Evan Vanderveer (Vanshap Capital): MELI, KSPI, and NU

Evan Vanderveer founded Vanshap Capital in 2012 with a partner, starting with deep value investing in underappreciated international markets before evolving in 2020 to focus on "customer fanatics"—founder-controlled businesses where management prioritizes customer satisfaction over quarterly earnings. The firm operates with just six highly concentrated holdings based on the principle that such quality businesses are extremely rare and difficult to identify through screening alone.

On MercadoLibre, Vanderveer argues the market underestimates the company despite its massive growth. Revenue has grown 6x and operating income from $100M to $3-4B over six years, yet the stock is unchanged since July 2024 while GMV is up 51%, active buyers 57%, and payment volume 180%. The market has focused on margin compression from reinvestment cycles and competition from Shopee in Brazil, but Vanderveer believes margins will normalize as they have historically. MercadoLibre is not merely an Amazon clone but a platform combining e-commerce (MercadoLibre) and payments/fintech (MercadoPago) with logistics, now trading at its lowest EBIT multiple ever despite 30%+ revenue growth over seven years.

On Kaspi, Vanderveer describes it as Kazakhstan's "super app" founded by Mikael Lomtadze, a founder-CEO who exemplifies customer obsession—famously shutting down an entire credit card business due to low net promoter scores. The company serves two-thirds of Kazakhstan's 21 million population daily, with high market shares across e-commerce, payments, and lending. Trading at 6-7x forward earnings with a 10% dividend yield, bears worry about market saturation in Kazakhstan and geopolitical risk from the Ukraine-Russia war, but Vanderveer views the Turkey expansion (through controlling stake in Hepzibah) as option value. The main competitive moat is the payment system—Kaspi virtually kicked Visa and Mastercard out of Kazakhstan, which Vanderveer claims is unprecedented globally.

On Nu Holdings, Vanderveer presents it as a digital bank founded by David Velez (former Sequoia investor) that operates entirely through apps with no physical branches, making it the world's largest digital bank by customer count. With 18% efficiency ratio versus 40-60% for legacy Brazilian banks, Nu has grown from $1B to $10B in revenue over five years while expanding to Mexico (now profitable and potentially larger than Brazil) and Colombia, plus a nascent US expansion. The company boasts some of the world's highest net promoter scores (96% in one Mexican product) and generates 85% of revenue from interest on unsecured lending rather than fees, supported by analytics infrastructure built by Capital One founders. At current valuations, Vanderveer projects 7x forward 2029 earnings.

Vanderveer explains that customer fanatics are identified not through quantitative screens but through intensive ground research—visiting companies, meeting employees, building networks of local investors, and assessing culture rather than machinery. The firm spent months before investing and maintains very low portfolio turnover. He acknowledges the risk of sunk cost bias with such concentrated holdings but says the team tries to maintain a "liquid mind" and continuously underwrite positions three to five years out. The firms also note that founder control is almost essential—they've passed on numerous attractive businesses without active founder involvement, believing cultural insurance through founder alignment is irreplaceable. Notably, several of these businesses operate in out-of-favor markets (Kazakhstan, Brazil, Latin America) where institutional capital has limited interest, creating pricing inefficiencies.