Ex-Nubank CTO Launches AI Wealth Startup Decade on US$85M Seed

Fintech: São Paulo

Decade, an AI wealth startup founded by former Nubank CTO Vitor Olivier, has opened to the public in São Paulo after a US$85 million seed — the latest senior-Nubank-alumni bet that AI can democratize wealth management.

From Nubank’s Engine Room to a Wealth-Management Bet

Decade is the new venture of Vitor Olivier, who spent nearly 12 years at Nubank, joining as one of its first engineers and rising to chief technology officer before leaving in 2025. He helped build the infrastructure behind what became the world’s largest digital bank, with more than 100 million clients across Latin America.

His co-founder is Felipe Meneses, the first Brazilian selected for the Thiel Fellowship and a co-creator of Hyperplane, an AI startup for credit decisions that Nubank acquired in 2024. Decade sits at the intersection of their two backgrounds: banking infrastructure at scale and applied artificial intelligence.

Olivier has said he wanted to build again rather than manage, tackling problems that were never priorities inside a bank the size of Nubank. The thesis he landed on is that most Brazilians simply cannot manage their own money well, and that AI can finally make high-end financial guidance affordable.

Inside the US$85 Million Seed and Who Wrote the Checks

Decade raised what it calls the largest seed round in Latin American history — R$440 million (about US$85 million). Unusually, the money landed back in September 2025, when the company was founded, and is only being disclosed now as the startup leaves stealth mode.

The round drew a heavyweight roster. US technology funds Benchmark — an early backer of Uber, eBay and Instagram — Diffusion and Greenoaks led the international side, joined by Brazilian firms Atlántico and Norte Ventures. For a pre-launch company, the size and quality of the syndicate is a bet on the founders as much as the product.

Investors framed the check as a wager on a coming wave. Atlántico founding partner Julio Vasconcellos argued that wealth and financial planning have barely changed while banking and payments were transformed, and that AI is what finally makes premium advice scalable — what he called the biggest opportunity in financial services in the next decade.

How the AI Wealth Startup Actually Works

As an AI wealth startup, Decade begins by having clients connect every account through Open Finance, or upload statements as PDFs, to build a consolidated view of their assets and cash flow. The platform then analyses portfolio concentration by asset class and geography, flags high-fee or low-quality holdings and hunts for tax inefficiencies.

On the day-to-day side, the system points out disposable subscriptions, worrying spending patterns and the credit card with the best benefits, and lets users run portfolio and budgeting simulations through an AI chat. The company says its models read every statement and monitor holdings 24 hours a day, alerting clients when something changes.

Crucially, Decade keeps a human in the loop. Each client gets an advisor reachable over WhatsApp, with the AI handling the heavy analysis so the advisor can focus on life events — a new child, a move abroad — once reserved for far larger fortunes. The service is a monthly subscription of R$200 (about US$39), with a separate invite-only, fee-based product aimed at competing with multifamily offices and private banks.

Another Nubank Alumni Venture Chasing Financial Access

Decade is the latest in a growing line of ventures founded by senior Nubank alumni, who have scattered across Brazil’s startup scene after helping build a bank now worth tens of billions of dollars. Olivier openly models the approach on Nubank’s playbook: pair a widespread customer pain with a powerful technology wave.

At Nubank, he argues, the pain was access to financial products and the wave was smartphones and the cloud. At Decade, the pain is money management — he cites an estimate that only about 7% of Brazilians could retire on their own resources — and the wave is AI. The framing deliberately echoes the bank that made his reputation.

The democratization pitch is that tools once reserved for the wealthy, delivered by private banks and multifamily offices, can be extended to ordinary savers when AI absorbs the cost of analysis. Whether that promise survives contact with mass-market economics is the open question, but the ambition — and the capital behind it — is unusually large for a seed-stage company. Coverage in Brazil Journal underscored how closely the strategy tracks Nubank’s own origins.

Why the Timing and the Skeptics Matter

The launch arrives as Brazilians juggle high interest rates, aggressive consumer credit and a flood of financial advice from influencers, banks and friends that is often conflicting. Decade’s argument is that individuals cannot realistically reconcile all of it alone, and that an always-on AI layer can turn the noise into concrete decisions.

Skeptics will note that personal-financial-management apps have promised similar things for years and mostly failed to change behaviour. Decade’s answer is that large language models make a genuinely new level of analysis possible — reading every statement and position continuously — that earlier tools could not deliver.

For now the company is opening a waitlist rather than throwing the doors open, and says its growth will track how much customers actually value the product. With one of the largest seed rounds the region has seen and a founding team drawn from Nubank’s core, Decade will be watched as a test of whether AI can finally make full-service wealth management a mass-market product in Brazil.

Background: Inside Brazil’s Tech Boom: It’s Not Just Fintech Anymore.

More: Brazil news in English, every day from The Rio Times.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who founded Decade?

Decade was co-founded by Vitor Olivier, an early engineer and former chief technology officer at Nubank, and Felipe Meneses, a co-creator of the AI startup Hyperplane, which Nubank acquired in 2024.

How much did Decade raise?

Decade raised R$440 million (about US$85 million) in a seed round it describes as the largest in Latin American history, backed by Benchmark, Diffusion, Greenoaks, Atlántico and Norte Ventures.

What does Decade’s service cost?

Decade charges a monthly subscription of R$200 (about US$39) for its core AI wealth service, with a separate invite-only, fee-based product aimed at wealthier clients.

Connected Coverage

Brazil Business & Startups Briefing

More Brazil business and startup coverage from The Rio Times