My journey to Chingona Ventures
My journey as an investor
At the age of 16, I made my first investments in the public markets: General Electric, Nissan and Target. I chose General Electric because of its diversified revenue base, Nissan because it was about to launch its first all-electric vehicle and Target because of its brand. It was not until later that I realized that as a first-generation Latina, it was a rarity for someone like me to know about the stock market, much less to have the opportunity to invest at such a young age.
I pursued my passion for investing and launched my career in investment banking because I was interested in understanding how securities are created and valued. Thereafter, I joined a large media company and serendipitously found an opportunity to work on the beginnings of a corporate venture team. I transitioned from the public markets to the private markets and quickly learned these two types of markets were worlds away; assessing potential investments in each required separate skills and knowledge of distinctive frameworks. Private investing, I realized, was the next step in the natural evolution of my investor journey. For this reason, I leaned hard into venture, interning for Kapor Capital, Tensility Ventures and OCA Ventures, and helped build early-stage companies.
Path to Chingona Ventures
In 2018 Jorge, former investor and now founder of Brave Credit, recommended I speak to Samara. I met Samara when she was a Principal at MATH Venture Partners. For me, Samara stood out because she was the only Latina in the Midwest, which is not surprising since Latinxs comprise only 3% of investment partners in the U.S. We also share a similar background: first generation, immigrant women with an unwavering determination to succeed. Perhaps more compelling, however, was that Samara was fsuccessfully doing what few before her had been able to accomplish; she was creating a supportive community and building bridges between entrepreneurs and investors. Seeing Samara think and execute outside the box only built my conviction that she was bringing a fresh and new perspective to Chicago’s ecosystem. A few months after meeting Samara, she shared that she was launching Chingona Ventures. I thought the name was genius — there could not have been a more perfect illustration of Samara and the type of founder she envisioned supporting.
Fast forward 2 years after launch. Chingona Ventures was investing in various groundbreaking startups at an amazing pace of roughly 1 investment per month. When an opportunity to join the fund as a Chief of Staff / Investor arose, a role that would allow me to flex my investing and operation chops, I jumped at the opportunity.
Why did I decide to join Chingona Ventures? Because I wanted to be a part of the “badass” fund redefining the Venture ecosystem in the following ways:
- Transparency: Transparency is at the core of how we engage and show respect for Founders. To this end, we provide all founders with a document outlining the investment process, and make best efforts to provide succinct feedback when the opportunity isn’t right for us.
- Structure: Internal frameworks & processes at Chingona Ventures create scalability and reduce bias in our decision making process.
- Community: An eye towards “we” means we truly partner with our Founders. Their success is our success as we try to achieve the best possible outcome. We work very closely with our founders particularly at the pre-seed stage where they need help in launching products, building teams, signing up their first customer and eventually raising their next round of funding.
As I look to the not so distant future, and think about launching my own fund or becoming a partner, the experience I am building at Chingona is invaluable. I have a hand in most things from shaping the fund model; to delivering the LP quarterly report; to creating and implementing the frameworks through which we evaluate investments; all while leading my own deals to ultimately develop a track record.
I’m incredibly excited and grateful to be part of a firm that is setting the standard for what it means to create a founder-centric experience that places radical transparency at the forefront of every deal. We hope to be a torch bearer for reimagining venture capital and creating an environment where founders feel confident as they navigate the earliest stages of raising capital.
