Who Is Behind Lokl? Camilo Olarte and the Medellín Platform
Lokl is a Colombian platform founded and run by Camilo Olarte from Medellín. It funds hospitality projects, starting with a coliving building in the Laureles district, by selling units of a trust to small investors, and it has grown from about 530 investors in 2022 to more than 1,500 by late 2026. It is the smallest and least documented platform on Threeworld, which is exactly why a page on who is behind it is worth having. Everything here comes from the Colombian press and the company's own pages.
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The Founder
Camilo Olarte is the founder and chief executive of Lokl. Forbes Colombia named him as founder when it covered the company's first project in October 2021, Portafolio called him chief executive and founder the following month, and the about page on lokl.life lists him as chief executive today. That is close to everything the public record says about him. No press article or company page describes his career before Lokl or his education, and Threeworld does not fill that gap from unreliable sources. No co-founder is named anywhere. The team page lists an administrative director, an investments lead, a technology director and a finance lead, none of them labelled as founders. What Olarte has said in interviews is consistent across five years: that Lokl's investors are buying into a whole project rather than a square metre, and that the point is shared returns among the owners of a project combined with belonging to a community around it, as he told Portafolio in September 2021.
Where the Company Came From
Lokl's own timeline on its about page marks the company's creation in 2018, and it is based in Medellín. The first project came in 2021: Indie Universe, a coliving building in the Laureles neighbourhood. Forbes Colombia reported in October 2021 that Lokl had raised 1,230 million pesos from small investors for it and was seeking a $1 million seed round through a convertible note, with plans for Mexico and the United States. A year later, in October 2022, Lokl was accepted into the Rockstart Latam accelerator, which came with a $100,000 investment and a six-month programme. Valora Analitik reported at the time that 530 investors had put more than 4,000 million pesos into Indie Universe in a year, with a minimum ticket of 4 million pesos. Olarte said the company applied because it was convinced it was its best moment.
What They Built and How It Is Regulated
When you invest on Lokl you buy units that are fiduciary rights in a Colombian trust that holds the project, administered by a licensed fiduciary company, and you receive an investment contract and a participation certificate. Lokl acts under an irrevocable mandate to buy, administer and resell those rights. The fiduciary company is supervised by Colombia's Superintendencia Financiera. Lokl itself names no licence or regulator. The platform page on Threeworld sets out what Lokl says about costs and exits and the FAQ page it comes from, and the regulation hub explains why this structure fits none of the standard models.
Funding and Milestones
• September and October 2021: 1,230 million pesos raised from small investors for Indie Universe, and a $1 million seed sought, per Forbes Colombia and Portafolio. • October 2022: Rockstart Latam invests $100,000 and takes Lokl into its accelerator, per Valora Analitik. • January 2023: Nido de Agua announced, a hospitality project in the forest near Guatapé valued at around $15 million, designed by the studio Startup with the partner Soulland, with construction due to start that year, per Bloomberg Línea. • 2025: enter.co reported more than 1,300 active investors, a target of 2,500 for the year, and that about 30% of investors were Colombians living abroad. • October 2026: the site reports 1,588 investors and about 20,400 million pesos invested. Indie Universe is operating, Nido de Agua is listed as under construction, and two further projects, Aldea and Zenith in El Retiro, are listed as coming soon. No venture round beyond Rockstart's has been reported, and the legal name of the operating company does not appear on the site or in the press.
What to Check Yourself
Three things stand out. First, the one fact that is not on a company page is who regulates what: the fiduciary company holding the trust is supervised, Lokl is not, so ask Lokl which fiduciary administers the project you are considering and look it up on the Superintendencia Financiera's register. Second, Nido de Agua was announced in January 2023 with construction to begin that year, and in October 2026 it is still listed as under construction, with no public update on its timeline, occupancy or returns that Threeworld could find. Ask for one before investing in it. Third, the 13% to 15% returns quoted around the platform are company and aggregator statements, not audited figures. Threeworld found no Superintendencia Financiera action, complaint or critical press coverage of Lokl or Olarte. The index shows the two Lokl projects it reads as unfunded because Lokl publishes no funding progress in a form the index can count, which is a data gap rather than a judgement.
Questions people ask
Who founded Lokl?
- Camilo Olarte founded Lokl in Medellín, Colombia and is its chief executive, as reported by Forbes Colombia and Portafolio in 2021 and shown on the company's about page. No co-founder is named in any published source, and his career before Lokl is not described anywhere public.
Is Lokl regulated?
- Not directly. Lokl sells fiduciary rights in a Colombian trust that holds each project, and the trust is administered by a licensed fiduciary company supervised by the Superintendencia Financiera. Lokl itself names no licence or regulator.
Who has invested in Lokl?
- Rockstart Latam invested $100,000 when it accepted Lokl into its accelerator in October 2022. The rest of the money has come from the platform's own investors, 530 of them in Indie Universe by 2022 and 1,588 across its projects by October 2026, according to the company's site.
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