Dan Schulman, former CEO and President of PayPal, has become a Managing Partner at technology-focused investment fund Valor Capital Group.
Scott Sobel, Founder and CEO of Valor, confirmed the appointment in a blog post on Valor’s website, describing Schulman as a mentor. The new Managing Partner will work with the company between two and three days per week.
Valor hopes that its new hire will play a key role in achieving its goals of capitalising on opportunities in the cross-border technology sector between the US and Latin America.
“At Valor, we are macro-sensitive and micro-focused investors,” Sobel remarked. “We believe these tech and regulatory movements are creating strong tailwinds for entrepreneurs and are the driving force behind our firm.
“The LatAm region accounts for 8% of the world’s population and 8% of the world’s GDP, half that of China, and leads the US in sheer numbers of internet and smartphone users.”
Schulman’s track record in tech and payments innovation has been cited as particularly beneficial to Valor’s operations. Schulman has led Fortune 500 startups and, as noted above, was President and CEO of PayPal for nine years.
He began his tenure at the payments platform back in 2014, becoming a member of the Board of Directors in 2015, leaving the San Jose paytech giant in 2023. During this time the company’s revenue rose from $9bn in 2015, to $30bn in 2023.
His tenure at Valor begins at a time of growth for the Latin American technology sector, including fintech. Brazil, Argentina and Colombia have been noted by some observers, such as Lanistar CEO Jeremy Baber, as key growth markets.
Valor may be hoping that Schulman’s payments background may come in useful in deciding investments in this space, although he has also built up experience in financial services at Lazard, telecommunications at Verizon and digital communications at Cisco.
The macroeconomic environment is ever changing, and investment in technology sectors has been shifting lately according to some reports. For example, it was recently revealed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become the biggest investment magnet of late, taking over from payments.
Sobel concluded: “Looking ahead, as macroeconomic and geopolitical shifts are set to supercharge the opportunities across the Americas, we have never had more conviction in the opportunity before us.
“Joined by incredible leadership like Dan, we are doubling down on our mission to be the bridge across LatAm and global tech markets to fully unlock the potential of the Americas tech ecosystem.”
