Partners

We built fintech infrastructure. Then we chose to back it.

Partner Profiles

Rafael Mendez

Managing Partner

Investment Focus

Card issuing infrastructure, BaaS platforms, payment rail APIs

Rafael founded Caldo Ventures in 2018 after fourteen years at the intersection of capital markets technology and payments infrastructure. As VP of Payments Engineering at a global custodian bank, he led the re-architecture of the bank's domestic and cross-border payment processing systems — the kind of infrastructure that processes tens of billions of dollars daily with zero tolerance for latency or failure.

He then became Head of Product for a clearing-and-settlement platform serving G-SIBs, responsible for the product roadmap that connects broker-dealers to the settlement layer. Those years gave him an unusually granular view of where fintech infrastructure actually breaks, and where the incumbents have no incentive to fix it.

The Caldo thesis emerged directly from that vantage point: the critical infrastructure layer is perpetually under-invested because the incumbents who built it have captured the economics and have no structural incentive to modernize. New entrants face long enterprise sales cycles and complex regulatory environments — advantages that compound over time for those willing to operate in the complexity.

He holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford and an MBA from Wharton. Board observer or director at select portfolio companies.

Aisha Nakamura

Partner

Investment Focus

Liability data connectivity, payroll infrastructure, embedded lending

Aisha joined Caldo in 2020 after a decade structuring deals from the investor and acquirer side of payments infrastructure. As Director of Strategic Investments at a large US payments processor, she led the firm's fintech infrastructure investment program — over $200M in deals across BaaS, payroll data, embedded lending, and card processing technology.

Before that she spent four years in M&A at a money-center bank, advising on acquisitions and minority stakes in financial technology companies. That sequence — investment banking, strategic M&A, infrastructure venture — gave her fluency in both the financial engineering and the technical architecture of the companies Caldo backs.

The combination is unusual: most early-stage fintech investors come from either the operating side or the financial side. Aisha has worked both, which means she can model the business economics with the same precision she applies to evaluating the technical differentiation. At Caldo, she leads on companies where the data or compliance asset is the primary moat — payroll connectivity, liability data, embedded lending infrastructure.

She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and an undergraduate degree from Princeton. Board observer at select portfolio companies.

Jonas Eklund

Partner

Investment Focus

Regulated payment products, BaaS compliance infrastructure, SMB financial services

Jonas joined Caldo in 2021, bringing an unusual combination: financial services regulatory expertise and scaled product operations. He began his career as a regulatory associate at a New York law firm focusing on financial services — writing and reviewing compliance frameworks for banking products, payment systems, and broker-dealer operations.

He then pivoted into product, eventually becoming General Manager of a regulated payments product at a top-five US neobank, where he scaled the product from launch to nine-figure annual revenue while navigating the full complexity of bank partnerships, state money transmission licensing, and real-time payment settlement.

That sequence — regulatory counsel, product management, general management — gives Jonas a perspective on regulated fintech infrastructure that is genuinely rare. He can evaluate the legal and compliance architecture of a company with the same rigor as its product and technical architecture. At Caldo, he leads on companies operating at the intersection of payments, compliance infrastructure, and SMB financial services.

Jonas holds a JD from Columbia Law School and a BA from Yale. Board observer at select portfolio companies.

Why we started Caldo Ventures

Rafael's observation from the custodian bank was precise: the most critical layer of financial services — the payment processing systems, the settlement infrastructure, the identity and compliance primitives — was the least-invested, not because it lacked value, but because the incumbents who built it had captured the economics and had no structural incentive to modernize. The startups building replacements faced the longest sales cycles in technology, the most complex regulatory environments, and the deepest technical risk. That's exactly why venture capital was the right financing structure for the problem.

The team came together because they'd each been on the operator side of the same problem. Rafael had debugged the payment processing systems that broke. Aisha had evaluated and acquired the companies trying to replace them. Jonas had navigated the compliance frameworks that constrained them and then scaled a regulated product through that constraint to nine-figure revenue. They didn't need to learn the problem from portfolio companies — they'd lived it from the inside.

The fund hypothesis has proven durable: the infrastructure replacement cycle in financial services is a 15-year project, and Caldo was set up in 2018 at the beginning of it. The companies we backed earliest are now the standard infrastructure for a new generation of financial services builders. The work isn't finished. The layer we invest in is still being rebuilt.

Firm Facts

2018

Founded

$110M

Assets Under Management

2

Funds

8

Portfolio Companies