LatinxAmerica's podcast 6a271i

A VC Familia member, Yesenia Avila Gallardo from Occam Advisors helps clients execute their impact investment strategies. As a Principal at Occam, she works primarily with Potencia Ventures, a family office, to source, diligence, and manage early-stage venture investments in companies with business models that serve or impact low-income customers.  She is also the founder of Papalotzin where she works with artisanal mezcal producers in Mexico to import distilled agave spirits into the US.  http://www.occampdx.com/team.html

A VCFamilia member, Amelia Gandara is a Principal at Nationwide Ventures. She has a dual role, managing the fund’s operations and investing alongside the team. She focuses on Nationwide’s early-stage investments with a ion for insurtechs. Amelia has additional experience in investing, operations, strategy and partnerships with stints at GE and a pre-seed funding program.  We talk about trends in insurtech, her ion for ballet and art, and advice for people wanting to transition into the corporate VC space.

This is another episode in the VCFamilia series where we highlight Latinx in Venture Capital. In this episode, we highlight Bianca Caban who is a Principal at Heartland Ventures (HV), a Seed & Series A fund with an investor base of strategic corporations located throughout the Midwest. At HV, Bianca is responsible for leading the firm’s deal sourcing, co-investor relations, and founder interactions in Silicon Valley. Prior to that she was Head of Partnerships at Republic, an AngelList spin-off, and CEO of SheWorx, which was acquired by Republic in 2019. Before Republic she worked for a decade in financial services including at firms, Credit Suisse, BlackRock, and Atlas Merchant Capital, which sought investment in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Bianca also established a consultancy, Taino Capital, where she worked with clients on fund formation and strategy. Bianca received a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from Columbia University.  https://www.heartlandvc.com/

Monique Villa leads Mucker Capital's Nashville office, investing in early-stage startups across the Southeast. She is also the co-founder of Build In SE, a community of startup founders and ecosystem partners committed to company building in the Southeast.  Prior to ing Mucker's investment team, Monique's career in early-stage venture capital began in 2013 leading investor relations for Velos Partners, and more recently with Core Innovation Capital. Earlier in her career, Monique advised digital entertainment startups on business development and strategic partnerships and later went on to lead a startup accelerator for students in the Greater Los Angeles area. Her love for startups began in 2008 while interning for TOMS, where she ed finance and inventory management projects for several nationwide launches. To request an intro, email [email protected].  https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/02/vc-meets-the-land-of-opportunity/

Alejandro Guerrero is a co-founder and General Partner at Act One Ventures, a Los Angeles-based pre-seed/seed fund investing in business software. Since 2015 the team of Alejandro Guerrero and Michael Silton have raised $65mm in AUM. They have invested in more than 40 companies, 70% of which were founded by women or minorities. He is the creator of the Diversity Term Sheet Rider for Representation at the Cap Table and the Diversity Riders Podcast. Previously, Alejandro was the co-founder and CEO of Uniq Apps, a SaaS platform for encrypted work messaging. Prior to Uniq, he was the co-founder of Live Entertainment Network, an interactive video player platform that helped artists monetize live shows on a “-content-only” destination.  As a founder by background, Alejandro takes an empathetic approach to the challenges founders face raising money and building startups. He and his partner at Act One have been working together since 2013, while both were volunteering at UCLA Ventures. https://actoneventures.com/diversity-rider/ https://www.audible.com/pd/Podcast/B08JJLPNZ1  

Marcos Gonzalez, founder and managing partner of Vamos Ventures, is being recognized in this special series co-hosted by VCFamilia.  Marcos is committed to ing founders in high-growth and overlooked opportunity: early-stage tech companies led by Hispanic and other diverse founders. VamosVentures has successfully closed Fund I at $50mm and is now deploying capital.  Learn about his journey and how his commitment to the community, coupled with his extensive experience in finance and consulting, and long-term relationships led him to successfully launch and fundraise for his own fund. https://www.vamosventures.com/  

Adrian Mendoza is the Founder and General Partner of Mendoza Ventures. After having two VC-funded startups in Boston, he started Mendoza Ventures to address the funding gap in the pre-seed investment stage for underrepresented founders. He launched his firm in 2016 focused on investments in AI, Fintech, and Cybersecurity companies. Mendoza Ventures is minority and women led as well the first VC firm in the east coast founded by a latino. Learn about his journey and how he approached raising a fund. https://mendoza-ventures.com/

Juleita Moradei is a partner and founding member of Hometeam Ventures.  She drives dealflow and operations while focusing on bringing innovation to the world’s largest - but least innovative- industries: Construction and housing. Learn about her untraditional journey into VC and the innovation happening in impact driven construction tech led by companies like Icon whose team is building 3D printed homes.

As part of VCFamilia's Venture Capital Series, we highlight Pilar Johnson and Debut Capital.  She talks about her journey into VC and how she went from DNI trainer to co-founding a venture capital fund. Debut Capital invests in companies led by Indigenous, Latinx, Black and Brown founders who focus on impact and growth.  https://debutcapital.com/  

Dr. Chavez is the Director of Mental Health at Caminar, Inc. and an expert in Substance Use Disorders.  This is one of two episodes focusing on diagnosis, treatment and how Latinx dealing with this chronic illness can access effective treatment options. We explore some case studies to help our listeners understand how to access treatment and/or advocate for a loved one experiencing addiction.   https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamrachavez/

Dr. Chavez is the Director of Mental Health at Caminar, Inc. and an expert in Substance Use Disorders.  According to a report from the American Addiction Center, 11% of tech workers have itted to using illegal drugs. About 60% have used marijuana and 20% of the workers that they surveyed have used painkillers. Dr. Chavez talks about treatment options and how systems can make a difference in treatment during remission. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamrachavez/ https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/addiction-statistics/tech-industry

In our founder series, we talk about Miguel’s extensive  experience in brand development, marketing and customer experience for Fortune 500 companies and purpose-led ventures. He shares how he works with startups, companies and individuals in identifying and focusing on the intersection between culture, community & purpose. https://colabworks.co/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgarcast/

Erika Zarco is a licensed marriage and family therapist, certified clinical telemental health provider with a certification in grief therapy. In this episode Erika talks about different therapy resources to heal or learn from the stages of grief. Deal with the grief of a person who ed away or a relationship that comes to an end is complicated. Grief is different for everyone, and there are many options approaches to heal, such as Meditation, Attachment Theory, Emotionally Focused Therapy, or Tapping to recover in a healthy process with expert providers as Erika.

Erika Zarkos is the Directive Counselor of the non-profit organization Women United and Active. She offers a more humanistic therapeutic approach for patients: Narrative Therapy, a clinical orientation with a postmodern perspective. Narrative therapy helps employers to face the new emotional challenges Covid brought. It provides the patient with knowledge of their abilities and values to effectively confront current and future problems. She talks about the difference and advantages compared to traditional therapy. Narrative therapy approaches the patients as the expert, navigating their problems without stigmatizing or pathologizing professional and personal challenges. In this episode, Adriana and Erika simulate a therapy session, so you could see the great benefits of Narrative Therapy that Erika has been offering to Latina women and employees.    

This episode is part of our mental health and leveling up series.  Dr. Abby Medcalf talks about how to start creating connections to begin building lasting relationships to succeed personally and professionally. Learn more about her work and connect with her: https://abbymedcalf.com/

Erika is a bilingual and bicultural Mental Health Specialist (LCSW) with 10 years of outpatient experience working with diverse individuals and families in of race/ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, and mental/dual diagnoses. Learn  how she works with Lstinx in Silicon Valley through her work at Stanford Health Care. https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikagarciarangellcsw/

Dr. Palacios s us again to talk about how she works with entrepreneurs who are exhibiting tremendous amounts of stress and anxiety.  She discusses strategies in her Stress Management Program and how entrepreneurs benefit from identifying stressors which are sometimes induced by cultural expectations in our community.  You can connect with Dr. Palacios to learn about her work or to tap her expertise to you or your company:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-palacios-consulting/ Or email her at: [email protected], or find her on Clubhouse

AJ DeLeon is the founder of Innovare through which he is leading a scaling social enterprise which drives continuous improvement and social innovation within the education ecosystem.  We talk about his journey as a founder and how he and his co-founders are leveraging their diverse skill sets to launch a successful app that helps leaders in education and the nonprofit sector use data strategically to combine usually disparate systems into one single dashboard to guide decision-making in schools and school districts.\r\n https://innovaresip.com/\r\n

Monica Black is the founder of Function, an investor syndicate connecting South Florida\'s private wealth community with early stage technology, investment opportunities across the world. We talk about her journey into VC and why she decided to relocate to Miami before other VCs made the move there.  She talks about how and why she decided to create a syndicate, how investors can and how founders can fundraise from syndicates. \r\n https://function.vc/\r\n Twitter: @monicasblack\r\n

Lynda Ruiz grew up in a small farming community in California’s Central Valley.  As the daughter of educators, she learned from her dad about the importance of learning to code and pursued the STEM path.  We talk about her growth as a software engineer and how she has overcome some challenges as a Latina by ing communities such as Techqueria and also becoming a role model to my underrepresented youth in rural communities. \r\n https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndarubyruiz/\r\n https://techqueria.org/\r\n https://keeptruckin.com/\r\n