloans or barely cover a single SME loan. So founders need to match the structure to their actual working capital needs.

Listen or Watch to Full Episode


Reply

or to participate.