Alfonso de los Rios

Alfonso de los Rios was born in 1998 in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.⁠[1][2]

His full name is Alfonso de los Ríos Villarreal (Y Combinator’s company page spells it Alfonso de los Rios Villareal), and the people around him and the startup community call him “Poncho.”⁠[3][4][1][2]

He began programming at 11, building apps, websites and video games; he took some courses and taught himself the rest mainly from tutorials on YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry—in his words, “viendo videos en YouTube” (watching videos on YouTube).⁠[5][6][3][2]

On the Fintech Leaders podcast page he says that he regards himself as a “builder” and that his first project was a modification of the game Minecraft. He recalled in 2022 that as a child he was “pretty geeky,” that he began programming websites and video games at around 12, and that, his family having a traditional logistics company, he later connected that skill with the family’s experience in logistics and supply chains.⁠[7][8]

Accounts of his schooling differ: Generación Universitaria, an El Universal publication, writes that he did not finish a degree in computer technologies engineering at the Universidad de Monterrey (UDEM); the Fintech Leaders show notes say that he dropped out of university in his first semester; and El Español wrote in 2026 that he “No fue a la universidad” (did not go to university). Generación Universitaria describes him as self-taught and wrote in December 2022 that he had since taken courses in programming, leadership and business strategy and had recently taken a program at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry; he said: “ya no volví formalmente a la universidad, sin embargo, nunca abandoné mi formación” (I did not formally return to university, but I never gave up learning).⁠[3][7][1]

He recalled that at 18 he went to work at a software company while also studying at a university; Players of Life writes that after leaving university he moved to Palo Alto, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry, to work temporarily at a startup. Generación Universitaria lists his work as a web developer at Blooders and then at Yewno, followed by TrepCamp, a leadership-training program in California; the Project Management Institute’s profile says that he had previously worked as a full-stack developer, building both front ends and back ends.⁠[2][6][3][9]

El Español writes that he is close to Stanford UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry and that at 18 he formed a deep friendship with the educator Esther Wojcicki. In the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry he met the Uruguayan Maximiliano Casal: Players of Life writes that they met at a Stanford University camp, and Bloomberg Línea that both were software engineers who met at Stanford University.⁠[1][6][10][2]

DPL News writes that on October 7, 2018, he and Maximiliano Casal quit their jobs to work on Nowports full-time, starting out in his house in Monterrey, and that Nowports began operating in Monterrey in early 2019. ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry coverage, Y Combinator’s company page and Cluster Industrial give 2018 as the year Nowports was founded, Forbes Argentina specifying late 2018; Bloomberg Línea writes that the two founded the company in early 2019, and Americas Quarterly, the Project Management Institute and Generación Universitaria also give 2019. Forbes Colombia writes that he began building Nowports in 2018, at 18.⁠[2][11][12][4][13][10][8][9][3][14]

Nowports positions itself as a digital freight forwarder that owns no means of transport and instead digitizes import and export processes. Casal became chief operating officer and he chief executive. He said in 2022 that the company was less about logistics than about trade’s impact on Latin America’s development and economies, adding: “We were amazed how we could change any industry that was the same for more than 70 years.”⁠[11][15]

Cluster Industrial writes that Nowports was selected by Y Combinator a year after it was founded and then began its regional expansion, with operations first in Mexico City and later in Santiago, Chile, and that Maximiliano Casal took part in Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch (W19); DPL News writes instead that Nowports was in Y Combinator in 2018, accepted on its first application. The Project Management Institute’s profile says that he launched Nowports after graduating from Y Combinator.⁠[13][2][9]

Nowports grew during the logistics-startup boom of the COVID-19 pandemic; he said that many customers began to rely on Nowports during the pandemic because it was the first to offer digital solutions. Forbes writes that the company billed $230.7 million in 2020.⁠[16][8][5]

He recalled that in December 2020 the company nearly ran out of capital because of an internal flow issue.⁠[10][17]

Bloomberg Línea writes that Nowports closed a $16 million Series A in July 2021; Forbes wrote in December 2021 that the Series A it had closed about five months earlier was $24 million. Latitud’s episode description says that the Series A came about a year into the pandemic.⁠[10][5][16]

In December 2021, at 22, he announced that Nowports had closed a $60 million Series B led by Tiger Global, with SoftBank, DST, Mouro Capital, Monashees, Base10 Partners, Broadhaven Ventures and Foundation CapitalFoundation CapitalFoundation Capital is an American early-stage venture capital firm founded in 1995, with offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco. It invests in enterprise software, artificial intelligence, fintech and crypto, and was an early backer of companies including Netflix, Solana and Cerebras.Open the full entry participating; the company had raised $92 million in venture capital in total. Forbes writes that by investment received Nowports was the largest startup founded in Monterrey, with offices in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru and Brazil, the Peru office having opened about three months earlier; the company planned a financing tool giving access to more than $100 million in credit and was aiming for $500 million in billings in 2022.⁠[5][18]

To gain ground in the Brazilian market he had moved to Brazil full-time and could hold conversations in Portuguese. On regulation in different countries he said: “Nos hemos ido adaptando a la regulación que hay en distintos países” (We have been adapting to the regulations in different countries).⁠[18][5]

On January 6, 2022, the Thiel Foundation announced its new class of the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry, listing him second: the announcement gives his age as 23, his home as Monterrey, Mexico, and his project as Nowports, which helps Latin American companies with import and export across seven countries. The program provides $100,000 over two years and mentorship from the Thiel Foundation’s network, its only requirement being that fellows pause college to focus on their technology or company.⁠[19]

The show notes of a 2023 Semilla.VC podcast episode also state that he is a Thiel Fellow.⁠[20]

In May 2022 Nowports closed a $150 million Series C at a valuation of $1.1 billion, led by the SoftBank Latin America Fund, with Tiger Global, Foundation Capital, Monashees, Broadhaven Ventures, Mouro Capital, Tencent and Base10 Partners participating, Forbes’s list also including Soma Capital; its angel investors included Ricardo Amper of Incode, Roger Laughlin of Kavak and Alex BouazizAlex BouazizAlex Bouaziz is co-founder and chief executive officer of Deel, the HR and global payroll software company, which he founded with Shuo Wang at Y Combinator in 2019; he graduated from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and previously co-founded the investment fund Sarona Ventures.Open the full entry of Deel. Forbes writes that the company had raised $242 million since its start.⁠[10][11]

Bloomberg Línea writes that Nowports was Mexico’s eighth and Latin America’s 45th unicorn and the region’s first “LogiTech” unicorn, and that at 23 he was the youngest chief executive of a Latin American unicorn; Forbes Argentina calls him the youngest co-founder of a Latin American unicorn. Forbes writes that Nowports was the first unicorn to come out of Monterrey, and FreightWaves that it was the only Mexican unicorn not based in Mexico City. He said that the round was a great personal satisfaction and a milestone the team had always wanted to reach; being young added to the achievement as a way to “romper estereotipos” (break stereotypes) in such a traditional industry, and the aim was “no queremos solamente ser un unicornio, sino cambiar toda la economía en Latinoamérica” (we do not just want to be a unicorn, but to change the whole economy of Latin America). He also said that the company wanted to go public within the next few years.⁠[10][17][11][15]

Bloomberg Línea writes that Nowports then served a little over 2,100 clients and that its net revenue had grown twelvefold in the first quarter of 2022 (the Brazilian edition of Bloomberg Línea gives the twelvefold growth as net profit); that quarter it opened offices in Panama City, Concepción in Chile and Medellín in Colombia, giving it 10 active offices in seven countries, and it also had offices in Hong Kong, Mumbai and Madrid and was expanding into Spain, with more than 500 employees. The new capital was to go to fintech credit and financing services, the platform, hiring with an emphasis on engineers, and new offices in Brazil, Mexico and Chile.⁠[10][17]

By June 2022 Nowports had become a sponsor of the Monterrey football club Club de Fútbol Monterrey (Rayados), and the company said that the partnership would go beyond the jersey. A Monterrey native and a fan of the club, he said: “We will bring logistics to the most-watched sport, soccer.”⁠[21]

In the same interview he named entering Brazil as the milestone he was proudest of: its processes and market were complex, and the team kept adapting its processes until it earned trust. The Latin American company he admired was Nubank, which he said had become “the sixth-largest bank in Brazil,” and he pointed to its founding team coming from several countries.⁠[21]

In July 2022 he said that Nowports used blockchain to digitize communications, documents, customs compliance and financing, with the goal to “become like a blockchain operating system, not only of Latin America, but of all emerging markets.” The company then operated in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Panama and planned to expand overseas. He also argued that companies moving manufacturing from Asia to the Americas could help Latin American trade, pointing to Mexico’s Bajío region as an example, and noted that Monterrey had had one of the highest numbers of Y Combinator companies the previous year.⁠[15]

On September 13, 2022, a podcast hosted by Latitud co-founder Brian Requarth published an interview with him titled “How to create a unicorn when you’re 23 years old,” covering the co-founding of Nowports, its successive funding rounds and global growth, the changes brought by the pandemic and the market downturn and his strategy of going on the offensive, how to keep culture and values while scaling, and where he learns about leadership.⁠[16]

The same day the Fintech Leaders podcast, hosted by Miguel Armaza, co-founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, published its interview with him; the show notes describe Nowports as the largest digital freight forwarder in Latin America with almost $250 million in equity raised from investors including SoftBank, Tiger Global, Foundation Capital, Monashees, Soma Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Mouro Capital, Tencent and Y Combinator. The conversation covered his family’s influence on his adventurous nature, how dropping out led him to Silicon Valley and his partnership with Casal, success usually coming only after many failures, setting a clear vision and surrounding himself with people more experienced and capable than himself to carry it out, why bold and fast decisions drive growth, and his aim of a diverse team spanning countries, industries, backgrounds and genders and of a global company.⁠[7]

DPL News wrote in October 2022 that Nowports had about 4,500 clients in Latin America, operated in 12 countries, and, in his words, had grown from 300 to 700 employees over the previous six months; he named an initial public offering, possibly in 2024 or 2025, as the company’s next goal and said that it would open offices in Rotterdam and Madrid within six months and already had an office in China.⁠[2]

Generación Universitaria wrote in December 2022 that Nowports had raised about $230 million, had more than 1,000 employees and operated in more than 10 countries, and that he planned to expand the company globally in 2023, possibly into North Africa and Southeast Asia.⁠[3]

On May 23, 2023, Semilla.VC, a podcast on Latin American venture capital hosted by Trip Gorman, published an interview with him; the show notes say Nowports had raised $242.6 million from investors including Y Combinator, SoftBank, Tiger Global, Tencent and Monashees. The conversation covered how he stays grounded while running a company with hundreds of employees at a young age, how Nowports changed freight forwarding, how the money was raised, and how Y Combinator shaped the company; the show notes say the interview was filmed on his 24th birthday.⁠[20]

Players of Life wrote in July 2024 that at 25 he was still Nowports’s chief executive, with Casal as director of operations; the company operated in nine Latin American countries, had about 450 employees and had served about 6,000 companies. On his early success he said “Fui afortunado” (I was lucky), and he said: “Cuando alguien decide ser empresario o emprendedor creo que renuncia a las fiestas, a los amigos, a las bodas” (I think that when someone decides to be a businessman or entrepreneur, they give up parties, friends and weddings); the article says he has given up sleep and leisure for his work.⁠[6]

He said that he likes to draw inspiration from businesspeople: “Me gusta inspirarme en los empresarios y extraer lo que más me gusta de cada uno de ellos” (I like to take inspiration from businesspeople and extract what I like most from each of them). Besides his parents, the figures he admires most include Richard BransonRichard BransonRichard Branson is a British entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group. Beginning with a youth magazine and mail-order records, he expanded into aviation, leisure, telecommunications, finance and commercial spaceflight. He also founded Virgin Unite and is known for ballooning expeditions and his 2021 suborbital flight.Open the full entry, whom he had met a couple of years before the article, José Antonio Fernández Carbajal of FEMSA and Ricardo Salinas Pliego of Grupo Salinas.⁠[6]

Forbes Colombia writes that after months of discussions with the board and investors he decided in mid-2025 to step down as Nowports’s chief executive, as the company was entering a stabilization phase focused on standardized processes and operational excellence while his own interests had shifted toward technology and artificial intelligence. He was succeeded by Fernando Poitevin, previously the chief operating officer, who had about two decades of experience at LATAM Airlines; he kept the title of president (presidente) and took part in strategic decisions. El Cronista likewise writes that he moved to the role of president, with much more involvement in the board and in strategic decisions.⁠[14][22][1]

After stepping down he had planned a sabbatical of two or three years. Forbes Colombia writes that he travelled, spending time in Monterrey and in Asia, completed his first half Ironman, and meanwhile could not stop thinking about artificial intelligence; El Español writes that he travelled in Asia, ran an Ironman and explored.⁠[14][1]

In July 2025 Forbes México ran a profile of him in its “30 under 30 2025” series, describing him at 26 as founder and president of Nowports. The profile says that Nowports began as a platform digitizing import and export processes and later expanded into financial products and cargo insurance, operating in nine Latin American countries including Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru and Brazil. He described his aim as finding opportunities where technology can make a difference for businesses in the region, said he wanted to become a business benchmark in Mexico bringing transparency to the region and doing business that is inclusive rather than extractive, and encouraged people under 30 to innovate in traditional industries through technology.⁠[12]

In August 2025 he moved to San Francisco to explore an idea, still without a company; the result of that exploration was Handle.⁠[1][14]

He co-founded Handle, a San Francisco–based AI-agent company, with Antonio Nacoud, a co-founder of PideDirecto; he serves as co-founder and chief executive and Nacoud leads growth. The product launched at the end of January 2026. El Cronista writes that the other co-founders include former Y Combinator participants and founders of other startups. He said he returned to founding because he enjoys building and iterating with technology: “Para mí era volver a sentirme en un modo construcción” (For me it was about feeling myself in building mode again).⁠[14][22][23]

On March 11, 2026, Handle announced a $6 million seed round led by Andreessen HorowitzAndreessen HorowitzAndreessen Horowitz (a16z) is a venture capital firm founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. It invests from the seed stage through the growth stage and provides operational support to its portfolio companies.Open the full entry, which had not invested in Nowports. Gabriel VasquezGabriel VasquezGabriel Vasquez is an investment partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he focuses on AI application investments and spearheads the firm’s global investment strategy; he is based in New York. Before joining a16z, he was part of the pricing strategy team at Oscar Health and a technology investment banking analyst at J.P. Morgan, and he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.Open the full entry, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, said that Handle applies AI to one of the most universal operational pain points in companies, and noted that he had started building Nowports at 18.⁠[22][14][23]

Handle builds vertical AI agents that use “computer use” technology to navigate web portals as an employee would and operate on top of disconnected, older systems, linking scattered tools such as email, WhatsApp, CRMs, ERPs and supplier portals into a single operational layer: a reconciliation agent works across the portals of up to 75 insurers, and the company says a task that took 12 to 14 days can be done in under an hour; there are also real-time quoting agents, claims registration and tracking agents and a real-time visibility engine the company calls Signal, with integrations into Microsoft Teams, Slack and WhatsApp. The company started with insurance brokers and plans to move into logistics and real estate.⁠[14][23][1]

At the time of the round Handle had 12 employees, more than 106 client companies and revenue approaching $1 million; its clients were mainly insurance brokers along with some logistics firms, its Mexican users included Inter.mx, Genomma Lab, DeAcero and Qualitas, and more than 14 of Mexico’s 50 largest insurance brokers used the platform. El Cronista writes that about three months after launch a little over 40 U.S. insurance companies were using it, that it had more than 75 active brokers in Mexico, and that the company expected to exceed $5 million in earnings (ganancias) in Mexico in its first year. The funds were to go to expansion in the United States, Mexico and Brazil.⁠[14][22][1]

He said that his track record made raising money easier, but that investors were more doubtful about AI adoption and founders had to show “capital allocation”—how they would use resources and effort. He saw Handle’s main risks as justifying why companies should pay for it rather than general-purpose models such as Claude or ChatGPTChatGPTChatGPT is a generative AI assistant launched by OpenAI on November 30, 2022. Through websites and applications, it provides conversation, writing, coding, search, file analysis, and image and voice interaction. It evolved from a free research preview into personal, enterprise and education plans, gradually adding deep research, Study mode and cross-application task execution. Its use has prompted continuing discussions about factual accuracy, personal privacy, copyright, education and teen safety.Open the full entry, and changing user habits, and his answer was vertical specialization and embedding in the channels companies already use. He also said: “Queremos estar en estas industrias tradicionales a las que a lo mejor el software ni siquiera llegó” (We want to be in these traditional industries that software perhaps never even reached).⁠[22][14][1]

In October 2026 Nowports co-founder Maximiliano Casal returned as chief executive to lead the company’s shift to an “AI-native” logistics company. Cluster Industrial writes that Nowports now operates mainly in Mexico and Chile, with international coverage through a partner network, and offers ocean, air and land freight, cargo protection, trade financing and a digital platform.⁠[13]

As of November 2026, Handle’s website presents the company as an AI back office for the insurance industry whose agents quote, validate payments and collect by operating insurers’ portals, without migrations or integrations, and states that it is backed by Andreessen Horowitz; its mission page says that it plans to start in Mexico and then expand to Brazil, the rest of Latin America and the United States. Nowports’s website lists offices in Santiago and Concepción in Chile and in Mexico City and Monterrey.⁠[24][25][26]

His family has worked in traditional logistics in Monterrey for more than 25 years, and he grew up watching them help local companies import and export. Players of Life writes that his mother ran a traditional logistics business for years; the Project Management Institute’s profile says that he grew up watching his family run a small traditional logistics firm and seeing how disorganized shipping was. He has said that he and Casal already understood how traditional freight forwarders operated and where their processes broke down.⁠[10][17][6][9][21][2]

He was named to Forbes México’s 2021 “30 Promesas de los negocios” (30 business promises); Forbes México wrote in 2025 that he was also recognized in Forbes’s “30 under 30” edition of 2022. Forbes wrote in December 2021 and May 2022 that he had been included in Forbes’s U.S. “30 Under 30” list, while Generación Universitaria writes that Forbes named him in 2021 among its 30 best young entrepreneurs.⁠[12][18][11][3]

In 2022 he was named to the Project Management Institute’s “Future 50” list; the page says Nowports had then raised $92 million, with 300 employees and nine offices across Latin America and North America, and quotes him saying on Instagram that the company was “just getting started.”⁠[9]

Nowports: Official website: https://nowports.com/en/ (opens in a new window).⁠[27]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[28]

Handle: Official website: https://usehandle.ai/ (opens in a new window).⁠[24]