Meet the Member: Diego Berrio, Founder & Managing Partner at The 13 Ventures

In our latest Meet the Member feature, we had the pleasure of speaking with Diego Berrio, Founder & Managing Partner at The 13 Ventures.

The 13 Ventures is a global venture capital firm connecting established companies with innovative startups. The 13 Ventures propels small, young & mighty companies with daring, proven business models into the next stage of growth, through a support model that is equitable for all.

Keep reading to learn more about The 13 Ventures operations, its innovative machine learning platform and gain key insights on the venture capital industry.

FACC: 13 Ventures is based in NY, Vancouver, Bogota, Paris and Tel Aviv. Each local team and partners act as an extension of your clients, assisting in business development, marketing, sales operations, and HR for a truly seamless soft-landing. Can you tell us more about your NY operations? (How long has the office been open, any specialties, how many partners, strategic orientation etc.)

DB: We have the core team in NY, Investment and Marketing team. Since we are also building a platform called Venture-box.com -our tech team is based in Europe and main CTO is in France.

FACC: In recent years, NY has become an increasingly attractive place for startups to launch. How would you describe the current startup ecosystem and are you optimistic for the future of the city as a “startup hub”?

DB: New York is one of the best places to be if you are a startup. If before Silicon Valley was leading, New York now is in the center of tech and is especially friendly to immigrant founders.

FACC: EVA, your machine learning platform, generates data-driven insights to assess the potential of the market and test a product. How do you strike the right balance between technology and a human-centric approach, contributing analysis that may not be apparent in figures alone?

DB: Our platform gives the necessary tools for startups to focus on their company growth, network and tech support. As they keep building their business, our special score helps indicate the right moment when we can offer to finance. We call it reverse pitching, similar to the bank. It is hard to take out the human approach because our ultimate goal is to be a financial partner and here the human component is necessary to understand the founders' goal. But what makes us an outstanding fund is the perfect combination of data and human.

FACC: 13 Ventures works on both the entrepreneur side and investor side of business. Investments range from Series B to early-stage innovators who are scaling up. Is there a method or a common culture that dictates what type of business you will invest in, or is a lot of weight placed on the profile of the Founder(s) (i.e. their drive, experience, skills, connections etc.)?

DB: We invest in emerging consumer brands. It could be products or services, but our philosophy is simple- anything that brings happiness and innovation to people.

FACC: How did you hear about the French-American Chamber of Commerce and what motivated you to join?

DB: Since I structured my first fund in Paris, once I moved to New York, I was looking for French related network and got an intro to one of your team members. Heard great things and decided to join to meet like-minded people!

Interested in connecting with Diego? Log into the FACC Member Directory to send him a message.