Julio Vasconcellos – Investor and Tech Specialist

Julio Vasconcellos is a Brazilian/American angel investor and entrepreneur focused on investments in eCommerce, SaaS and mobile industries. He is also an avid technology blogger who has held several roles as a columnist for Brazilian publications.

Known as an excellent business strategist and for is entrepreneurial skills, Julio Vasconcellos held various roles in business development and product management across a great variety of industries in Brazil and the United States. He also founded a number of technology companies over the years and is a founding partner of an angel and early-stage investment startup fund. Vasconcellos’ most recent roles include serving as chairman of Peixe Urbano, a company he founded in 2010, CEO of Prefer, a digital referral platform, and founding partner of Graph Ventures, an investment fund with more than 80 investments.

Location

Julio Vasconcellos started his secondary education at The Wharton School in Philadelphia, US in 1998. He studied finance, marketing and management with a focus on entrepreneurship and graduated in 2002 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, Summa Cum Laude. After deciding to further his studies, Vasconcellos enrolled at Stanford University Graduate School of Business in Stanford, US where he achieved his MBA in 2007. Between 2002 and 2007 he worked in the US at The Monitor Group Inc. as case team leader and at PodTech as a business development intern. He also co-founded DigitalChalk, a digital community tool geared for K-12 educators, and iinnovate, a podcast on entrepreneurship, design and technology. He then started working at Kanjoya as VP of product management and business development while also blogging for a Brazilian newspaper. In 2010 Vasconcellos took on a role at Facebook Brazil as country manager for its growth team. In Brazil, he also wrote a monthly tech column for Folha de SPaolo and Veja.com. Vasconcellos’ investments stretch across Brazil, the US, the UK and India.

Remarkable Investments

As an angel investor, Julio Vasconcellos has made several significant investments such as Envoy, a SaaS company based in San Francisco, US. Envoy was launched with the goal of challenging the status quo of workplace technology through software that elevates the workplace experience. Companies such as Nike, Slack, Spotify, American Express and Pinterest have worked with Envoy. Other significant investments include:

• Blue Apron – A New York, US-based eCommerce company providing a subscription service through which recipes and ingredients are conveniently delivered to subscribers.
• Flipkart – A Bengaluru, India-based online shopping destination.
• Ipsy – The world’s largest beauty community-based in San Mateo, US.
• VivaReal – An online real estate marketplace in São Paulo, Brazil.
• Lever – A SaaS company focused on streamlining human resources and hiring for data-driven companies.
• PicsArt – A popular photo editing app on Android

Latest News

Dinheiro reported in 2017 that Julio Vasconcellos has launched an application called Prefer. Created with professional services such as stylists, personal trainers and nannies in mind, the application received investment funding from Benchmark, an American venture capital fund. Link published an article about Brazilian startups in Silicon Valley in 2018 and Vasconcellos featured as an entrepreneur and investor who has moved from Brazil to Silicon Valley in the US and returned to invest in Brazil once again with his new company, Prefer.