---
type: case
slug: mar-ventures
title: MAR Ventures
tagline: "Design as infrastructure for an entire portfolio, not just one company."
company: MAR Ventures
role: "Partner & Head of Design"
period: "2016-2020"
category: "Venture Building"
order: 7
featured: true
status: archived
updated: "2026-07-11"
lang: en
summary: >
  Brazilian venture builder, I joined as a partner in 2016 when it was
  still called e-Genius. Responsible for design across the entire
  portfolio: from a house in Pinheiros with 30 people to a full floor
  on Faria Lima with 200+, incubating Remessa Online, Easy Carros,
  Finpass and Modiax at the same time.
metrics:
  - label: "Team"
    value: "from 30 people (Pinheiros, 2016) to 200+ (Faria Lima, 2019)"
  - label: "Portfolio fundraising"
    value: "rounds roughly every 8 months, on average"
  - label: "Portfolio"
    value: "Remessa Online, Easy Carros, Finpass, Modiax"
  - label: "One of the exits"
    value: "Remessa Online, US$229M to EBANX"
tags: [venture-builder, design-ops, portfolio, fintech, leadership]
---

# MAR Ventures

It wasn't one company with a design problem. It was several companies being born at the same time, each needing product, brand and a team from scratch, with no shared infrastructure between them.

I joined as a partner in 2016, when the company was still called e-Genius.

## The model

Venture building was still an uncommon model in Brazil at the time: not a VC fund that just writes a check, not a classic operating holding company either. MAR embedded itself inside each early-stage startup in the portfolio, contributing capital plus a full operating layer: technology, design, HR, finance, brand and the day-to-day discipline most founders hadn't built yet. The bet was to shorten the distance between idea and product-market fit, freeing the founder to focus only on what nobody else could do for them.

I joined as Partner and Head of Design, responsible for the design capability across the entire portfolio. That meant shaping the first product surfaces and brand systems for each newly incubated company, then building and operating a single design organization able to move between those companies as they scaled.

## The impact first

Portfolio companies raised funding rounds roughly every 8 months, on average. The team grew from 30 people sharing a house in Pinheiros in 2016, close enough to overhear every meeting in the next room, to more than 200 people occupying a full floor on Faria Lima by 2019. The portfolio included Remessa Online (later acquired by EBANX for US$229M), alongside Easy Carros, Finpass and Modiax.

## The decision that mattered most

In 2017, working with the brand team and writers, we rebranded e-Genius into MAR Ventures. It wasn't just a new name: it captured what the work had become, an adaptable operation, aware of the moment and committed to forward motion, not a generic incubator testing theses at random anymore.

## What stayed with me

More than any single exit, what stayed with me from MAR was a simple conviction: design, when it shows up early and stays close to the operating problem, doesn't just produce screens. It changes how a company decides.

Remessa Online, one of the companies incubated during this period, has a full case at `/ai/en/cases/remessa-online`.