“Weemba was created during the credit crunch to help people and businesses by increasing their chances of getting a loan.”

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Before founding Weemba, Constancio Larguia was a venture investor and Chairman of Bumeran.com, the first on-line jobs search engine of Latin America, with operations in Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico. The company was later acquired by Terra Lycos. Constancio started his career while in college as co-founder of Patagon.com, the first on-line stock brokerage in Latin America. The company had operations in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile and the United States. Headquartered in Miami, the company was later acquired by Banco Santander of Spain in a cash deal that valued the company at $705 million.

Weemba is an online financial community revolutionizing the way borrowers and professional Lenders connect & interact. Weemba makes it possible for commercial and individual borrowers to access professional Lenders in a non-traditional “social network”-like format without regard to limitations of time and geography. Borrowers post their loan needs in the form of a “loan project”, with limited identifying information, and lenders search these projects to find borrowers who fit their lending criteria.

MO: How is Weemba revolutionizing the way borrowers and professional Lenders connect & interact?

Constancio: With Weemba, we’ve taken a process that so many find intimidating, the loan process itself, and made it an approachable. Instead of borrowers going from bank to bank filling out numerous applications, they can go to Weemba and that one loan project can be viewed by lenders across the country.

MO: How did your past experiences with Patagon.com and Bumeran.com help shape the vision and direction of Weemba?

Constancio: Those experiences made clear how much we are all relying now in engaging services through the web. Weemba was created during the credit crunch to help people and businesses by increasing their chances of getting a loan.

MO: How does Weemba work? What are some of your favorite features of the site?

Constancio: Borrowers come to our site, register, and post their loan needs in the form of a profile. What’s interesting for borrowers is how much information they can include at no cost to them – everything from pictures to important tax documents can be loaded to their profiles. Once their profile is completed and verified, lenders across the country have the ability to search these profiles, based on their lending abilities, and send a ‘friend request’ to the borrower. With Weemba, the borrower is under no obligation to accept any lender’s request and all financial transactions occur off our platform.

My favorite aspect of our site is the algorithm we created exclusively for Weemba (W-SEO). Each borrower earns a score upon completion of their profile before it is loaded into the platform. This score takes into account all of the information borrowers included in their profile and give them an idea of where they will show up when profiles are searched. It’s a great tool!

MO: Are there any particular success stories that you’d like to share with our readers?

Constancio: Earlier this year, a borrower posted a commercial debt consolidation project with needs over $300,000. This was a small business owner who did not have a high credit score and was running out of options in terms of funding before they came to our platform. Their loan project received over 100 unique profile views and five lenders sent this borrower “friend requests” in our platform expressing their interest in their project. Because of Weemba, a business owner was able to communicate ultimately with the lender who filled a major financial need they had.

MO: What’s the biggest risk that you’ve ever taken and how did it turn out?

Constancio: Getting married. Is working out well so far…

MO: What’s the most exciting thing on the horizon for you personally or professionally?

Constancio: Growing Weemba to a nationally recognized service.