Chingona Ventures’ 5 Year Anniversary
What an amazing 5 years it has been! To celebrate this significant milestone at Chingona Ventures, we wanted to reflect upon all that we have accomplished since Samara Mejia Hernandez started the firm in April of 2019.
Re-visiting the “Why” Behind Chingona Ventures
Five years ago, we embarked on the journey to launch Chingona Ventures — establishing one of the few pre-seed venture capital firms in the Midwest at the time. In 2020, we laid out our vision for the firm in a Medium blog post, A New “Jefa” In Town — Why I Launched Chingona Ventures.
As noted in the article, following several years in the industry, we launched the fund after coming to a crucial realization about the homogeneous makeup of the startups receiving venture capital dollars:
“… Many of the start-ups that get funded look the same — same industries, same business models and same founder backgrounds. There is nothing wrong with that, except that in a frothy venture environment, returns will approach the mean as undifferentiated capital goes to undifferentiated investments.”
We then shared our newfound commitment to backing founders of all backgrounds, stating,
“With Chingona Ventures, [we’ve] made the commitment to take an orthogonal approach to investing, working day and night to find those entrepreneurs who just might do something that matters, but who may not fit the “pattern recognition” (code word: confirmation bias) inherent in the venture industry. This means investing in great entrepreneurs and businesses that may require more than just pattern recognition to see how great they truly might be.”
And, since then, our team has set out to do exactly that.
Staying True to Our Commitment
Since 2019, our team has reviewed over 7,000 cold and warm inbound submissions, averaging 5–6 deals reviewed per day, and invested in 42 different companies. We have continued to make investments in businesses changing the way we learn, work, and live with a particular focus on financial technology, future of work, future of learning, food technology, and health/wellness. Within these sectors, we find opportunity in companies that are positioned in growing markets that coincide with the generational and demographic shifts occurring in the United States. For example, we have a thesis around the Latino Investable Opportunity and have invested in Sigo Seguros, a technology-enabled insurance platform that provides Latino, immigrant, and working-class populations with affordable auto insurance.
Believing in Founders with the “Chingona Factor”
We invest in founders from all backgrounds and are intentional, but not exclusive — and, our portfolio speaks for itself with a 55/45 split between male and female CEOs, and over 60% of these founding CEOs identifying as a racial or ethnic minority.
Most notably, with our fund named after the Spanish term, “Chingona” — meaning “a person who is intelligent, fearless, and gets things done” or, more colloquially, a “boss” or “badass” — we’ve undertaken a mission to back founders with what we call the “Chingona Factor.” The Chingona Factor is what makes someone more than just a founder or entrepreneur; we back founders that are “chingón” leaders with lived experiences that provide unique market perspectives. For example, we invested in Cartwheel, a B2B hybrid delivery management software for restaurants, retail, and courier companies founded by former restaurant operators — Alex Vasilkin, Dan Zamylin, and Magdim Metshin — who initially built the software for their own delivery company that serviced over 300 restaurants in Los Angeles. Similarly, we invested in Betterleave, a bereavement care management platform founded by long-time human resources leader, Cara McCarty Abbott. Cara was inspired to start the company after navigating the bereavement process herself when her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Investing Early and Going Big
Since day one, we have invested in companies at their earliest stages, oftentimes pre-product and pre-revenue. We “go early and go big” with our ability to lead or catalyze a round by writing its first and largest check, and we pride ourselves in having the fearlessness to gain conviction in a founder regardless of the presence of other investors in a round.
Founders recognize our definitive approach, as over the past five years, more than 60% of all inbound submissions were raising pre-seed rounds. The volume of pre-seed deals received has trended upward over time, with 71% of submissions being pre-seed in the fourth quarter of 2023. In addition, over the life of the fund, more than half of companies reviewed have been pre-product, pre-launch, or in the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage.
Growing Our Team Alongside our Fund
Since our founding in 2019, we have successfully raised two funds — $6MM Fund I in 2019 and $53MM Fund II in 2022 — with our second fund making history as the largest-ever fundraise by a sole Latina GP. We are grateful for the support of noteworthy Limited Partners, such as PayPal Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, and the Office of the Illinois State Treasurer’s Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, among others, that have fueled our growth.
As our fund has grown, so has our team. Initially solo-operated by our Founding Partner, Samara Mejia Hernandez, alongside a few part-time MBA interns, today our team now features Lori DeLuca (Chief Financial Officer), Grisel Hernandez (Associate), and Peri Ehlman (Analyst). In addition, we have welcomed over 20 MBA interns from the Kellogg School of Management over the past five years.
…
Cheers to an Incredible 5 Years of Chingona Ventures!
Thank you to our Chingona family for coming along with us on this journey. Whether you’re one of our investors, advisors, founders, or community members, we cannot thank you enough for your continued support. We are excited for all that is to come in 2024 and beyond.
If you’re a founder raising a pre-seed or seed stage round within one of our focus sectors, we’d love to connect! Please fill out this form to be considered.
