Dale! Fundraising Insights from the Familia VC Summit

Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month 2025 with Calima and our friends!

Familia VC hosted a summit at a Microsoft office in Manhattan. We had a great time gathering with founders, investors, and community leaders to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2025

The summit was more than a series of speakers, it felt like familia: a reminder of the strength, resilience, and creativity that fuels our community of builders, an opportunity to catch up with old friends and make new ones

One of the highlights for our founders was a fundraising workshop by Jorge Torres, who shared timeless advice for navigating venture capital and structuring your company’s story for investors

“The job of a venture capital investor is to turn pennies into dollars.”

- Fred Wilson (2017)

Jorge reminded us that while every startup’s journey is unique, investors are ultimately seeking outsized returns. The challenge for founders is to clearly communicate how their product and market fit into that equation

The Venture Capital Triangle

Borrowing from 645 Ventures’ “investment triangle” framework, Jorge encouraged us to analyze opportunities across two key axes:

Markets: speculative ↔ known ↔ existing

Products: gimmick ↔ incremental ↔ radical ↔ disruptive

This matrix gives founders a way to evaluate their positioning:

Disruptive products in known markets often represent the sweet spot: high potential upside at moderate risk

Incremental products in existing markets can struggle to survive against entrenched competitors

Disruptive technologies in speculative markets (think self-driving cars or new battery chemistries) demand that founders demonstrate world-class technical skills and vision to justify the risk

Storytelling as Strategy

Reading about how VCs think helps you sharpen your own messaging. Your job as a founder is not just to build, it’s to frame your story in a way that resonates with the right investor:

What market are you going after, and why now?

Is your product radical or disruptive enough to matter?

What kind of return profile can your company realistically deliver?

And remember: every VC is different. Factors like technical background, risk tolerance, and familiarity with your vertical shape how they evaluate opportunities. Doing your homework on an investor and tailoring your pitch accordingly is essential

Dale!

Is exciting to see other organizations in our ecosystem continue growing, and getting together to celebrate every year

Let's continue building a repeatable process for research, storytelling, and outreach

Fundraising isn’t just about capital, it’s about connection, community, and clarity