Wallet Max Planet Positive Podcast with Investor Ashley Ryder

Join Bhuva Shakti, Founder & CEO at Wallet Max, as she speaks with female investors looking to leverage inclusion and impact without compromising growth of investments.

​​​This month her guest is Ashley Ryder, a Partner at VamosVentures, a venture capital fund investing in diverse teams across Health & Wellness, FinTech, Future of Work, and Sustainability.

​About Ashley Ryder:
​​​Ashley Ryder is a Partner at VamosVentures. She started her career at Morgan Stanley in Capital Markets and moved into strategic roles at YC startup Shoptiques.com (now Material Retail), Saks Fifth Avenue, and Estee Lauder focused on the intersection of the consumer and technology verticals. She was previously an investor at Brand Foundry Ventures, Founders Factory, and Dorm Room Fund across Commerce, Health & Wellness, and FinTech. Ashley holds a BA from Brown University and an MBA from MIT Sloan.

​VamosVentures is a venture capital fund investing in diverse teams across Health & Wellness, FinTech, Future of Work, and Sustainability. The fund does Pre-Seed to Series A deals with $500K-$2M checks.

​About Wallet Max:
​Wallet Max is an inclusive global community of corporate executives and venture capitalists with a mission to expand fundraising access for high-growth startups in the technology, AI, fintech, and climate sustainability sectors.

With more than 10 investments directly in impact entrepreneurs thus far, Wallet Max’s network of 1,000 innovators and 60 partners regularly meet in person and virtually throughout the year to mutually exchange connections and drive collective action. Wallet Max ecosystem of events and initiatives are prominent during the New York Fintech Week, the New York Tech Week, and the New York Climate Week every year.

Wallet Max's Planet Positive Podcast is a monthly interview with female investors driving impact globally. Aligned with our mission to challenge the status quo, we showcase personal and professional journeys of diverse investors (Angels, VCs, PEs, Family Office, Corporate Venture) looking to leverage inclusion and impact without compromising growth of investments. Supporting sustainable innovations is good for people's wellbeing, planet survival, and financial profits.

​​About Bhuva Shakti:
Bhuva Shakti (she/her) is the visionary founder and CEO driving sustainable innovation at Wallet Max, a global community of executive women and venture capital investors with a mission to expand fundraising access for high-growth sustainable startups. With an MBA from Columbia University in New York and as a senior executive director on Wall Street for three decades, Bhuva has managed diverse financial portfolios and launched several digital transformation products for investment banks, capital markets, and payment networks.

​​Bhuva’s leadership and risk governance oversight, during the global financial crisis and the pandemic, was pivotal for the success of regulatory compliance and mergers acquisitions at the world's top banks and credit rating institutions. Bhuva is a board director and fractional C-Suite advisor for social impact businesses, and a keynote speaker advancing economic inclusion and climate-fintech partnerships.

​​Bhuva is the USA country director for World Business Angels Investment Forum and the Chief Ethics & Culture Officer for Women in AI worldwide. She leads the fundraising strategy and product operations for market expansion and manages investor relations throughout the diligence and investment. Bhuva is the founder of Bhuva’s Impact Global that provides board advisory services and enterprise risk management for public and private corporations.

Transcript

Bhuva:

Hi, everyone.

Welcome to the April edition of WalletMax Planet Positive podcast, as we get into the second quarter of 2025, after a rocky Q1. I'm Bhuva Shakti, based in New York, and the founder of WalletMax. We are a global community of startups, investors, and more importantly, executives that are focused on increasing fundraising access for women, especially in the climate tech, sustainability, fintech, deep tech, and AI sectors. We interview one impact investor every month for our podcast to share their background and what differentiates them from the crowd in terms of prioritizing impact along with profits and planet. We deep dive into their personal and professional journey and their mission to uplift.

[00:00:48.08] 
Today, we are speaking with Ashley, a long-term investor and a big supporter of diverse teams and initiatives. Ashley is a partner at VamosVentures, a venture capital fund investing in founders across Health and Wellness, Fintech, Future of Work, and Sustainability. Ashley was previously an investor at Brand Foundry Ventures, Founders Factory, and Dorm Room Fund across Commerce, Health and Wellness, and Fintech.

[00:01:15.19] 
Let me now hand over to Ashley and invite her to say a few words about her background and career path. Over to you, Ashley. Thank you so much for the time.

Ashley:
Again, thank you for this podcast. It's great to focus on impact. That is what we care about at VamosVentures, so I'm really happy to be here. Just really quickly, my background has a lot of zigzags, and I think you find that a lot of investors have a lot of zigzags in their career. It's what makes the venture capital space so interesting.

[00:01:44.16] 
I graduated from Brown. I thought I wanted to be a lawyer or investment banker while I was at Brown because I came from a nontraditional background. My mom worked at the United States Postal Service as a clerk. My father was a building porter around New York City. My mom's Puerto Rican, my dad's Turkish immigrant. And so they always pushed going into finance or going into law.

 [00:02:12.17] 
But at Brown, I got very involved in everything entrepreneurial and led  the Brown entrepreneurship program. I founded an organization on campus called Lady Launchers, really promoting women entrepreneurship. But because they really pushed that brand name on my resume after school,I went to work at Morgan Stanley. And it was a really wonderful experience, actually, as a stepping stone in my career.I was on a capital markets desk covering consumer and tech public equities.I learned about markets. I learned about storytelling.But again, that entrepreneurial bug kept coming, it was still in me.And after a few years at Morgan Stanley, I went to join a Y Combinator e-commerce startup called Shoptiques.com.I did everything there from pounding the phones to sell the product, looking at investor decks and whatnot and thinking about how best to promote the product.

[00:03:06.13] 
And what it was, was building digital storefronts for mom and pop boutiques. These were the early days of what came to be as everyone was getting into commerce and trying to sell online, even small and medium-sized businesses and shops. And so they were at the forefront of it. And then after that, I got tapped on the shoulder to buy and build technology, and think about technological strategy at Estee Lauder and Saks Fifth Avenue, meeting the consumers where they were at with technology.

[00:03:38.03] 
So virtual beauty, buy online, pick up in-store, omnichannel initiatives. So I think my career always spanned across technology, finance, strategy. And then only when I got to business school at MIT Sloan was when I started thinking, well, what's the mix of all these different things? And that's when I started to think about investing. And so I worked at a few different funds, but realized, going back to the impact piece, that a lot of entrepreneurs weren't getting funded. And a lot of these entrepreneurs had backgrounds similar to mine, right?

[00:04:12.09] 
They were Latina, immigrant, women. And the light on my head, the light on my head went off. And I said, I really want to be in a capital allocator seat where I could allocate capital to these founders that are often overlooked. It's a really big business opportunity. And so I met Marcos Gonzales, he's the founder and managing partner of VamosVentures, and the rest is history. I've been there ever since, pushing this effort. What Vamos really cares about, going back to what we were talking about earlier, is impact and returns. We're true believers in that you could have both at the same time. Impact to us means many different things.

[00:04:50.07] 
Diversity is a pretty broad definition for us. It's pretty much anyone who's overlooked and underserved by traditional venture capital dollars. When we invest, we have to have at least one founder with that ownership, a significant amount of ownership who's on the founding team. Then also it trickles down to different things like job creation. How many third-party contractors are you hiring who identify as diverse?

[00:05:13.14] 
Health outcomes, thinking about sustainability outcomes. We really are true believers in that you could build a billion-dollar tech business, but also show for these types of metrics. I'm really passionate about it, and that's what I spend a lot of my time on, even outside of VamosVentures.

Bhuva Shakti
No, that's true. I've had a long career on Wall Street myself in the investment backing sector, which is where I landed as an issuer. But then over time,I also realized that there are overlooked sectors, but then I don't want to run a non-profit. Why should prioritizing impact and inclusion and sustainability be a non-profit?

[00:05:52.01] 
My goal is to also talk to investors like yourself to prove to the world that impact can coexist with the profits and we can be inclusive. That's a great mission that you have. Now, what's your secret sauce?

[00:06:07.07] 
What's your unique qualification or passion that has caused you to get into specifically impact and profit-oriented ventures? What's a pivotal moment in your life that led you here?

Ashley
Oh, my gosh. There were so many, but going way back when, even before I got into Brown and that entrepreneurial journey started for me. I used to remember when I was a little girl, my dad, in particular, used to sit me down and make me read the Wall Street Journal and learn about all these tech companies and big businesses. And then he used to also sit me down and say, Hey, watch the show on CNBC called The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. And all of these different founders, whether they were high-flying tech founders to lifestyle founders, it was all about starting something to accomplish the American Dream.

[00:07:00.05] 
And I remember listening to all those stories and being so inspired and saying, You know what? Being from the background that I am, things are possible. And so that's why I think the power of storytelling and having that storytelling happen so early on to say and have people believe that these paths are realistic for them and that they can go out and get that American dream, right?

[00:07:23.21] 
It is really important. So that was a really pivotal moment or moments, in my life, spending time with my dad thinking about that type of stuff and learning. I would say the secret sauce is, and it had to be this way since I was younger, is scrappiness and resourcefulness. When I was in high school, I was part of the first graduating class in my high school. It was a CSI high school for international studies, 80 kids in my class. I was like, Let me take a leap and do this thing.

[00:07:50.16] 
Being part of the first graduating class, I had to figure out how to apply to college and how to even think about the college application process myself. But I did it. I sought out mentors, I sought out people who went to the schools that I wanted to go to to learn about their journeys.

[00:08:06.00] 
Going back to trying to get into venture, the scrappiness came back with doing the job before I got the job. And so I would reach out to founders and learn about their stories. I would say, Hey, I have a finance background. I'm happy to help you with your model. I've seen a couple of decks before. I'm happy to think about your fundraising strategy and review your deck.

[00:08:25.20] 
And that was really value add to them being early stage founders. And that really helped me to provide a bunch of examples when I was talking to venture capitalists, trying to recruit as I was graduating. So it is that resourcefulness and scrappiness, and especially at an emerging fund, you have to be doing both. You have to invest, but you're also building, you're firm building, you're fund building, you're thinking about strategy, you're thinking about portfolio allocation. And so a lot of it's building and investing at the same time. And that's where the resourcefulness and scrappiness come in handy.

Bhuva
Well, totally agreed, especially when you're talking to an investor from a founder perspective. If they are aware of the nitty-gritty of everything, then you are a founder who's comfortable to work with that investor, or else most of your time is spent in explaining to the investor what and how, because if they are coming from a finance background. So that's good to have a wide variety of skills. And also, I think you're going to learn by doing so, helping other founders is really key in also establishing your career.

[00:09:34.11] 
So totally agree with those. I've seen those examples so many times in life, and those are successful investors and also founder investors. It is great in that scenario. But one question I want to follow up there. Why do you think venture capital is the sector for you to make a difference in investing in diverse teams or founders?

[00:09:56.16] 
Why not something else?

[00:09:58.00] 
Why specifically venture capital?

Ashley
I think what excites me, and we're going through a crazy time in the market right now with the tariffs and just a bunch of things that happened recently, I think that there's always going to be tech innovation. Technology is always going to be there. It's always going to advance society, sometimes in really great ways and other times in really scary ways, but it'll always be there. I think this focus on diverse founders in the technological setting in venture capital is a largely untapped opportunity. I think about the Latino, Latinx population in the United States in particular.

[00:10:42.10] 
There's never been… It used to be several years ago that STEM degree attainment, for example, was in the low single digits. Now it's in the double digits. More people are starting to get, more diverse folks are starting to get interested in STEM and building technology. Population growth is something to notice, in that the Latino population is going to be 30% plus of the population in the United States in a few short years. There are going to be a bunch of founders in that population. These founders hold trillions of dollars of spending and buying power.

[00:11:19.07] 
But only less than 2% of Venture Capital dollars goes to these founders. And so there's a really interesting and unfortunate, I think, disconnect, but that creates a market opportunity. It's similar to public markets. There's a really interesting opportunity that no one else sees, and that's how a hedge fund makes a lot of money.

[00:11:41.11] 
I think in Venture Capital, you have the same thing, but with this demographic focus. Also, returns in that there's a bunch of stats out there that diverse founding teams deliver better returns. That could be, again, in the public market setting. That could be in the private market setting.

[00:11:57.04] 
I think, I forget who exactly, It might have been McKinsey that delivered this report, but it's about four times better of a return than more traditional founders. And the last thing is, these founders are creating a positive feedback loop. And this is something that VamosVentures is really, and myself, are really excited about. When you back founders, diverse or not, what's happening is, if they're successful and you're supporting them along the way and they have this major exit, a lot of that money and wealth and power then get funneled back into the communities that they're from or that they care about.

[00:12:39.14] 
And so it's such a wonderful life cycle of Ashley, this high-flying tech founder, she sold her company for millions of dollars. She's now sitting on a bunch of wealth that can then get distributed to funding STEM degree programs for diverse founders, to investing in five other diverse founders in their technological journeys and in their startup journeys.

[00:13:02.07] 
It could go to educating young women on what is a Venture Capital job. And so that is why I think the venture capital opportunity, the diverse opportunity in venture capital and startups is so important and why it will create a lot of wealth,

Bhuva
I think, for a lot of people. Yeah, no, definitely. So, a couple of things come to my mind. Number one, like you said, less than 2% capital goes to women, and especially women of color, underrepresented communities, it's much less. And after the pandemic, and that was the trend before the pandemic, and it has not improved after the pandemic, it's been five years now.

[00:13:41.11] 
And secondly, also, you rightly said where trillions of dollars in wealth is going to be transferred to the next generation of women in the next decade. That's about, I think, $80 trillion plus. The next generation is going to be mostly women, and they are going to be the decision makers. By default, they chose impact and inclusion, which means they focus is the solution itself rather than focusing on other attributes. You're right with the report where they do comprehensive due diligence.

[00:14:14.06] 
Women typically are more proactive in risk management and also doing comprehensive diligence, which essentially puts them into a better-performing ventures. So totally agreed on all those fronts. With these opportunities, is there ahead of us. Where do you see the challenges? I'd like to see more so the geographical focus area. You're based in New York, let's say between New York, San Francisco, and within the US sectors, as well as rest of the world.

[00:14:44.10] 
Let's consider UK, Europe, and rest of the world. With so many opportunities there, we still have quite a lot of challenges. Where do you see the most challenge for the opportunities we see across these two sectors of markets, US and non-US?

Ashley

I think it's building community and a support system for these entrepreneurs. I'll never forget about two years ago when we first really started hosting events and getting out there, it might have been two or three years ago in these different ecosystems, there was an event that we hosted for about 30 Latino founders in New York. We got there and everyone's like, well, we don't know each other. How do we not know New York's a big place, right? New York's a big place. It could very well be that they did not know each other. But it was so...and these were high-flying, high-profile tech founders. I was so curious why they've never gotten together or knew each other or talked to each other.

[00:15:43.21] 
I think that is a big opportunity and it's a big challenge. It's getting to know everyone in the space. It's getting to everyone who also cares about this, everyone who identifies. So there's different layers to that. And then bring them in one room to knowledge share, to help to each other, to say, Hey, that investor is a really great investor. That investor you might want to avoid, or I built my company this way. You might want to have these considerations as you build your company. And so it's that getting together and knowledge sharing. And that happens in the US, and that happens, I think, globally in that there's only so much time in the day as an investor or as a person to put on a bunch of events. But I think if we have different stakeholders, and I don't just mean in the private sector, I mean in the public sector, worrying and caring about these types of initiatives and getting folks together to story tell, to knowledge share, I think we'd be in a really great place.

[00:16:38.12] 
I think it'll advance a lot of conversations. And that's the other thing, too. I think there needs to be more collaboration between private and public sector. I think about a lot of the great work that the state of New Jersey is doing in bringing private companies and a lot of the government entities together to say, Hey, we want to make New Jersey as a state an innovation hub We want all the great biotech to come out of this. We want all of the great fintech to come out of this state. We want to make sure that we're looking at areas that other VCs or other investors, other stakeholders, aren't looking. And that doesn't mean a Jersey City or Hoboken, really popular places in Jersey, but that may mean going to the outskirts and seeing what tech innovations are happening there, or going to outside of Rutgers University to see what talent is coming out of these types of schools in New Jersey.

[00:17:30.01] 
And so it's a wonderful example of maybe a more nontraditional venture and startup ecosystem really coming together to help founders or help people, maybe not even thinking about companies, start thinking about, Hey, I want to build a big tech business, or I want to work at a startup, or I want to become an investor. So I think those are the two challenges. It's community and ecosystem building and constantly pushing to that and supporting people who are interested in this stuff. And the second thing is public and private coming together to encourage  and help with innovation.

Bhuva
That's perfect.

[00:18:04.08] 
Last Thursday, I was at an event in New York City where they were bringing founders and investors together. It's a mix of four sectors. There were 20 founders and 20 investors. Hardly two of them knew each other, and all of us are in New York City for so long. So very much agreed with that point. Even though we are in the same location, we don't know each other quite a lot. It's good to meet each other as a community. But then you mentioned public-private partnership. Let us say up until last year, there was heavy emphasis on that. We trusted that we had no issues that there will be a private-public partnership or not because we knew it's going to happen because large-scale investments are going to scale only with the support of private and public sector coming together and also with the support of the government sector, like you mentioned in New Jersey.

[00:18:56.17] 
But then the current political landscape within US and globally, you can see a lot of big corporations and even private investors are shifting priorities, at least in the public-facing world. I don't know what's happening in the private internal organization. But within this situation, why do you think investing in fintech, deep tech, diversity is important for the long term?

[00:19:18.22] 
We will have challenges in public-private partnerships. We are going to have a very rocky economical system, at least in the near term. Do you still believe investing in fintech, deep tech, diversity, and other sectors is important today for the long term?

Ashley
Absolutely. Again, going back to it being a big business opportunity, that's a given. I think by 2045, the US will be a majority-minority country. Again, if you're not paying attention to these demographic shifts, you're going to miss the boat with investing. The industries that you mentioned are evolving rapidly. If you don't have diverse thought, diverse opinion, a diverse way of building those types of businesses, AI, fintech, healthcare, climate, you're going to miss the boat.

[00:20:11.04] 
I think about, for example, talking tactically, there are so many people of color living next to Superfund sites in the United States. They are firsthand experiencing what pollution and being detrimental to the environment can...

[00:20:29.08] 
How it can affect households, and health, and wellness. Those people are very informed as to how they want a better world, and better future, and more sustainable, and better climate. Those are the builders that I would want to put my money behind because they have that lived experience.

[00:20:48.00] 
I think, yes, it's still very important across all those key areas. And diversity spans not only with demographic and background, but again, thought, your lived experience, maybe your work experience, how you've had your own journey. I think that's what makes the space so beautiful is that you're investing in individuals that have experienced things in their lives that made them so passionate to be crazy enough to go out and build something.

[00:21:16.15] 
These are all the areas that we're focused on.

[00:21:19.18] 
At Vamos, when you mentioned earlier, we do healthcare, fintech, future of work climate It's because, yes, we see that these markets, they have a lot of white space. They're extremely fragmented. A lot of them have archaic solutions, and so that's where the tech innovation is really exciting to us. But there are also spaces in which individuals can create immense impact.

[00:21:41.23] 
In health care, for example, We said very expensive space. The system is broken in the United States. That's given. We know that there could be tech innovation that helps with that. But going layers deeper, how do we focus on communities that are often overlooked and underserved in health care?

[00:22:00.24] 
We started noticing that for the Latino population, for example, one in two Latinos over the course of their lifetime will develop diabetes. There's a huge underinsured and uninsured problem in the United States with communities of color. So how do we invest in solutions that create more affordable accessible health care and more culturally competent health care, given that there's a lot of, again, people of color with terrible health care experiences to build really big businesses that help millions of Americans and growing.

[00:22:33.18] 
So there are elements of, and I can get into more Fintech in some of our other areas, but just as an example with health care, again, big space, extremely fragmented, very expensive, trickled down to millions of people and communities of color that we could build better health care for through tech innovation.

Bhuva
That's totally true.

[00:22:53.17] 
Like you mentioned, climate and sustainability, it's not about the planet. People's health and well-being is being affected. So once you are not able to take care of people on the planet, what's the point of profits is what I keep telling.

[00:23:08.09] 
You rightly mentioned, so when it comes to 2045, we are going to be a majority-minority population, and bringing diverse thoughts are critical. But then with so many priorities and opportunities going on, what are some focused areas that you personally invest or VamosVentures is personally invested in?

[00:23:34.17] 
How has success been for you?

[00:23:36.21] 
Without sharing sensitive information, is there any case study or examples of companies that have at least been on the trajectory of this systemic change.

Ashley
Yeah.

[00:23:48.16] 
Well, we have really great numbers to support our portfolio, and a lot of subsequent rounds that they raised have mostly been up rounds. And that comes to show you that, again, and this investing and impacting returns thesis is really working out. And we're building a bigger fund.

[00:24:05.12] 
We're moving from fund one to fund two now to continue to provide that thesis. Our pipeline is growing 70% plus year over year. So the demand is there and the founders are there. I look at our health care thesis, just going back to it, and chronic conditions and more affordable and accessible health care are part of the verticals in health care. And so we invested in a company called Culina Health. They're tele-nutrition platform that puts registered dietitians at the center of care.

[00:24:34.15] 
And what Culina Health is doing is they're thinking about more culturally competent care. And so a lot of the registered dietitians, RDs, come from backgrounds that are thinking about it's not just a rich person who cares about their relationship with food.

[00:24:51.23] 
It is a Latino who wants to eat rice and beans, who doesn't know how to lose weight. And so that cultural competency is really important at the center of this. They're doing extremely, extremely well. They're growing exponentially. And they're one of the only, I think, the only tele-nutrition platform with a payer on their cap table. And they track impact metrics. For those interested who are listening, you're going to go to culinahealth.com and look at their impact report.

[00:25:20.20] 
They do an impact report every year on a lot of their health outcomes. I'd pay attention to that. Another company in the portfolio, because we have Fintech as well and more better wealth generation, more financial wellness, empowering both small and medium-sized businesses to build and grow and create wealth, but also individuals.

[00:25:43.01] 
Ocho, that provides more affordable car insurance. It's zero down payment, credit score building. You have a bunch of coverage options. There's no hidden fees. It is focused on Latino and diverse communities and speaking to them in a more culturally competent manner. James is a deep operator. He's a multiple times founder. One of his companies went public. He knows this space, and he loves building with that cultural angle in the fintech space.

[00:26:13.09] 
Backing these founders both James and Vanessa [Rissetto] and Tamar [Samuels] at Culina, who are like, Hey, these were our lived experiences. We get these communities. We want to build with them in mind. That's something really important at Vamos. Those are two examples of some companies in our Healthcare and Fintech thesis. And there's a lot more that we're going to look at now that we're building a bigger fund.

Bhuva
That's really perfect because I'm from a community of color as well. So you can't have a one size fits all nutrition recommendation, you have to be culturally sensitive and match the lifestyle. It's long-standing. You can't just have a one-time effect and then leave it there.

[00:26:56.13] 
You rightly mentioned the impact matrix and impact report. I talk to quite a few founders and investors myself around that. If you have financial metrics, you should have a second projection on a slide, definitely before the appendix section of the deck as to how it is going to impact.

[00:27:15.15] 
Some investors I've seen that, Okay, so put the impact slides in the appendix. That's not important. I need to focus on the financial projection. Those are not thinking long term and also sustainable in terms of people and because it's going to impact the bottom line if you take care of it.

[00:27:33.19] 
You rightly also mentioned financial wellness. Fintech may not be just developing a tech product and managing money, but inclusion and wellness, taking care of people is part of a Fintech revolution as well. I'm very well aligned with those. In terms of impact metrics, we want to a little bit discuss on that.

[00:27:54.22] 
Do you have a standard in terms of from your fund recommend to your startup as to how they should potentially track or report?

[00:28:04.16] 
Or is that something the startups come up with?

[00:28:07.02] 
Do you advise them around that?

[00:28:09.04] 
Is there a standard for your fund itself that you should track that for every startup in your portfolio?

Ashley
We publish, and this is only internal. I wish I could share because it's such a great report, but it's only for our LPs. We do have a impact report that we publish annually. What we send to the startups is a simple Excel tracking things like diversity of board, diversity of employees, diversity of third-party contractors.

[00:28:37.04] 
What else do we do? Geographic diversity in terms of customers. Are you serving the Coast? Or are you going between and taking a look at and serving communities that are overlooked, geographies that are overlooked?

[00:28:54.23] 
Then we think about job creation as well, which I think is a wonderful stat to just teach any startup to track, right?

[00:29:01.14] 
How many jobs are you creating that are getting filled by women, people of color, right? And so we report on all these metrics. Now, what this next iteration of VamosVentures impact reporting will look like, because now we have more longitudinal data is health outcomes and other types of outcomes that get very granular and specific as to how are the products affecting general society and these things that we care about.

[00:29:27.18] 
But as of now, those are the types of metrics that we track. We do say when a company is onboarded, and even before a company is onboarded, hey, these impact metrics are really important, not only to the fund, but to our different stakeholders. And naturally, I can't name a case of one of our companies being like, That's not important to me. I'm not going to report on it.

[00:29:47.06] 
Even the larger companies and later stage companies that we have in the portfolio make the extra effort to report these metrics. And by the way, it's all self-reported. We can't require that someone asks about a person's identity, but it's all self-reported, self-directed.

[00:30:03.05] 
But it's a really wonderful conversation that we have with our portfolio companies, because to your point, sometimes it brings out, Hey, I realized that I'm not hiring enough women at the company. And so think about ways to, Hey [inaudible] can you help me try to source both nontechnical and technical talent from amazing women communities?

[00:30:23.14] 
And that's where we can come in and step in as a value add. I'm proud to stay on the job creation front. Our companies and our portfolio created over 900 jobs, I think 60% plus of which were filled by diverse talent. And so that's one of our secret sauces as well. It's pooling from different communities where these companies can say, I'm recruiting amazing and top-tier diverse talent.

Bhuva
That's perfect because we have to start somewhere. It may not be a perfect impact report, but then the goal is to get started somewhere. Also, many investors and founders think you have to think of a brand new strategy, think of a new system to start doing this in a year or two, but then you can start small with the data you already have and then build on top of it. That's a great thing that you encourage your founders to do that.

[00:31:13.01] 
With all this financial and impact metrics happening, so many challenges, but you also see opportunities, you have success in investing. But there are regulations that have to be considered. You are in a heavily regulated sector, for example, fintech, healthcare, and so on and so forth.

[00:31:29.17] 
How do you balance regulations with these?

[00:31:31.21] 
Do they help or hurt your thesis?

[00:31:36.04] 
What can you share about that?

Ashley
We always have a pulse on what's going on in our different industries. The way that we approach it at VamosVentures is everyone's a generalist at the core, but we each have our specific focus areas.

[00:31:49.08] 
This is where I think, going back to secret sauce of the fund and our value add, being former operators has really helped us because we've all experienced regulation or stuff hitting the fan and being disastrous at the time, but us working through different things.

[00:32:04.24] 
If you're a founder or startup team and you don't hit a roadblock every day, there's something up with that. You have to hit a bunch of roadblocks to build. So this is where the operating experience comes in.

[00:32:17.01] 
We have Andres [Morin] on our team who has been a Fintech operator. He's gone deep into the space. He's built companies and has helped funds really scale up. And so when a Fintech company, for example, says, Hey, there's a new regulation that we don't know how to navigate, Andres [Morin] comes in and given his 30 plus years of experience in the space, says, This is what we've done. This is what we did back in the day or back in my time as a startup, and here's my recommendations.

[00:32:43.05] 
And so we get very granular with our founders and talk through business strategy and these roadblocks. Listen, I think on the regulatory side, and it's happening even in health care, with cuts to Medicaid and federal funding, you just have to be on top of the pulse. You have to be willing to adapt your business model. That's something we look at very carefully with our founders, is prior experience, adapting and pivoting based on the circumstances.

[00:33:12.22] 
We have to do that as a fund, too. In thinking about our thesis and what the current environment and how it affects our thesis areas and specific verticals.

[00:33:21.18] 
Bottom line is we're saying on top of it, we're guiding founders through it. If there's a roadblock that can't be crossed, then that's a tough conversation we have to have of like, Hey, you might want to change your focus to this or pivot to this. Again, it's going back to being adaptable. That's the most important thing.

Bhuva
No, definitely. You may invest in a founder today, but let us say in a year or two, the technology may become obsolete or something else is more critical in terms of the emerging trend and so on and so forth. You're investing predominantly in the founder and the founding team so that they are well positioned to pivot and operate and execute and scale along with you.

[00:34:02.07] 
I think the founder investor fit is really critical also. Now, with this, we've spoken about a lot of things going on, but there should be some emerging trends that you foresee because as an investor, you're always forward-looking, seeing what's coming up the horizon, even though it's not a trend today.

[00:34:21.21] 
What are some emerging trends you are excited about today in your work?

Ashley
I'm spending a lot of time in, because I cover most of the healthcare side, in precision medicine and genomics. I think there's so much potential in knowing a person's makeup from a DNA perspective, from my family history perspective, and then feeding that into care for that person and thinking about things like preventative medicine and health.

[00:34:53.19] 
That's fascinating to me. So I'm spending a lot of time thesis building in that area. I think that thinking about SMB infrastructure and scaling these companies up. We often go back to the stat that one in four businesses in the United States, new businesses, is founded by a Latino.

[00:35:10.09] 
How do we empower those founders to have all the tech stack and solutions that they need to help them function and operationalize their business in appropriate ways with technology. So that's another really important trend. And then we're constantly thinking about in the future of Workspace, how do we empower the gig economy and make sure that they can really scale up their individual businesses as well?

[00:35:37.23] 
And think about things like scheduling, to booking, to financing. Those are areas that I think we're spending more time on, especially in Fund 2. And then on top of that, stating the obvious, how AI is affecting all these spaces and thinking about workflows and automation and sitting on a bunch of data trunks. It's all really fascinating. We're really going deep on all these areas.

Ashley
You are right on trend also because AI is in everything, which means you need not be an AI company to adopt it, or if you don't adopt it, you are left out of the game in a couple of years. It's good to get that focused in every sector. It doesn't matter if it's an AI or a non-AI company.

[00:36:22.09] 
But you also mentioned there's quite a lot of interest and advancement in genomic trends, so that's great as well.  And the gig economy you mentioned, many of them are solopreneurs. You're not going to be building something for someone with a 20 people team or a 250 people team. You're going to be building for one person who's trying to scale. Really great trends.

[00:36:44.12] 
Thanks for sharing that.

[00:36:45.18] 
I want to go a little bit into your fund as well, about VamosVentures. You support pre-seed, seed, and Series A startups, and especially all the sectors we have spoken at the moment are a little bit capital-intensive. How do you balance that, supporting founders in early stage who do not have much traction, but you're also trying to fund a capital intensive project which may not return the benefits within a few years.

Ashley
I think our value add, especially at the earliest stages, is a few different things. It's ecosystem and community, that's one. It's operational expertise, that's two. And then it's introductions. On the ecosystem and community front, we have our founder summit every year.

[00:37:35.05] 
That's when we bring our portfolio companies together. And every year, the founders come away with, that was so awesome that I related to so many founders with similar backgrounds and experiences. It's just a rare opportunity for them because every day they're building and they're in their own little bubble.

[00:37:52.02] 
There's a lot of synergies in our portfolio. Founders in our portfolio reach out to each other all the time being like, Hey, how did you do this or how did you do We have both, again, early stage founders, to your point, who are probably more inexperienced, let's say, in the founding journey.

[00:38:07.08] 
We also have founders who have done it three or four times before at the later stage and then coach these early stage founders. That's one thing. The operational expertise, I mentioned Andres [Morin] and his fintech background.

[00:38:19.17] 
We also have Xavier [Del Rosario] on the team who comes from healthcare operating. I have experience on the founding side. Marcos [Gonzalez] has experience on the founding side. We can talk the language of early stage companies and founders. And the last piece is introductions.

[00:38:35.12] 
That is introducing them to potential customers. That's introducing them to investors at the Series B, C, and D. We develop relationships with folks in the community who not only care about this stuff, but who can help and support and grow our companies. And so at the earliest stages, it is a lot of handholding and being a shoulder to cry on. And sometimes the value add comes from having a really difficult conversation with the founder and bringing them back to reality or them bringing us back to reality.

[00:39:08.09] 
I think that's something that shouldn't be lost at the earliest stages. Yes, it's important to make sure a company and founder is successful to return your fund, but don't forget that human element of it. I think that's where VamosVentures really excels.

Bhuva
I tell everyone, and I'm an angel investor and a venture capital investor myself, so I tell everyone, don't forget the human element, the relationship that you want to build. Especially, then I introduced two of my founders in my portfolio. They come up with something where they can partner together and complement each other and bring something to the market, which I had not thought about.

[00:39:45.13] 
It's good to bring your portfolio once in a while, like the example you gave with the founder summit. Later on, when we wrap up, you can tell us if it's open to public, how can people reach out to join that and all that stuff. But I I just know that we are coming right around time.

[00:40:04.15] 
One quick thing I want to ask about VamosVentures is, what is one unique thing that differentiates you from several other funds?

[00:40:17.12] 
There are a lot of Latina-focused funds, diverse funds, Fintech funds, Future of Work funds, Health funds. What is one thing that differentiates you? And then how can people get in touch with you and VamosVentures to pursue that?

Ashley
Yeah.

[00:40:31.13] 
What differentiates us is we take the approach in thought leadership and our connectivity and partnerships and introductions and ecosystem building. I think that's part of our secret sauce, too.

[00:40:42.16] 
But I think the main thing is we're on your side as a founder. We do have a fiduciary duty to manage capital and make money. But again, going back to that human element, we're friends. We're friends as well, and we get it. And I I think that comes from all of us being from diverse backgrounds, from Latino backgrounds, half of our investment team are women, and we get it.

[00:41:08.15] 
We get all the nuances and struggles that comes with being a diverse founder in this environment and outside of this environment. I think that's what our special sauce is. You can see and talk to any founder in our portfolio, and we have deeper relationships with them, both professionally and personally.

[00:41:26.04] 
How do people get in touch with VamosVentures?

[00:41:28.20] 
Well, we like to make venture capital accessible, and we don't like to be a black hole. So we have on our website a founder's form. If you're a founder, you can apply to be considered for investment at VamosVentures.

[00:41:39.23]
It's a short form, basic information about the company. We like to get connected with people on LinkedIn, so feel free to add any of the investment team on LinkedIn. And then email. I'm just Ashley@vamosventures.com. I'm always happy to chat.

[00:41:52.22] 
My schedule is a little crazy over the next couple of weeks, so don't mind me if I answer. It might take me a little bit, but I always get back to folks. Again, it's just Ashley@vamosventures.com.

Bhuva
Thanks so much, Ashley.

[00:42:05.05] 
And then you mentioned rightly the human element. One of the things I've noticed is once you are connected with the investor, the founders are hesitant because if they share a problem that the company is facing. The founder is thinking that the investor may not be receptive or supportive, but if they are able to share with you the day-to-day challenges beyond just the positive, then it's a good thing for you as an investor because founder is transparent.

[00:42:30.20] 
You can handle problems ahead of the cycle than finding out too late in the game for both of us. That's actually great to know. I'll share all the contact information also when the episode publishes. Is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience before we wrap up?

Ashley
A couple of things.

[00:42:49.20] 
I would say if you're a founder, resiliency in this market is so important. There are going to be many bumps in the road, and this is just one of them. It's a challenging  fundraising environment. It's a challenging environment to build a business, but be adaptable and pivot, as we discussed early on the conversation.

[00:43:07.18] 
If you're an operator and are thinking about what's next or this area of startup and venture really interests you, Again, also be very resilient. It's a hard time for venture recruiting. Funds aren't really as active on the recruiting front, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hoping by the end of this year, more funds would have raised money and are going to hire and be out there more. It's just all call a cycle, right? And if you can ride the waves, there's opportunity with the waves. I guess that's my parting thoughts.

[00:43:38.02] 
And listen, I want to make this world accessible. I want to spend time with folks who are passionate about impact and returns and venture and startups. Consider me a friend and a resource.

Bhuva
Thanks, Ashley. Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:51.02] 
When times are turbulent, the founders, the investors, the operators that ride the wave come out much more stronger and resilient. Just hang in there and continue your mission. Great message. Thanks so much. Thanks for taking time to talk to us. I'll share with our community all your contact information. I hope to stay in touch. Thank you so much.

Ashley
Thank you.. Thank you.