Investing in Underrepresented Founders with Carmen Palafox

How Women Inspire: Invest, Lead, Give

US Census population predictions indicate that by the year 2045, white Americans will make up less than 50% of the US population. While we see this shift in population, that is far from the case when it comes to venture funding. There is a massive massive imbalance in the amount of capital that is going to minority and underrepresented founders. Carmen Palafox is here today to talk about how we can correct this imbalance and her work with 2045 Venture. This week’s episode 83 of How Women Inspire Podcast is about investing in underrepresented founders!

In this episode of How Women Inspire Podcast, Carmen Palafox is sharing the importance of understanding the founders you invest with and actionable steps you can take right now to address the funding imbalance in venture capital.

Carmen Palafox has over 20 years of experience in finance, and an established record of investing across industries including Climate tech, Fintech, Health tech, and consumer. Carmen is the founding partner at 2045 Ventures, a partner at MiLA Capital, and a venture partner at How Women Invest. She is also an Adjunct Professor teaching venture capital at USC Marshall School of Business. Prior to venture capital, she was Vice President at Dimensional Fund Advisors where she scaled investment operations going from $75 Billion AUM to $300 Billion AUM.

Some of the talking points Julie and Carmen go over in this episode include:

• Carmen’s journey from traditional finance to venture investing.
• Addressing funding imbalance for underrepresented founders to bring economic empowerment.
• The importance of understanding founder motivation and how best to support the founders in which you invest.
• The benefits of investing in early-stage or day-zero companies.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!

Learn more about How Women Inspire at https://www.howwomenlead.com/podcast

CONNECT WITH CARMEN PALAFOX:

LinkedIn

X (formerly Twitter)

2045 Ventures

CONNECT WITH JULIE CASTRO ABRAMS:

LinkedIn - Julie

How Women Lead

How Women Invest

How Women Give

Instagram - HWL

LinkedIn - HWL

Facebook - HWL

פרקים

1. Investing in Underrepresented Founders with Carmen Palafox (00:00:00)

2. Venture capital, entrepreneurship, and leadership. (00:03:52)

3. Investing in underrepresented founders and immigrant entrepreneurs. (00:08:33)

4. Values-based investing and early-stage company evaluation. (00:12:28)

5. Investing in climate tech and supporting underrepresented founders. (00:15:52)