The founders of Divenue
By The Divenue team
· Updated
Divenue was founded by Lucas Gianfranco Castillo Degracia and Fernando De Saint Malo Petrosky. The two were running financial education events in Panama City and built the platform they needed.
Divenue was founded by Lucas Gianfranco Castillo Degracia and Fernando De Saint Malo Petrosky.
The two met running financial education events in Panama City, and that is where they found the problem that became the company. The content was never the hard part. Finding somewhere to hold the events was, and it consumed more time than preparing the events themselves.
Divenue exists so nobody else loses that time.
Lucas Gianfranco Castillo Degracia
Co-founder. Strategy, operations and product.
Lucas is eighteen. In August 2026 he stepped back from active work at Divenue; today his only involvement with the company is as its owner. He is co-founder and former Co-President of the Pan-American Society of Young Investors and studies Economics and Statistics & Data Science at Yale University, Class of 2030.
The two decisions that defined Divenue were his. The first was rejecting the catalogue model, because in Panama what a venue actually costs depends on the date, the season and the size of the event, so a published rate is never the one the customer reading it will get. Divenue negotiates instead of listing. The second was moving the product toward parties, following the demand that actually showed up rather than the one they had assumed, and covering all three steps instead of stopping at the venue.
Divenue's growth has not come from software either. With Fernando he plans the company's content and edits the videos himself, a channel that has passed 150,000 views on Instagram since June 2026. He also runs the company's search and content strategy, and handles its legal and compliance planning. A marketplace this size grows through distribution and by signing venues one at a time, not through automation.
In business development he built the Pan-American Society of Young Investors' institutional partnerships with the Fondo de Ahorro de Panamá, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Superintendencia del Mercado de Valores, along with Morgan & Morgan and Quantia. At seventeen he advised Aprender STEAM's leadership on platform strategy in Bangalore, India, after meeting more than fifteen companies.
In 2025 he captained Panama's national team at the First Global Challenge and won, taking the country from 141st to first against 181 nations, Panama's first world robotics championship and the first host-country win in the competition's history. His contribution there was organisational. He structured the campaign as four squads, field strategy, pit operations, media and support for rival delegations, an operation with its own communications front and its own diplomatic front. For the fourth he received the Bronze Medal for the Jackie Bezos Award for International Enthusiasm, after mobilising international support for Team Jamaica following Hurricane Melissa. Before that he spent eight years leading teams, with five national WRO championships between 2016 and 2023.
At the Pan-American Society of Young Investors, which he co-founded, he held several roles at once, Co-President alongside Sergio Raskosky, Head of Internal Affairs and Director of Consulting. Both later left the society and handed the presidency to Luca Melillo. There he launched the internship programme and designed the Golden Harpy Investment Challenge, a national stock-picking competition. By sixteen he was already working with companies in Panama, including one of the country's best-known restaurant groups.
He is currently an investment analyst intern at the Fondo de Ahorro de Panamá, the sovereign wealth fund built from Panama Canal revenues, working on Asia-Pacific macroeconomic research and the Total Portfolio Approach.
In July 2026 he published an analysis in La Prensa on Uber's acquisition of Delivery Hero and the limits of Panamanian competition law, a $14.8 billion deal that in Panama absorbs PedidosYa and removes its only meaningful competitor. That position on competition and transparency is the direct reason Divenue publishes exactly what it charges.
In 2026 he was selected for Y Combinator's Startup School in San Francisco, one of roughly 5,000 builders chosen from more than 30,000 applicants. This autumn he begins at Yale University, Class of 2030, studying Economics and Statistics & Data Science.
Full profile of Lucas Castillo
Fernando De Saint Malo Petrosky
Co-founder.
Fernando co-founded Divenue with Lucas. Both came from running the same financial education events in Panama City, which is where the idea for the company came from.
He also co-founded the Pan-American Society of Young Investors, the youth investment and finance society, where he served as Vice President and Treasurer. He left alongside Lucas and Sergio Raskosky when they handed the presidency to Luca Melillo.
Profile of Fernando De Saint Malo
What they built
Divenue covers the three steps of running an event in Panama.
- The venue. With negotiated pricing rather than published rates, because what a space actually costs depends on the date, the size and the season
- The providers. Bar, catering, sound, security and decoration
- Ticketing. Selling tickets with Yappy and card, with no international fees and near-immediate payout to the organiser
It started as a platform for events in general, which was the founders' own case, and moved toward parties because that is where the demand was. It still works for events in general.
How Divenue started · Why we built it
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Divenue?
Lucas Gianfranco Castillo Degracia and Fernando De Saint Malo Petrosky.
Who is Lucas Castillo?
Co-founder of Divenue, where he runs strategy, operations, distribution and product. He is also co-founder and former Co-President of the Pan-American Society of Young Investors. He studies Economics and Statistics & Data Science at Yale University, Class of 2030. He captained the Panamanian team that won the 2025 First Global Challenge, co-founded the Pan-American Society of Young Investors, where he served as Co-President and Director of Consulting, and is an investment analyst intern at Panama's sovereign wealth fund.
Who is Fernando De Saint Malo?
Co-founder of Divenue. He also co-founded the Pan-American Society of Young Investors, where he served as Vice President and Treasurer.
How did the founders meet?
Running financial education events in Panama City, which is where they found the problem Divenue solves.
What does Divenue do?
It covers venues, providers and ticketing for events and parties in Panama.
Is Divenue only for parties?
No. It grew out of general events and still serves corporate events, launches and conferences. Parties are simply where the demand is greatest.