Big Red Ventures Fund Manager: Hongji Zhang
Hongji: You started your career in market risk and equity research before moving into venture capital. How has that analytical background influenced the way you think about early-stage investing?
Nicole: Starting off in market risk gave me a grounded approach to evaluating risk and understanding the balance between risk and reward. It doesn’t mean I avoid risk—it means I make more disciplined, structured decisions instead of being swept up by a founder’s enthusiasm. Founders often believe the problem they’re solving is universally important, but as an investor, I can’t align emotionally with every founder. My analytical background helps me step back and ask: what’s the catch? What aren’t they telling me? Is the TAM or SAM as large as they claim?
Many startups often claim they are disrupting a large, but when you dig in, their product may only address a small portion of it. So, it’s a balance between believing in talented, focused founders and recognizing their limits. I want founders who are obsessed with their problem but also reasonable—those who know their circle of competence.
Having worked across market risk, global markets, and asset-liability management before spending years on Wall Street modeling high-growth Internet companies, I developed the range and adaptability to assess diverse business models quickly. One day I’d be analyzing Amazon’s e-commerce margins, and the next I’d be modeling Nvidia’s chip sales to Microsoft and Google. That constant context switching trained me to evaluate diverse business models—an essential skill in venture capital.
At Cara Ventures, we focus on foodtech and fintech in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Foodtech for us spans everything from crop cultivation to produce preservation and traceability, while fintech covers a huge spectrum of financial services. My years in finance taught me to balance precision with judgment, a mindset that now guides how I back founders building across diverse, fast-evolving markets.
Hongji: What inspired you to start your own venture fund, and what does a typical week look like as a fund leader while balancing portfolio support, deal sourcing, and internal strategy?
Nicole: Being an equity research analyst and working in venture capital are similar in that both involve analyzing companies, but the main difference is scale. I went from evaluating some of the largest corporations in the world to studying small, early-stage startups building innovative technologies.
What drew me to the early stage was the desire to have a more direct impact. After years in institutional finance and large banks, I wanted to use my financial skills to create positive change. Over the past year, I joined a climate career accelerator to learn more about the challenges and opportunities in climate technology. What struck me was that many of these challenges already have workable solutions—the real bottleneck is access to funding.
Since then, I have been mentoring and advising early-stage climate tech startups, helping them with finance and strategy. My equity research background gave me a strong understanding of what makes companies succeed, what healthy margins look like, how business models evolve, and what it takes for startups to eventually reach the IPO stage. Working on IPOs also trained me to value companies even when data is limited, which translates well to venture investing.
As for my day-to-day, I am a very structured person, shaped by my experience in equity research and risk management. Venture brings a healthy dose of chaos each day, and I’m learning to balance structure with flexibility. My co-founder and I are currently building networks in Latin America and Southeast Asia, speaking with accelerators, founders, and fellow venture capitalists to understand each ecosystem and identify promising opportunities.
Ultimately, I founded my own fund because I wanted my work to create a tangible impact. Supporting seed and pre-seed companies tackling meaningful challenges allows me to see that impact firsthand, and that is what truly motivates me.
Hongji: Venture capital often means making decisions with limited data. How do you build conviction in a founder or idea when there isn’t much historical information to rely on?
Nicole: There’s an adage that past performance doesn’t guarantee future performance. Even when we have historical data, it doesn’t always predict what’s ahead. My time in Internet equity research taught me to be agile in assessing growth across rapidly changing sectors. Unlike industries with steady 2–10% annual growth, Internet companies can swing from 50% quarter-over-quarter growth to much slower rates, and we still rarely have complete information.
When I analyzed public companies, we relied on 10-Ks, 10-Qs, and conversations with management, but the data was never perfect. In stock analysis, there’s a concept called the Mosaic Theory, where you piece together data from multiple sources to form a clearer picture. I use that same mindset in venture capital. You’ll never get a perfect view from past data or by comparing to competitors—sometimes problems founders are solving don’t have clear precedents.
That said, analogs can be helpful. For example, if a startup is building the “Stripe of Colombia,” we can study Stripe’s early trajectory for context. However, analogs only go so far. Take Grab in Southeast Asia—initially seen as the ‘Uber of the region,’ it ultimately outperformed by expanding faster into payments and food delivery. So, while comparable offer starting points, true understanding comes from triangulating diverse information.
Today, when evaluating seed and pre-seed startups, we focus on four key things:
Founder–market fit: Is the founder an expert in their problem space? Do they understand the market deeply and have a realistic plan for scaling?
Market opportunity: Is the market expanding and inefficient enough to be worth disrupting? We avoid founders who are in love with their solution but unwilling to pivot when needed.
Early traction: Are they engaging with customers and iterating based on feedback? Founders building in isolation rarely succeed.
Capital discipline: We assess how responsibly they deploy funds. Founders should clearly explain how they’ll use the capital—what milestones each dollar enables and why timing matters.
Since early-stage startups rarely have historical data, our conviction comes from judgment, triangulated insights, and observing how founders think, act, and adapt.
Hongji: The venture landscape continues to evolve as markets shift and new technologies emerge. What trends or areas are you most excited about right now?
Nicole: We chose to focus on fintech and food tech because both sectors have significant growth potential in Latin America and Southeast Asia. In fintech, a large share of the population remains unbanked. That creates opportunities for innovation in areas such as alternative credit scoring, digital payments, and insurance tech.
In several Latin American countries, high currency volatility has also accelerated the adoption of blockchain-based financial solutions. Many startups are using blockchain to create more stable, transparent systems for payments and credit. We are especially interested in companies that digitize small and medium-sized enterprises, and bring them into formal financial systems.
In food tech, Latin America and Southeast Asia together produce more than half of the world’s food supply. The global south is the key producer, while the global north is the primary consumer. Within these regions, there is strong momentum toward improving food systems. We see growing interest in alternative proteins, transparency in food sourcing, and strengthening supply chains to improve food security. Startups are also emerging to help existing companies meet new agricultural and sustainability regulations.
These regions are also leapfrogging traditional development stages. For example, instead of progressing through multiple generations of technology, consumers often move directly from being unbanked to managing finances entirely through mobile fintech platforms. This rapid adoption, combined with the rise of unicorns in both fintech and food tech from Latin America and Southeast Asia, shows that these regions have strong entrepreneurial ecosystems and tremendous potential for growth.
Hongji: What do you think makes for a strong and lasting partnership between investors and founders, especially at the early stages of a company’s growth?
Nicole: Most early-stage funds last around ten to twelve years, so we are with founders for a long time. What makes a strong founder-investor partnership is mutual trust and transparency. We want founders to be open with us about challenges instead of hiding them. Startups do not have the same level of regulatory oversight as public companies, so trust becomes even more crucial.
Another key factor is mission alignment. If we are investing because we believe a company will positively impact people’s lives, but the founder’s only goal is to maximize profit, that can create conflict. We look for founders who are deeply committed to solving the problem in front of them and who are driven by purpose. The best founders are often the ones who are completely dedicated to their vision and their company.
At the early stage, founders also need more than capital. Since we are a seed-stage fund, what my co-founder Luigi and I offer is access to our networks. We are building strong relationships across Latin America and Southeast Asia with accelerators, VCs, and other startups, and we are always willing to open our alumni and professional networks to help founders connect with the right people. Luigi brings deep experience from McKinsey and investment banking, while I contribute a finance and analytical perspective, so we complement each other well.
We see ourselves as co-builders with our founders rather than just investors. Our goal is to be strategic partners who help startups grow by sharing resources, guidance, and connections that move them toward success. At the end of the day, we want founders to see us as allies in building something enduring, not just financiers.
Hongji: For students and young professionals interested in breaking into venture capital, what advice would you give about building the right skill set and network early in their careers?
Nicole: For anyone interested in breaking into venture capital, the first step is to understand what sectors you are passionate about. Identify your niche early on. For example, if you have a background in medicine, healthcare venture capital might be a natural fit. If you come from finance and care deeply about sustainability, climate tech could be a great space to explore.
Once you find your focus, start following the sector closely. Attend events, meet people in the ecosystem, and keep learning about trends and opportunities. When you connect with investors, approach them with curiosity rather than asking directly for a job. Share your perspective, express genuine interest in their work, and ask thoughtful questions. Building authentic relationships is much more valuable than transactional networking.
It is also helpful to speak with founders to understand their challenges and how they are building their businesses. Over time, these conversations help you develop your own network and perspective on the market. Venture capital hiring moves slowly, since most firms only hire when they raise a new fund or need to fill a role, so patience and persistence are essential.
Develop fluency in key venture metrics such as CAC, TAM, DPI, and others. Read top venture books such as Venture Deals by Brad Feld and Secrets of Sand Hill Road by Scott Kupor. If you have sector expertise or previous experience as an operator, joining an accelerator or working in a startup can be a strong way to gain relevant exposure.
Another valuable pathway is through venture fellowships. Programs such as Venture Cooperative, Venture Institute or Venture University can help you build experience and expand your network. Take time to research each program and choose those that truly align with your goals.
Ultimately, venture capital is both a relationship-driven and learning-driven field. The best way to grow in it is to stay curious, generous, and open to learning from others. When you focus on building genuine connections and contributing value to the ecosystem, opportunities will naturally follow. That curiosity and long-term mindset are what helped me transition from Wall Street to venture capital.