Victor Lazarte

Who they are

Victor Lazarte is General Partner at Benchmark — co-founded Wildlife Studios in 2011, building it into one of the world's largest mobile gaming companies with over 3 billion downloads before moving into venture.

Person

Victor studied simultaneously at Universidade de São Paulo and CentraleSupélec, earning dual degrees in Science and Engineering by 2009 — an unusual Franco-Brazilian academic double that hints at the cross-cultural fluency he'd later use at scale. From there he went to Goldman Sachs, working as an analyst in European credit derivatives — a stint that gave him financial architecture before he pivoted hard into building. He co-founded Wildlife Studios in 2011, growing it from nothing into one of the world's largest mobile gaming companies, valued at nearly $3 billion with over 3 billion downloads. He joined Benchmark in 2023, walking into an established equal-partnership firm with an iconic early-stage brand. His board seats tell the story of his bets since then: first investor and board member at Brex, lead Series A investor at Mercor (the AI hiring platform), board member at HeyGen (April 2024), Decart (November 2024), and Applied Compute (September 2025). He speaks publicly on founder traits and company building — a 2025 appearance on The Twenty Minute VC named the three traits he looks for in the best founders, and he gave a Fortune interview in 2024 on the operator-to-VC transition. Possibly — his Brazilian-French background and Goldman start shape how he reads both financial discipline and product ambition in the founders he backs.

Network

No named relationship edges were surfaced in the network probe. His board roles place him alongside the founding teams at HeyGen, Decart, Mercor, Applied Compute, and Brex, but no specific co-investors or partners were identified in the available claims. Possibly — given Benchmark's equal-partnership model, he works closely with the other GPs on sourcing and diligence across those deals.

How they likely show up

Co-founded Wildlife Studios and scaled it to nearly $3 billion in valuation with over 3 billion downloads → comfortable with long company-building arcs and tolerant of the ambiguity that comes before product-market fit.
Moved from Goldman Sachs credit derivatives to founding a gaming company → willing to make sharp pivots when the opportunity is large enough, not a career-path optimizer.
Joined Benchmark in 2023 and already holds board seats at five companies (Brex, Mercor, HeyGen, Decart, Applied Compute) → operates at high velocity once inside a platform, not a slow-drip deployer.
Publicly articulates the specific traits he looks for in founders (Twenty Minute VC, 2025; Fortune, 2024) → has a clear, repeatable investment thesis and is comfortable being held to it.
Dual engineering degrees from USP and CentraleSupélec alongside a Goldman finance stint → likely reads both technical credibility and financial structure in founders, not one or the other.
Possible — his content themes span AI, founder traits, venture philosophy, and mobile gaming, suggesting he engages across the stack rather than staying in a single domain lane.

Conversation tips

→ Reference the Wildlife Studios build specifically — ask about what he learned operating at consumer scale with 3 billion downloads that he couldn't have learned any other way.
→ He's on record about the three traits he looks for in founders (from the Twenty Minute VC episode) — ask him to stress-test those traits against a specific company rather than in the abstract.
→ His Fortune interview on the operator-to-VC transition is fair game — he's reflected on it publicly, so asking what surprised him about the shift lands better than a generic 'how did you get into VC' opener.
→ Don't treat his Goldman background as a throwaway; he went from credit derivatives to gaming founder — that non-obvious path is part of his self-narrative and worth engaging.
→ He posts on AI and technology innovation regularly — come with a specific view, not a general question, since he's stated views of his own and will engage with specificity.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the operator-to-VC transition: he gave a full Fortune interview on it in 2024 and it's clearly a chapter he's processed — asking what the first year at Benchmark actually felt like, versus what he expected, is a natural entry point.
Lead with Wildlife Studios and the 3 billion downloads figure — not as flattery but as a specific: what does running a consumer product at that scale teach you about retention that most SaaS-native VCs simply don't have access to?
Reference his Applied Compute board seat (September 2025) — it's his most recent disclosed investment and sits squarely at the infrastructure layer of the AI stack, which signals where he thinks value accrues.

Discovery questions

You backed Mercor as lead Series A and took a board seat — how do you think about AI-native hiring platforms relative to the incumbents, and what made Mercor the bet rather than another player in that space?
You've articulated three traits you look for in the best founders publicly — how has that framework held up across the Wildlife Studios founding team versus the founders you're now backing at Benchmark?
HeyGen, Decart, Applied Compute — you're concentrated in generative AI and compute infrastructure. Is that a deliberate thesis or did it emerge from the deals, and where do you think the defensibility actually sits in that stack?

Avoid

Don't ask generic questions about Benchmark's portfolio strategy or fund size — he's clearly thesis-driven at the company and founder level, and generic fund-level questions will read as underprepared.

Make it yours