The J Curve with Veronica Serra, Founding Partner at Innova Capital: Five Big Ideas

Veronica Serra⁠, Founding Partner at Brazilian VC growth fund ⁠Innova Capital⁠⁠, whose current investments include ⁠Semantix AI⁠ and ⁠Clearsale⁠. Veronica is a former board member and investor of ⁠Mercado Libre⁠ and ⁠Movile⁠-⁠iFood⁠ and current board member of ⁠Endeavor Global⁠ and Harvard Business School Latam Advisory Board.

In 2012 Veronica started the first $160m VC growth fund in Brazil, based on the most impressive prior investment traction. The three pillars of Veronica’s investment strategy are

1️⃣ Investing at a very reasonable price at the post-breakeven companies

2️⃣ Strong team of founders capable of attracting the best talents

3️⃣ Focus on the sectors that are growing and in which Innova has a breadth of experience

The huge part of our conversation was Endeavor Global and how it grew to become the most important entrepreneurial network in Latin America and globally. Below are the three mind blowing facts about Endeavor you have to know:

✅ Endeavor has selected, supported, and invested in more than 2,400 founders across 42 markets in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the United States

✅ 83 out of 3000+ entrepreneurs (or less than 3%) become Endeavor Entrepreneurs as a result of a challenging six stages evaluation process. To put things in perspective, the acceptance rate is lower than that of Stanford GSB 🤯 (which is the lowest in business schools world)

✅ The financial engine of Endeavor’s self sustainable model is Endeavor Catalyst, a rules-based fund that co-invests in companies led by Endeavor Entrepreneurs. Since its inception in 2012 Endeavor Catalyst made 280+ investments, exited 21+ companies (including 11 IPOs) and has $0.5B+ assets under management  

Here are FIVE big ideas from our conversation with Veronica 🧐💡👇🏻:

1. The business is a consequence. It’s really the entrepreneur that you invest in

   You have to put yourself in the shoes of the entrepreneur and understand their motivations and passions, and connect on personal level. Financial numbers and performance data comes after

2. Discipline and patience are the qualities that define a great VC investor

   To find the right deal, one needs to be patient and not succumb to the pressure to invest. Post-investment, one needs to be patient to stay in the deal and not to be forced to exit because of the outside pressure

3. Today is the perfect time to invest in Brazil’s tech and experienced emerging market investors have a solid edge 💪🏻 🇧🇷

   Huge market with tons of inefficiencies; more entrepreneurial talent than ever before; huge amount of dry powder; less competition & lower valuations as ‘tourist capital’ left the market

4. What makes great founders is their ability to attract the best talents
   From Movile - iFood to Mercado Libre it's about the founders' ability to spot the best people, tell the most inspiring story and align everybody's interests around the long-term goals 🦸‍♂️

5. Artificial Intelligence will completely transform the future of businesses and industries 🧠

   Some of the sectors Veronica and Innova are especially excited about are: financial services, logistics, agriculture, healthcare and AI audit software

Veronica’s book recommendation is John Doerr’s Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs 

You can watch the interview on YouTube here

Listen to the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts

If you want to learn more about Endeavor, read their 2022 impact report

Thanks for reading,

Olga