From founding Mexico’s first unicorn to becoming a LatAm role model

It all started with a scam. When Carlos Garcia fell victim to car fraud in 2013, he discovered that his experience wasn’t all that unusual. He wanted to change that. After a couple years as an executive at the online ecommerce hub, Linio, he dreamed up an online used car site that aimed to make buying a car safer and much easier. Together with Loreanne Garcia’s strategic smarts and Roger Laughlin’s commercial know-how, he launched Kavak.

Together they built an online used car dealership that emphasized transparency. They added a long list of guarantees and removed all the hard sales tactics (and much of the paperwork). Things moved slowly at first.

Endeavor selected Kavak to join us in 2018. When an unlikely opportunity arose in 2020, they were ready. The pandemic altered the landscape for venture capital investing in some emerging markets. Investors began looking at Latin America, and other regions, with a more serious eye. Kavak was a tiny online hub with 15 employees, but it quickly exploded into a raging success, bolstered by investment. By October 2020, it became the first billion-dollar unicorn in Mexico, boasting an inventory 25,000 cars strong.

Clever innovations lead to impressive valuations, and Kavak hit the $4 billion mark in early 2021. Kavak rocketed to become “the most valuable private startup in Latin America,” according to Forbes. It has expanded to Brazil, Columbia, Chile, Peru, and Turkey.

Their Multiplier Effect

Kavak has become the second most valuable private company in Endeavor’s Latin American network, and it has become an Endeavor Outlier—one of the top performers in our community. The Outliers program put Carlos, Loreanne, and Roger through a year-long program with extra connection opportunities.

“[Endeavor has given us] the ability to exchange ideas with those who have been through the same experience,” explains Carlos.

Beyond providing employment opportunities, the trio has directly invested in 25+ founders and mentored more than two dozen more. They’ve also inspired nine former employees to launch companies of their own.