Entrepreneurs on Fire From Payments Data Chaos to Agentic Commerce: A Founder's Vision with Roberto Kafati, Co-Founder & CEO at DEUNA
Oct 24, 2025
Roberto Kafati, Co-founder and CEO of DEUNA, is on a mission to simplify global payments and revolutionize commerce. He highlights that resilience is more valuable than glamorous success, emphasizing long-term focus for exponential growth. Roberto shares his journey from academic roots in Dartmouth and Stanford to addressing payment challenges in Honduras. He discusses the importance of AI-ready data in commerce and forecasts a future where intelligent systems proactively enhance consumer experiences. It's all about small wins leading to big results!
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One-Click Checkout Sparked A Bigger Mission
- Roberto recounts starting with one-click checkout during COVID to help merchants reduce cart abandonment.
- He explains the product evolved into payment infrastructure after discovering broader merchant needs.
Honduran Roots And A McKinsey Training Ground
- Roberto traces his motivation to Honduras where remittances shape the economy and crypto inspired payment innovation.
- He joined McKinsey to learn AML/KYC and worked with Latin American banks before founding DeUNA.
Moat: AI-Ready Data Over Orchestration
- Orchestration of payments will commoditize, so differentiation requires AI-driven merchant context and intelligence.
- Owning data extraction at source creates defensible moats other infrastructure players lack.
