Gurhan Kiziloz Scaled to $400M Without Investors. Naval Preached It; Gurhan Proved It

Gurhan Kiziloz didn’t set out to make a statement about venture capital. He just didn’t want anyone else’s fingerprints on his company.

He built Nexus International without outside funding. No early investors, no fundraising rounds, no advisory board. Last year, Nexus generated over $400 million in revenue, largely driven by its online gaming platform, Megaposta. Kiziloz says the company is on track to reach $1.45 billion in revenue by the end of 2025. All of it bootstrapped.

This kind of scale, achieved without external capital, puts him in a small category of founders who chose to build without relying on the usual ecosystem. One of the more well-known examples is Naval Ravikant, who helped launch AngelList and has spent years promoting the idea that founders should avoid raising money unless they absolutely need to. Ravikant’s advice was always clear: build first, raise later, if at all.

Kiziloz doesn’t spend time offering advice. He’s not selling a philosophy. He just never saw a reason to raise money.

“I’m too proud to borrow,” he said in a recent interview. “If I can build it myself, I will.”

That pride has become a throughline in how he operates. Decisions inside Nexus move quickly because there’s no one to consult. “No approvals, no politics, no waiting,” he says. “If something makes sense, we go.” The model works because he’s structured it around speed, and because he refuses to compromise on control.

Where Ravikant often frames his thinking in systems and long-term mental models, Kiziloz’s approach is more instinctive. He’s not quoting Stoicism or talking about leverage. He’s describing what it feels like to be responsible for every decision, every outcome, every dollar.

“If it fails, I start again,” he says.

There’s a simplicity to how he describes pressure. No talk of risk management or burnout. Just the constant push forward. “I don’t reflect; I just keep moving,” he says. “I get it wrong all the time. But the moments I get it right are big enough that they make up for it.”

He compares it to Babe Ruth thinking about home runs, not strikeouts. And it’s not hard to see the mindset in how Nexus has grown.

Megaposta operates primarily in Brazil, a market that’s expanding quickly but still carries legal and regulatory challenges. Most companies in that space raise capital to manage the uncertainty. Kiziloz didn’t. Instead, he built the infrastructure himself and scaled gradually, reinvesting revenue. The result is a company that holds no external obligations, not to VCs, not to debt holders, not to board members.

It’s not the absence of capital that’s unusual. It’s the scale he’s reached without it.

He’s also clear about the tradeoffs. Growth takes longer when you’re not spending investor money. Entering new markets or building out teams takes patience. Still, he’s fine with the pace. “Speed,” he says, when asked about the biggest sacrifice of being self-funded.

The upside, of course, is that no one else gets a vote.

That kind of full control can isolate a founder. But Kiziloz seems built for that. He doesn’t present as someone trying to prove anything. He’s not interested in personal branding or thought leadership. Most of his quotes are short, almost abrupt, and they rarely include qualifiers. He says what he means and moves on.

When asked how he maintains momentum without exhausting his team, he doesn’t offer the usual talking points about culture or support systems. He just says, “Not everyone is designed to take a ride in a rocketship.”

Even when talking about personal loss, his tone doesn’t shift much. After his father died, he says he became “more of a monster.” It’s a line that reads as harsh, but it fits with the rest of his responses: sharp, unsentimental, and straight to the point.

This isn’t to say he’s unaware of the cost of running things this way. But he’s made his choice. He doesn’t have to justify it.

Naval Ravikant spent years explaining why founders should keep their cap tables clean, why control matters, and why slow capital is better than fast money. Gurhan Kiziloz isn’t making the same argument. He’s just doing the work, quietly, aggressively, and without compromise.

The result is a company that’s generating hundreds of millions in revenue, operating in a difficult market, and still moving without outside influence. Not many can say the same.

Whatever comes next, whether Nexus hits its $1.45 billion target or not, there’s not much doubt about who’s driving the outcome.

And that, for Kiziloz, seems to be the point.