NVCA Member Spotlight: Mindset Ventures

Welcome to our Member Spotlight series where we give a profile overview of our many diverse members. For this deep dive, we spoke to the Managing Partners at Mindset Ventures to learn more about their firm.

Tell us about your firm. What makes it different?

Mindset Ventures Managing Partners: Nemer Rahal (Left), Camila Folkmann (Center), and Daniel Ibri (Right)

Mindset Ventures connects entrepreneurs and innovation ecosystems across different geographies. With offices and local teams in the U.S., Israel, and Brazil we leverage our local and international connections to help companies expand globally, identify potential clients, hire local teams and provide access to different sources of capital. We are unique in that we have a dedicated value-creation team exclusively focused on building long-term partnerships committed to ensuring our portfolio companies succeed.

Where did your firm’s name come from?

Mindset Ventures references our “mindset” with regards to how we view venture capital investing and supporting entrepreneurs build their great companies. Our mindset is to help entrepreneurs thrive by doing more than just providing a check: We build meaningful connections in a transparent and ethical way.

What defines your portfolio?

Mindset Ventures invests in early-stage B2B software companies based in the U.S. and Israel. We tend to invest in companies in verticals including Fintech, Blockchain, Digital Health, AgTech, Cyber and SaaS. We look for experienced founders who have a clear vision of their business and have built amazing and complementary executive teams. Typically, we join Series-A rounds, when companies already have some proven traction.

How is the firm different today than when you first started?

We started in mid-2016 with the goal of investing in early-stage startups and helping them expand to Latin America. During the past five years, we have expanded our scope and have better defined our investment thesis based on the positive experience of investing in more than 50 startups and supporting more than 10 of those to build meaningful operations in Brazil. Mindset Ventures is now a team of 10 people across 3 geographies with an established governance, defined investment decision process, and value creation platform to support our portfolio companies.

What are the benefits of being an NVCA member?

NVCA does an amazing job in educating and unifying the venture capital community and has also accomplished some amazing things in regulations by advocacy. We are great supporters of entrepreneurial education and industry transparency.

Tell us about the current VC landscape in your geography/region.

Although Mindset Ventures has a strong presence in Brazil, our investments are focused only on the U.S. and Israel. Across both locations, we advocate for the Brazilian and Latin American ecosystems and are happy to see so many unique startups, unicorns, IPOs and success stories emerge from the region. U.S. and Israel remain strong and are still the two most successful and consistent geographies for entrepreneurs and venture investors.

What’s ahead for your firm in 2021?

We recently closed our third fund at over U.S. $50M and are actively investing. We have concluded 5 deals this year and are looking to close at least 4 more. We are also working on new and exciting projects that will be announced soon. Additionally, we look to start raising our next fund sometime next year.

Describe your firm’s culture in 5 words or less.

Transparency, ethics, ownership, teamwork, dedication.

NVCA Member Spotlight is sponsored by American Express

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