USA – Chingona Ventures, a Chicago, IL-based venture capital firm focused on pre-seed funding, closed its second fund, at $52m.
Investors include the Office of the Illinois State Treasurer’s Illinois Growth and Innovation Fund, Melinda Gates’ Pivotal Ventures, PayPal Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Insight Venture Partners, Foundry Group, Synchrony Ventures, The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Wellington Asset Management, 50 South Capital, and other leading institutional asset managers.Founded by Samara Mejia Hernandez, Chingona Ventures makes investments in founders whose backgrounds position them to create businesses in growth markets that are often overlooked- The Fund will primarily invest in the FinTech, Future of Learning and Health and Wellness sectors. Building off the success of Fund I, where 80 percent of portfolio companies were led by diverse CEOs, Fund II will intentionally invest in the best founders possible, working to remove bias in the deal sourcing and selection process.Hernandez immigrated to the US from Mexico at a young age and grew up in a low-income household. An engineer by training, Samara spent the early part of her career in the public markets at Goldman Sachs and then in the private sector working in venture capital before launching Chingona Ventures in 2019 as a sole General Partner.12/05/2022
