Cristina Junqueira
Co-founder of Nubank, the world’s largest digital bank by number of customers, and an active angel investor in Brazilian fintech and consumer startups.
Track record
Nubank
Co-founded Nubank alongside David Vélez and Cristina Souza in 2013, and has held senior leadership roles through its growth from a Brazilian startup into a publicly traded, multi-country digital bank.
Angel activity in Brazilian fintech
Beyond building Nubank, Junqueira has been publicly identified as an active angel investor in Brazilian fintech and consumer startups, drawing on her own experience scaling a financial-services company from zero to public markets.
Advocacy for women in tech
A vocal, publicly visible advocate for more women in tech leadership and investing in Brazil, frequently cited in coverage of the country’s startup ecosystem specifically for this advocacy alongside her operating and investing track record.
How she invests
Junqueira’s public angel activity centers on Brazilian fintech and consumer startups — sectors closely adjacent to her own operating background at Nubank — though a fully itemized, current portfolio is not comprehensively public.
Her operating pedigree at one of the region’s largest fintech successes makes her a frequently sought-after advisor and reference point for Brazilian founders, independent of the size of any individual check.
What an angel can take from this
Co-founder profiles are a diligence input
Who else is on the founding team, and what each of them has actually run, tells you more about execution risk than the pitch does. A team that combines product, regulatory and operational experience in a regulated sector is a materially different risk from one that combines three engineers, whatever the deck says.
Scaling in a regulated sector is its own skill
Growing a regulated business means the constraint is often approval rather than demand. An angel evaluating a fintech should ask what has already been licensed, what is pending, and what happens to the plan if the pending item takes a year longer than assumed.