From Bogotá Street Hustle to $20M AI Empire: How Colombian Finance Prodigy Felipe Cortés Bello is Cashing in on Voice Tech Goldmines

Fintech is moving quickly toward automation, yet debt collections remain trapped in a slow, outdated, and expensive system. Companies lose billions every year to missed follow-ups and old-school call operations that just can’t keep up. Felipe Cortés Bello is one of the few finance leaders tackling these issues head-on with AI. For Felipe, it comes down to a simple principle: if a process is too big or too repetitive for humans to manage efficiently, then it’s exactly the kind of challenge AI should be solving: “If you can see it in your head, you can build it in real life,” he often says.

Felipe’s perspective comes from years of experience.  He pairs the discipline he gained from investment banking with real, on-the-ground experience. After years of creating valuation frameworks, preparing deal materials, and building financial models for M&A, project finance, and venture fundraising, this highly-regarded finance expert saw firsthand how much inefficiency remained: “AI is no longer optional. It’s the underlying system that will power the future of finance,” he shares with the conviction of someone who has watched old systems crack under modern demands.

That belief now shapes his work as Head of Finance at Domu Technology. This San Francisco–based, Y Combinator–backed AI startup uses voice automation to modernize debt collections. At 26, Felipe helped guide the company through a $4.5 million seed round in YC S24. He also played a key role in raising a $19 million Series A after the business showed strong product-market fit.

Today, his schedule reflects the scale of that responsibility. Felipe splits his time between Bogotá’s fast-growing innovation ecosystem and San Francisco’s high-pressure startup environment, moving across cities and time zones as he helps build a company designed for the next era of finance.

What keeps him moving is the same idea he started with: cut out inefficiency at the source. “I always like solving the kinds of problems you just can’t solve manually. This is where AI excels,” he shares. For industries bogged down by old processes, that focus could be exactly what helps them level up.

Roots in Resilience: From Candy Sales to Coding Whiz

Felipe didn’t suddenly become interested in fixing inefficiencies—it started early. Growing up, curiosity and resilience were part of everyday life. Even before entering finance or AI, he was already training himself to see problems and think of better solutions.

As a teenager, that mindset showed up in small ways, like selling candies and baseball cards between classes. That early taste of business sparked something bigger: “I realized at a very early age that I could make things, and by making those things, I could capitalize on it,” he shares.

By 13, Felipe had moved from commerce to code. He spent long nights modding video games, experimenting with software, and running a small YouTube channel with a few hundred subscribers, a surprisingly formative chapter: “I didn’t know it back then, but coding was my gateway into building financial tools later on. Even then, I was obsessed with making systems run more smoothly. If a game lagged or a mod broke, I wanted to fix it. That mindset never left,” he recalls.

Felipe brought this hustle and curiosity to college. He studied at Universidad Externado de Colombia, where he earned a 4.4/5.0 GPA and placed in the top 0.5% nationwide on the ECAES exam. He was also active outside class, leading the Investment Banking Division of the Financial Club, organizing industry conferences, and developing core skills in valuation, modeling, and banking.

He also taught. More than 500 students passed through his classes in financial analysis, risk management, and portfolio management. The experience sharpened him in ways he didn’t expect: “Teaching helped me more than anything, you only understand a model deeply when you have to explain it to someone else,” Felipe says.

And in many ways, that’s where the foundation for his fintech career was quietly built, through hustle, curiosity, and a habit of learning things the hard way until they became second nature: “Everything I do now, from building models to structuring systems, comes from those early repetitions. I didn’t take shortcuts. I learned by doing, failing, and rebuilding,” he shares.

Banking Powerhouse: Forging Deals in Emerging Markets

Everything Felipe learned from taking the hard path paid off. When he moved into finance, he brought with him strong habits of persistence, problem-solving, and grit. With this rare combination of attitude and skills, Felipe quickly rose into the finance industry.

At MD Banca de Inversión, he closed the kind of deal most young analysts only hear about in training: a $13.5-million acquisition of a meat company pulling in $50 million in revenue. He built the models, tightened the numbers, and assisted with the integration: “We supported the integration to maximize profitability,” he explains, hinting at the efficiency-driven approach that would define his career.

Then he entered Citibank, and his career took off. As a Corporate & Investment Banking Analyst, he managed a $9 million fintech portfolio. He helped close major transactions: a $6-million loan to the AI-powered lender Sempli and a $60-million securitization for Credivalores through Citi Social Finance. But his most significant win was a $550-million syndicated loan rollover for Covioriente’s 266-kilometer toll road. This operation required threading negotiations through regional market volatility: “You see the impact, moving capital to finance huge projects in third-world economies,” he reflects.

Felipe’s work stretched across sectors. This finance and AI specialist supported Grupo Sura’s $300-million tender offer for Nutresa’s minority shareholders, digging through credit and repayment analyses, and contributed to Sura Asset Management’s $350-million refinancing strategy for a $500-million note. Sensitivity modeling, risk-adjusted return analysis, ML-style scenario forecasting—these became his everyday tools. And because every transaction needed buy-in from the top, he learned how to translate complex structures into crisp presentations for risk and capital committees: “You need to explain a complicated deal in a way that an executive can understand in 30 seconds,” he said, noting how communication became as crucial as modeling.

During his stint at Y Combinator, those skills carried over. He advised on corporate strategy, guided FP&A and pricing work, and kept investors in the loop, often while juggling deal models and pitch decks: “Citi was the turning point; that’s where I saw how automation and data could fix inefficiencies bankers just accepted as normal,” he says.

That realization shaped the lens Felipe carries today: AI as the backbone of modern finance. At Citi, he watched startups deploy machine learning for lending, fraud detection, and asset-backed financing long before it was mainstream. He never forgot it: “Once you see AI outperforming humans in repetitive financial tasks, you can’t unsee it. Efficiency is everything, and AI is the most powerful efficiency tool we have,” he says.

The AI Leap: CFO at the Voice Tech Vanguard

At Domu, Felipe stepped in as interim CFO, and everything shifted. Now Head of Finance, he helped secure $4.5 million in seed funding from venture capital and angel investors. The funding backed the company’s breakthrough technology: voice AI designed for empathetic debt collection.

Felipe provided strategic guidance on pricing and FP&A, applying AI tools to improve revenue modeling and growth forecasting. His work ensured that financial discipline and technology were built into the company from day one: “I lead the end-to-end process; it depends entirely on me. Fundraising at YC forces you to grow up fast; you either deliver or you disappear,” he explains.

Santiago Rios Olaya is a Senior Engineer at Domu and speaks highly of Felipe’s expertise and management acumen: “He is very pragmatic and proactive regarding financial forecasting, financial models, and the entire operational workflow," he reveals.

"Felipe is extremely curious about business mechanics and how to remove bottlenecks in investment rounds (as demonstrated during the Series A at Domu), operations, and costs.”

Santiago adds: “He also maintains a rigorous level of financial discipline that helps define the company's direction and priorities. And Felipe prioritizes speed because he believes that 'action produces information,' providing a better perspective on the overall picture.”

Felipe continues to build the systems that power the business: predictive growth models, AI-infused FP&A workflows, and real-time pricing strategies based on behavioral insights captured by voice agents. Working closely with founders, investors, and YC-trained AI engineers strengthened his conviction about the space: “Voice AI is not the future, it’s the present,” he says, noting that debt collection is the ideal starting point for automation.

If there is one thing that sets him apart from other AI experts, it’s because he codes: “Building software lowers barriers. If you have an idea in mind, then you can definitely create it,” he says, referencing the market-data aggregators and options-pricing tools he previously built and had vetted by PhD mentors.

Roman Montiel is a Treasury Coordinator at EnfraGen, LLC, a New York-based energy infrastructure developer and operator specializing in grid stability solutions and renewable energy assets.

He says of Felipe’s expertise: Felipe has the ability to consistently leverage all the technological tools at his disposal, making the work significantly faster and more efficient. We collaborated on the financial model, due diligence, and presentations to the bank’s risk committee, and I was impressed by his ability to build sophisticated financial models for large-scale transactions.”

Roman adds: "Felipe made the financial model much easier to understand, especially when it came to how everything should be structured. He’s always willing to jump in, help out, and share what he knows. Even when things are stressful, he never rushes explanations and is great at teaching technical concepts."

Visionary CFO: Scaling Fintech's Future

Felipe operates on a simple formula: discipline, kindness, and fast execution change how the industry works. Banks using Domu’s AI agents now move faster, freeing their teams to focus on strategic tasks: “We’re changing the whole industry. With this, we can give people more time to work on valuable stuff rather than answering endless phone calls,” he explains.

His technical skill set spans advanced Excel modeling, Bloomberg Terminal analysis, Capital IQ research, and formal training through Bloomberg Market Concepts and J.P. Morgan’s Investment Banking Virtual Experience. These credentials anchor his unique blend of financial expertise and AI fluency. He’s also adept at crafting CIMs, investment teasers, and sensitivity-rich financial forecasts, a skill set he honed across banking, private equity, and global institutions such as Citibank.

By December 2025, as Domu’s pilots scale internationally, Felipe will already be mapping AGI’s impact on the fintech industry. His path, from Bogotá’s competitive finance landscape to the front lines of AI, shows how modern finance leaders who code do more than manage capital; they amplify it.

Today, he’s a sought-after advisor for founders in SaaS, fintech lending, and AI-first consumer tech. He sticks to his philosophy that financial models must evolve as quickly as the AI systems they serve. As he puts it: “The future CFO is part engineer, part storyteller, and 100% data-driven.”

Author Bio:

Gauri Singh is a business and technology contributor focused on leadership strategy, operational transformation, and emerging industry trends. She specializes in executive profiles and long-form features that translate complex business concepts into clear, structured narratives for professional audiences. Gauri works closely with editorial teams to ensure accuracy, clarity, and alignment with publication standards.