On Surviving the Long Game, and Renegotiating a "No" - Sérgio Pinto, Cellva Ingredients
About this episode
Sérgio Pinto shares his intense fundraising journey and insights on upcycling coffee side-streams with Cellva Ingredients.
Episode 110: Cellva Ingredients: Sérgio Pinto on Surviving the Long Game, Renegotiating a "No," and Upcycling Coffee Side-Streams In this episode, I sit down with Sérgio Pinto, the unyielding founder and CEO of Cellva Ingredients, who shares one of the most intense, relentless fundraising stories you will ever hear. Sérgio reveals how he turned a critical, last-minute "no" into a 20 million Reais (~$4M USD) Pre-Series A round led by Amazonian corporate-backed tech powerhouse Digiboard. He outlines the operational complexities of straddling Brazil’s commercial epicenter in São Paulo and its rugged robusta coffee infrastructure in Manaus. Sérgio also takes us deep into the underlying regulatory strategies and unit economics driving Kafkoa—their high-margin, functional cocoa substitute derived entirely from upcycled coffee side-streams. 🎧 Listen to the full episode to discover how Sérgio rescued a dead deal just ten days after his second child was born, how Cellva navigated European and Japanese regulatory pathways without novel food classification, and how they built an integrated network of over 150 local coffee farmers. Key Facts: Cellva Ingredients Sérgio Pinto…
People in this episode
Host: Alex Shandrovsky
Guest: Sérgio Pinto
Topics covered
- fundraising
- entrepreneurship
- coffee industry
- regulatory strategies
- upcycling
- business development
Keywords
- fundraising
- Cellva Ingredients
- Sérgio Pinto
- upcycling
- coffee
- Kafkoa
- regulatory strategies
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Cellva Ingredients, DigiBoard
Products: Kafkoa
Places: São Paulo, Manaus
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