Federico M. Antoni

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Lecturer

Federico M. Antoni

Lecturer in Management

Bio

Federico Antoni is a French-Mexican venture capitalist who serves as the managing partner of Mexico City-based venture capital fund Hi Ventures (formerly ALLVP) and a lecturer at the GSB. Even before founding Hi Ventures in 2012, Federico was an early pioneer of the Latin American VC industry through teaching and starting an accelerator. Thus far, he has raised three funds focusing on early stage funding in FinTech and the Future of Commerce.

Federico is a mastermind in operations management, from retail and ecommerce to emerging ventures, he has served as CEO of a retail company and has been the driving force behind multiple successful ventures in different countries around the world.

After receiving a bachelor’s and master’s degree in applied economics from Paris Dauphine (1997), Federico worked for a few years as head of business development of Edoardos (Mexican retail) and as CMO of B2W (Mexico) before getting his MBA from Stanford GSB in 2004. Immediately after, Federico joined L’Oréal in marketing and product management to launch three new product lines. In 2006, he returned to Edoardos as CEO for six years.

While Federico is passionate about work, he also loves teaching. After teaching a class on entrepreneurship at ITAM in 2008, he found himself getting involved ever more often in the nascent entrepreneurial ecosystem in LATAM. Fresh off the heels of teaching a class about the Kickstarter case in 2010 and the economic struggles following the 2008 financial crisis, Federico could see the desperate need for increased accessibility to funding in Latin America. He took his first large entrepreneurial dive and founded Fondeadora—Latin America’s then-largest crowdfunding platform which was acquired by Kickstarter in 2015. That year, he started a successful seed accelerator called Venture Institute.That was just the beginning. In 2012, he decided to go all in on the entrepreneurial opportunity and founded Hi Ventures, the pioneer venture capital firm and leading early stage investor based in Mexico.

By now, Federico had already returned to his GSB roots and had started teaching a class called ‘Riding the Next Wave in Developing Economies’ at his alma mater. At Stanford, Federico has been a published author on multiple case studies since 2014 and has been a lecturer since 2018. However, the entrepreneur has not limited his teaching to Stanford GSB. He has also been a Kauffman Fellow mentor and continues to share his knowledge and experience in schools and writes for publications like TechCrunch and his own blog, Antonico.

In Mexico, however, he was pioneering an entire ecosystem that up until then had very little in the ways of notable startups or investors. Federico built a startup accelerator to enhance deal flow and attracted competition from all over the world. Most notably, he made the decision to invest in the Chilean-Mexican unicorn Cornershop, which was acquired by Uber in 2021.

Federico is a father of four, a highly energetic and creative investor, avid writer and traveler, passionate about personal connections and impact.

Publications

Books

Federico M. Antoni
December 12, 2016

Stanford Case Studies

Federico Antoni, Stephen Ciesinski, Andrew Leon Hanna, Howard Rosen
2023
Federico Antoni, Jeffrey Conn
2021
Federico Antoni, Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen
2017
Federico Antoni, Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Ryan Kissick
2015
Federico Antoni, Steve Ciesinski, Howard Rosen, Fernando Lelo de Larrea, Jason Luther
2014

In the Media

Insights by Stanford Business

August 21, 2017
Stanford GSB professors suggest a reading list of articles and books related to the concept.
May 15, 2017
A Mexico City venture capitalist discusses what it takes to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem.

School News

September 09, 2014
Stanford GSB welcomes seven tenure-line faculty and 17 lecturers from a range of disciplines who will infuse the school’s curriculum with fresh perspectives.