Gastón Taratuta went to the Bahamas to hear an offer for his company and ended up rejecting it. It was 2021, travel restrictions made meeting in Europe difficult, and the representatives of an investment fund arrived by private jet. He traveled from Miami.
They were offering US$400 million for his stake. If he accepted, Taratuta would leave the business, and the Latin American operation would be placed in his partner’s hands. At some point in the conversation, they said, “since you want to leave.” Taratuta says he had never suggested leaving.
Months later, he agreed to another transaction: CVC Capital Partners bought 23% of the company for around US$470 million, at a valuation close to US$2 billion. This time, he stayed.
Taratuta is the founder and CEO of Aleph, the company that represents digital platforms in markets where they need a local partner to sell advertising and collect payments. It works with companies such as X, TikTok, Meta, Spotify and Snapchat, among others. According to its figures, it operates in more than 130 markets, manages around US$4 billion across advertising and payments, and has close to 1,600 employees, around two hundred of them in Argentina.
The business began in 2005 with US$5,000 of his own money. Taratuta maintains that it was profitable from its third month.
Fifteen Twenty-Dollar Bills
He remembers the date he arrived in Miami: March 27, 1996. The time, too. He landed at ten in the morning, and by one he was already working.
He had US$300. When he tells the story, he clarifies that they were fifteen twenty-dollar bills. He carried them in a plastic document sleeve; spread out that way, they looked like more money.
He was born in Núñez in 1972 and supports Racing. He left for the United States feeling that he was struggling to get his future in order in Argentina. He pursued an MBA at Florida International University while working and paying the tuition installments as best he could. His days began at eight in the morning and ended close to eleven at night.
At the time, he sold Yamaha amplifiers. An executive at the brand pointed out that he was offering inexpensive equipment despite having a catalog with much more expensive products. He asked how much money Taratuta had on him, gave him a hundred-dollar bill and asked him to touch it every time he spoke to a customer. Taratuta remembers the scene as a lesson about the limits he placed on himself when selling.
His entry into the digital business came while checking Yahoo Mail. He saw an advertisement on Monster.com: Universo Online, the Brazilian portal known as UOL, was looking for someone to develop e-commerce.
The interview was not going well until he recognized a surname. He asked whether the interviewer had a relative who had attended Sholem, his school. It was the interviewer’s brother. They then asked how much he knew about digital marketing. He answered that he knew nothing and, as he recalls, that was precisely what finally convinced them.
A Dismissal with Customers Included
After the September 11 attacks, UOL gave him two options: lose his job or move to Brazil. He settled in São Paulo with his wife and newborn daughter. In time, he became president of the company’s international operation.
Years later, he received another call from his boss. He was being dismissed, but they proposed that he continue independently, representing the group outside Brazil. He could take the client portfolio he had built.
He asked for six months to get organized. They gave him until the following month, when they would stop paying his salary.
That was how Internet Media Services, IMS, came into being, opening on February 5, 2005. Taratuta invested US$5,000 and allocated two stakes: 3% to his secretary and another 3% to his lawyer. He wanted them to keep working with him.
Over the years, he gave up close to 40% of the company to bring in partners and talent. He says he preferred owning a smaller share of a company that could grow.
The first advertising order was for US$3,000. He went to collect it on a Friday afternoon and was asked to return on Monday. He stayed and waited until he obtained it. By the third month, he says, revenue was already enough to cover expenses and leave a profit.
How He Secured the Platforms
In 2010, he received a call from Netflix. An executive had searched for information about digital marketing in Latin America and found an event organized by IMS.
The conversation continued in Los Gatos, California. Netflix was preparing its international expansion and wanted to understand the region. IMS ended up working on its arrival in Latin America, a market with differences in connectivity, payment methods and taxes that had to be addressed country by country.
Ignacio Vidaguren joined at that stage, coming from Mercado Libre and having previously worked at McKinsey. Taratuta says it took him a year to convince him. He became his partner.
The relationship with Twitter arose from another initiative. IMS had organized a training program for clients at Stanford and added company visits. One of the contacts from that trip opened the conversation about representing the platform in Latin America.
They were competing against Fox, which could offer a three-year revenue guarantee. Taratuta brought a different proposal: teaching the leading advertisers in each market how to use Twitter for advertising.
According to his account, they were awarded the representation agreement within 48 hours. Agreements with Waze, Snapchat, Spotify and LinkedIn followed.
When explaining what he looks for in a business, he mentions fast-growing markets, customers who need to learn, and a product that is not available everywhere. Training advertisers became part of the service he offered the platforms.
Selling and Buying Back
In 2015, Sony acquired 51% of IMS at a valuation close to US$100 million. The company generated roughly that same amount in revenue and had between US$12 million and US$13 million in EBITDA.
Taratuta began looking for business opportunities outside Latin America. He knew the companies doing work similar to his in Europe, the Middle East and Africa: they met at platform meetings and shared problems.
By 2019, he wanted Sony to buy the rest of his stake. When the transaction did not move forward, he and his partners decided to buy Sony’s stake back.
The timing was difficult. In March 2020, while adjusting budgets and salaries because of the pandemic, they moved ahead with that buyback and a transaction involving their European partner. They negotiated payment terms to carry out both decisions.
Later, they considered going public. They worked with JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Citi, and reserved the ticker symbol ALP. The public offering never materialized: market changes, the war, rising interest rates and difficulties with audit requirements intervened.
During that process, they also negotiated with private investment funds. CVC ultimately came in through the US$470 million transaction. Mercado Libre invested US$25 million, and Twitter and Snapchat also joined. Taratuta wanted some of the platforms he worked with to become shareholders as well.
The Name He Outgrew
The change from IMS to Aleph came in 2022. Taratuta says a job interview made him think about how outsiders saw the company: an Argentine candidate believed it was still limited to Latin America.
He chose Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with a reference to Borges’s short story. He also found a practical advantage: appearing first in alphabetical lists.
That year, he won the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year award in Monaco and became the first Argentine to receive it.
Expansion continued into payments. In October 2024, he acquired control of Localpayment, a Latin American payment processor with which he had been negotiating for three years. According to Taratuta, that activity eventually generated as much revenue as advertising.
Argentina Seen from Abroad
Although he has lived abroad for decades, he continues to talk about the country and the difficulties of doing business. He points to the coexistence of two currencies, institutional weakness, problems with federal integration and the lack of continuity in economic policies.
He is especially concerned about the concentration of activity and connections in Buenos Aires. When discussing federalism, he uses air routes as an example: how difficult it is to travel between provinces without passing through the capital. For him, that disconnection also limits commercial relationships.
His proposal centers on exporting more. He sees opportunities in services, English proficiency and time-zone proximity to the United States. He believes many companies could seek customers abroad sooner than they imagine.
At an Endeavor gathering in Córdoba, someone presented him with a project designed for that province. Taratuta responded with a comparison: the runway was too short for the plane the person wanted to fly. His own company had begun by representing a Brazilian group outside its home country. Years later, he was still looking for other places to sell.
