Emerging Capital: The New Light Ventures Podcast
Unlock the secrets of venture capital success with the New Light Ventures Podcast. Join host Pablo Castro as he guides you through the captivating world of emerging VC managers and their journeys to raise their first, second, or third funds. Each week, dive into exclusive interviews with industry leaders and gain practical insights to navigate the challenges of fundraising, management, and innovation.
Whether you're an aspiring manager seeking guidance, an experienced investor looking for fresh perspectives, or simply curious about the VC landscape, this podcast is your essential resource. From the trials and triumphs of those shaping the future of investment to actionable tips for your own venture journey, the New Light Ventures Podcast illuminates the path to success.
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Emerging Capital: The New Light Ventures Podcast
Matias Serebrinsky: Managing Partner at PsyMed Ventures
Matias is a General Partner at PsyMed Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in cutting-edge brain and mental health technologies. Prior to this role, he led NVIDIA's accelerator program for AI startups in North America. Before his work at NVIDIA, Matias co-founded CookUnity, a venture-backed food technology company that has delivered over one million meals to date. In addition to his professional roles, Matias co-hosts Business Trip, a podcast that explores the world of mental health startups and their impact on the industry.
Welcome to the New Light Ventures podcast, the definitive guide to navigate the venture capital landscape. I'm your host Pablo Castro, and every week we dive deep into stories, strategies and successes of emerging vc managers, whether they're navigating their first fund in the midst of growing their second or successfully running their third. In this podcast you'll gain exclusive insights from the front lines of fundraising, management and innovation. Whether you're an aspiring manager, an experienced investor, or just curious of the world of venture capital, youve come to the right place. Join us as we explore the trials and triumphs of those shaping the future of investment. From in depth interviews with industry leaders to practical tips for our own venture journey, were here to provide you with knowledge and inspiration you need to succeed. So subscribe now, share your thoughts and lets embark on this journey together. Welcome to the new Light Ventures podcast where capital meets innovation. Lets dive in. Hi everyone, thank you for joining us. This is New Lightventures podcast where we talk to the emerging managers of the future and what they're doing in their funds. Today on the show we have Matthias Sidabrinski, co founder and partner at Saemed Ventures, a venture fund and syndicate investing in transformation technologies that elevate mental health and wellness. Matthias, welcome to the show.
Matias Serebrinsky:Thank you. Pablo, nice to be here.
Pablo Castro:I'm so happy you're here. I've done a bunch of research for a bunch of your interviews and really excited to you share your story, but tell me a little bit about you and what you do at Seimedave. Interest please.
Matias Serebrinsky:Well, I'm a founding partner at Seimed Ventures and Cymed is a fund investing in transformational technologies, in mental health and wellness. So overall we think there's humanity, mission critical issue with mental health and one of the things that will make a big change is technology, and more specifically frontier technologies, what typically called deep tech or hard tech. So this is our way of helping the movement succeed.
Pablo Castro:Yeah, I've heard a lot about what you guys are doing. I think it's incredibly innovative, especially supporting these startups that are making a contribution and change to the world. Sometimes I like seeing problems that are very serious and that can really give a pivot to someone's life with the solution they're providing. So congrats on that. And I wanted to ask you a bit if you could tell us a bit about your background and the influences that led you to become a fund manager.
Matias Serebrinsky:I'm argentinian, born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Moved to California twelve years ago now 2012, and as soon as it moved. I was working for a tech company, but as soon as it moved, I was infected by the entrepreneurial virus, as they say. And so fast forward a few months after moving to the Bay Area, and I decided to start the company. So, led this company for five plus years, and eventually I decided that there was a good team in place, there was a good structure, and things were going reasonably well, so I could have a chance to step back and take a different role. And being an entrepreneur is really challenging. So those five years of going at 1000 miles an hour, with a lot of the typical stress that you have in companies before they find product market fit, was enough for me. And that was my journey towards becoming an investor. I decided that even though I wanted to step aside from my role, my company, I was hooked and in love with the idea of a startup, and I wanted to maybe share my learning and the things that I had achieved during my time at Kakunity, that's the name of the startup. And the best way to do that was by supporting entrepreneurs. And the best way to support entrepreneurs and having skin in the game is by becoming an early stage investor. I became an early stage investor. I joined a company called Nvidia, which now rings a bell for pretty much everyone. But when I joined the company back in 2017, AI wasn't that cool. And so were investing in a lot of technologies that were enabling the usage of AI, so less on the application layer and more on the infrastructure level. And that was an amazing experience. I learned everything that I know about being an investor, aside from my experience starting a company, which I would argue was the most important thing that I could do to have knowledge and empathy for the founder journey. And that was really good. And I was enjoying a lot my time at Nvidia. But on the side, I became really interested in mental health. And that was driven by seeing how big the problem is, by seeing how many people around me were struggling with mental health, but also it was driven by my own journey, my own mental health journey while I was running a company. As I mentioned, running a company is really hard from emotional, physical, mental perspective. And once I step aside and I had time to focus more on my own and my own healing, I discovered all these different modalities that were not really the mainstream in psychiatry. And so the combination of being really interested in startups and investing and my own personal interest in mental health were the two things that ended up leading to me starting SiMon Ventures, which is the fund that I lead, and which focus is mental health.
Pablo Castro:I love your story because doing some research on you, and I know that burnout, and I know that in this culture of hustle, work, work. And I do think it's a big part of raising a company. The amount of work pressure and stress. You looked for other ways to get better, improve your health. And if you could tell us a little bit maybe about your experience and how you decided that maybe psychedelic medication, or as they call it, a third wave of psychedelics was maybe a right fit, because I think back then, when you had just gone through growing this company, maybe it wasn't that straightforward that could be an option. Right?
Matias Serebrinsky:Totally. Well, the reason why I made psychedelics part of our core thesis at Simon Ventures, among other technologies and other modalities as well. But the reason was, I would say twofold. The first one is I was following the data. Go back to 20 18 20 19 20. And were starting to see early data coming out of the best universities here in the US and in the UK as well. Imperial College of London, John Hopkins, Stanford, Harvard and Yale, many others that were showing that psychedelics were a very safe and effective treatment for treatment resistant mental health disorders. So those disorders that were not easily cured, things that, you know, for example, PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, where war veterans were struggling with these issues for 20 plus years, and all of a sudden they would embark in psychedelic assisted therapy and either their symptoms would improve a lot or they would reach what's called remission. So basically not meet the criteria for having a disorder or an illness. The first thing is I was just very rational in following the data. I felt like I was seeing early indicators of something that most people would agree with in the future. But it was still so early, as they say, that the future is here, not evenly distributed. And so I was seeing that. But the other component is that I personally found a lot of help and support via psychedelic therapeutics. And so I would say that having my own personal experience overlapping or matching what I was seeing in the wider context of mental health was enough for me to say, hey, you know, this is a good area to focus on.
Pablo Castro:I really appreciate you sharing that, in the sense that, of course there was a quantitative data that you saw, that there was a correlation, and of course, there's a part of your personal story too, that you combined. And in my personal experience, I can say creating a venture thesis is a process that sometimes seems that it's forever. Tell me a bit about what was your process in creating this thesis? Because I feel that some investors say thesis never ends. Like you're always creating, improving, making changes to thesis. But some investors say that, of course, having a thesis is important for your lp's. What was your journey in creating thesis for assignment ventures?
Matias Serebrinsky:I agree that creating a thesis and refining a thesis and evolving that thesis is a never ending process, and it should be that way, right, because we're always learning new stuff and also the world is constantly changing. So I don't take any thesis that we created as final and we're kind of evolving all the time. I would say that our focus on mental health came from, number one, understanding that this is a really big need and a huge problem, that it's just not getting better. So every time there's a huge problem, there's an opportunity to have, first of all, financial impact, but also societal impact, right? And so we don't choose between those two things. Everything we do has to have an impact on a positive impact on society, but also return money for our LP's. That's the first part, just kind of how big the problem is. I would say the second kernel of insight that we had is that as a new fund, we had to take similar approach than what a startup would take, which is focus on the beachhead of wedge, something smaller that we can dominate and then expand from there. If not, your boiling the ocean. A lot of the learnings and insights that we have as a fund stem from the fact that we are the two partners at Simit are what I jokingly call recovering entrepreneurs. And so a lot of kind of the way that we build the fund is the same way that you would build a startup. Start with smaller sectors, smaller market that you can own, and then expand from there. And so back in 2019, we saw that really no one else was focused on these technologies, or at least very few people. And so that was how we decided that we would focus on mental health. Within mental health, what we asked ourselves is where can technology have the most and the most unique impact? And decided that those areas are what we call frontier mental health, or a deep tech approach with a thematic focus on mental health. And so that is part of thesis that's constantly evolving. What are those areas? Within frontier mental health is something that we're discovering and adjusting all the time. It started with psychedelic therapeutics. As I said, we have invested in a lot of companies in neurotechnology. So the use of different energy methods, like electricity, electromagnetic energy, brain entrainment, so audio visual stimuli as well, all these different ways that you can stimulate the brain is another area we've been really focused on. And more recently we've been exploring areas like the gut brain access. So how, you know, by modulating the cat, you can actually create and have an impact on your mental health. So those are just a few examples. There are other kind of focus areas and theses that are even more out there that we're still forming.
Pablo Castro:Perfect. Perfect. And in this sense, I know that you started angel investing. I believe, and tell me, of course, you can't believe everything on the Internet, but it was while you were at Nvidia that you started angel investing. And what was a hurdle? Raising this first fund that you did not expect because of being angel investor and having a syndicate and raising a fund are completely different things. What was a hurdle that you encountered that you did not expect?
Matias Serebrinsky:I would think that I expected all the hurdles that we encountered and even more hurdles that we didn't encounter. To put it differently, I knew since day one that it would be really hard to raise a fund for what were trying to do. And the reason why I knew it would be really hard is because were investing in something that most people were not familiar with and most LP's were not really thinking about. So we had to convey this story, which is a news story that LP's hadn't heard before, and convey the potential for this investment opportunity, as I said, from a societal and financial perspectives as well. So I would think that the storytelling part of conveying something new and explain the potential was the most largest hurdle. I would think that was expected, but it's really hard. If we would have focused in, let's say, enterprise SaaS or other aspects of software, or even within healthcare in more traditional areas, I think we would have had an easier time raising the first fund. I would argue that we would have had a harder time delivering great returns because most of the interesting things and the ways that venture is best suited as an asset class is in new things that are contrarian and that most people are not seeing. If everyone's investing in the same stuff that you're investing, there's probably no alpha or no opportunity to deliver outsized returns.
Pablo Castro:No, for sure. I agree. Just I get the competition in the space that you are in because you're one of the first movers there. I imagine that you get to see the best deals and those companies that are in this space of this frontier of health really know that you guys do support them and invest them. Because what I've heard from different and just talking about my. Maybe my experience raising an education fund is that there's a lot of people that are like, you know, why I want to build an educational company, that tech company, but there's no investment for that. So maybe I should start another type of company that maybe is fintech, something more, I would say under the norm. And that way they could raise funds. So I agree 100% with the amount of help that you got sourcing those deals.
Matias Serebrinsky:Definitely, totally. And I would say the other two things that were challenging. One is similar to your experience conveying to LP's the value of specialized or focused fund. Why there's value in a focused or specialized fund versus a journalist fund. I think both make sense. There are different ways of having successful funds, but I think that many times LP's are less used to the idea of a focused fund and tied to that is convened. That even within a focused fund, the market is big enough. So there's not just opportunity for fund one, but there's opportunity for subsequent funds. And in the case of mental health, what most people are not aware of is that mental health has become the largest expense in healthcare, and it's getting larger and larger every year. In a few years, it will become the leading cause of disability. So it's not just an issue of healthcare costs, but it's an issue of work absenteeism costs, and other societal costs that are not really reflected in the healthcare spend.
Pablo Castro:No, 100%. In this space of health, there's a lot of things I know that nutrition, of course, now there's therapeutics, different ways of impacting that health. And something that I'm curious about in this space that is very niche. How did you end up defining the LP's archetype or the LP's that would support this fund, as I feel it might be harder than other traditional types of ventures to find those LP's.
Matias Serebrinsky:Yes, well, it's harder and it's not. And the reason why in some aspects is easier is because were unique. And so we have the opportunity to have LP's that resonate with our mission and with our way of doing things to reach out to us directly. And so in that sense, I think that being differentiated paid off. I would say that the other component of being differentiated is actually putting your content and your opinions and your thoughts out there, so people can find them and reach out to you. And so we did that since very early in our process, we launched a podcast that's called Business Trip. Even before launching the fund and having a place where we could share our ideas with the world, get people that are building solutions in the field, was instrumental for not only founders to reach out to us, but also LP's. Added to that, we are quite prolific about writing content and sharing our thesis, our ideas, perspectives, even going deeper into the different investments that we made, and explain the rationale for why we made those ones. So in that sense, finding our LP base was easier because we had them reach out to us. And sometimes it's reaching out directly, but alternatively, sometimes we would meet an LP, and that LP would be telling us, you know what, I have this other group of family offices or individuals that are thinking about this issue. They're talking about it during dinner parties, and so you should chat with them as well. And in that sense, things were, it was a different set of challenges. Where the challenges were more about putting, getting our thoughts and our voice out there.
Pablo Castro:No, I think that is super powerful. And one of the things that we've seen in this day and ages with content creation specifically, a lot of newer firms have focused in that area. And another thing that I've been thinking a lot about, I feel that every firm, the different partners, have different superpowers. So maybe there is, for one firm, there's someone that's incredible networker, that it's super easy to them just to connect, engage with people. For other firms, their partner is more for process technological engineer mindset that they like to go into the data, the research. What would you say is the superpower of each one of the partners in your firm?
Matias Serebrinsky:Well, I surely can speak about Greg, my partner superpower, and I'll give a try to speak about mine, but that's definitely harder. Greg is a very orthogonal thinker. He's just wired in a way that he doesn't take anything that's common knowledge as face value. And many times that leads to unique insights about the future and the present as well. And different companies that there are no manuals, there are no handbooks, there are no places where you can find those kind of rules or blueprints about how to invest. And so I benefit a lot from having him next to me, because when we're discussing companies, he'll bring a perspective that no one else brings. And many times he's right about those things. I would think that he's also very tuned into his own intuition. So sometimes he may not have a perfect explanation for something, but he will say, hey, I think this is what's happening. Or kind of broadly, this is what's happening. And when we started working, I was more dismissive of that because I was kind of focused on backing things with more hard facts. But over time, what I learned is that you need to kind of leverage the strength of everyone. And so now I pay a lot of attention to that, and I arguably help him go deeper into those insights and maybe find kind of the kernel of truth there and how that can be tied to more data driven approaches. From my side, I would think that the two things that I've done well so far, hopefully I've done well so far, is, one, the capacity to absorb and crunch a lot of data. And science specifically, a lot of what we invest at cymed is around what we call entrepreneurial science. So the ability to translate scientific research and projects and studies into companies that have the potential to have an impact in different markets. And so I spend a lot of time reading scientific studies or clinical trials or different publications, and I'm pretty good at condensing all that information and finalize with, okay, this is where to go. This is an investment thesis. This is kind of an area that we should focus on. And within that area, these are the approaches and technologies that will win in the marketplace. So I would say that I'm a pretty thesis driven entrepreneur. And I would say that the second thing and what I got better over time. And I think the thing that every entrepreneur should have is that I just don't give up. And I work harder than most people. So those things may sound basic, but I've come to learn that most times that is the recipe for success. Just work harder and smarter and have more faith in what you're building than anyone else.
Pablo Castro:I love that. I love that. One of the things that Sam Altman writes in his blog of how to be successful, number one, is have self belief. And I just think sometimes we jump over that because we're like, how is? But that definitely having that belief in yourself is crucial. And just maybe not as common as we think. A lot of entrepreneurs maybe think is very common, but it's not as common as we think in society.
Matias Serebrinsky:I completely agree with you. And I would say what I would add for people is that self belief or conviction is not this fixed thing. It's more like muscle that you build over time. So if someone doesn't feel like they have that, just know that if you focus on it and you work on it, you'll get there. I look at myself ten years ago and now, and I have a lot more self belief and a lot more conviction, and that is not based or grounded. In any external factors. It's not like I had more success over time. It's more that I exercised that muscle over time.
Pablo Castro:I was just going to go to that next question. What are the daily, weekly practices that you do so that you can get back into that space, into that mental space? Because I feel as entrepreneurs or investors, man, we get kicked down a lot. You know what I mean? Raising a fund and being an investor, you will hear more nos than you will ever hear for anything else in your life. And I just want to know maybe, what are your rituals to get back into that space and develop that muscle that we're talking about?
Matias Serebrinsky:Well, from a high level perspective, it's about my family. It's about my mental, spiritual and physical health. And those are the things that give me a sense of purpose and mission as well. And so I have a young child and spending time with him, it's extremely rewarding. It's one of the things that energizes me to get back and do what I do every day. And as I mentioned, my spiritual, mental and physical health are also part of that. And one of the mindset changes that I had over time is that I would see these things that I mentioned as outside of work or this thing that may distract me from work, but today I see them as things that make me better at work. So I'm a lot more intentional and deliberate about allocating time for them, because it's this positive, reinforcing loop where by doing those things, I'm better at work. And by being better at work, I get to enjoy my time with family and time with myself more.
Pablo Castro:No, that is beautiful. One of the practices that has helped me, and I know that you do yoga also, so I'm going to go down that route. But definitely daily yoga has helped me more just to be back in the moment and just say yoga has such a thing about resilience because you fall out of a pose and you have to get back and just be back in the moment and not think about anything else. Specifically, what do you say are some practices that you do? So maybe some of our listeners can maybe have different tools in mind that they could go to when they're in that scenario.
Matias Serebrinsky:Yeah, I have a daily meditation practice just ten minutes a day. But again, it's a muscle. Building up that muscle helps you be present at all times. And so meditation is less about those ten minutes, but it's more about how those ten minutes a day, 20 minutes a day, whatever you choose or can allocate as time for it helps you that for the remaining time of the day, you can go back to being present at all times. Right? So meditation is one. And as I mentioned before, spending time with my family is a spiritual practice at this moment where I get to be very present. I don't check my phone and I engage in play with them. And that also is kind of, I see it as a spiritual practice in itself.
Pablo Castro:No, I love that. I think that there's a lot of times that at least in the startup ecosystem, we don't talk about family and the recharge we get from those special people. So I really am glad you are sharing this because I feel a lot of entrepreneurs maybe don't have that permission to talk about or to think about that because of course, it's not in the social norm that we've heard on entrepreneurship and that more it's like work and deliver and execute. But this is very powerful.
Matias Serebrinsky:I agree with you. It's really hard still balancing family and work, especially the type of work that we do where, as I was saying before, there's no replacement for hard work and putting a lot of hours. So we're very privileged that we get to have help as well. My wife and I have the resources to have help around raising a kid, and I don't pretend that everyone has, but for me, it's actually quite the opposite. I became more productive, more focused, more driven after I became a parent.
Pablo Castro:On your, let's say, weekly schedule or daily schedule, there is no blueprint to being an investor and what you should spend your week on. How do you prioritize your schedule, on the things you should do? Or maybe just give us a quick overview of what your typical day looks like and how you make it. Intentional to be like that.
Matias Serebrinsky:Yeah. Well, the key thing for me is calendarizing everything. So I just follow whatever it's in my calendar. And I'm very intentional about allocating slots for each thing that I'll be doing. So if in the morning that means playing with my kid, if it means working out, either going to the gym or going for a run or going for bike ride or spending time researching by myself, all those things are in my calendar. And so that makes the decision process a lot easier because I don't need to be kind of deliberating all the time what I should be doing. I just follow what's in there and then I have slots for other stuff. So usually the mornings look like a little bit of family time, a short workout, and then go straight to the office and usually the mornings are more of solo time, alone time, researching, reading, going through decks, or new companies, or learning about new technologies. And the other big component in the mornings is what I call team alignment. Right? We have a team, and I need to make sure that they don't face any roadblocks. So I tried to address any issues early in the week and early in the mornings being about operational stuff or investment decisions so they can get going. And then usually the afternoons are just packed with meetings, either with portfolio companies or companies that we're diligence from an investment perspective.
Pablo Castro:And in this diligence of companies, is there things that you specifically do to deal source as a fund? Are there best practices that you've seen that have worked best for you guys to proactively do it to get more companies that maybe wouldn't come organically through your content or through the podcast?
Matias Serebrinsky:Yeah. Well, the first insight is that there are no silver bullets. There's no one thing that you can do from a deal flow perspective that's going to just bring 95% off good investment opportunities. That's just not how it works for much larger funds. If you're sequoia or if you're Andreessen Horowitz or whatever, sure. Like you can just sit a little bit more and wait for deals to come to you. But that's not the reality of any small fund. And so, deal flow comes from a lot of different sources and we pay attention to all of it. Right? It's such a core thing of what we need to be great at, that we want to be a there. And so, deal flow comes from active sourcing, as I mentioned before, we look a lot at research and studies at universities and look for opportunities to translate that science into companies. We also have and build deep relationships, deep relations with other investors that we think are aligned with us. And so the nature of those relations with other investors is not transactional. It's not about, hey, I'm going to send you a deal and you send me a deal. It's purely about helping them succeed and knowing that in the long term they will do the same for us. And so most times when we get together with other investors that we respect and admire, what we're discussing is less specific companies, but it's more about our thesis and their thesis, and where opportunities for overlap or thinking through different investment opportunities in terms of sectors or areas. An example of that today would be, okay, what would a good investment AI investment in mental health look like? Right? What are things that are unique and what are things that will not get commoditized soon and stuff like that. And so it may sound like a simple question, but it's actually a really complicated to address extremely these days with AI so active sourcing, proactive sourcing, other investors. And more than anything, I would say that the unique deal flow opportunities that we get are from introductions from other portfolio companies. That's why having flawless reputation as an investor is really important, because what happens is that if a founder has a good experience working with you, they will meet other founders. And if the other founders are raising, they will be like, hey, you know what, you should chat with Matthias. He was really helpful and I had a great experience partnering with him. And so many times that leads to investment opportunities that you wouldn't see in any other way.
Pablo Castro:Yeah, good old word of mouth. I think it's still the best type of recommendation. And in this sense that you're talking about other investors, could you discuss maybe how you manage or maintain those relationships? Are there specific things you do just to be more conscious? There's some type of investors I've seen that have a weekly process. I feel those are, they're very, they lost spreadsheets, they do all this, they have different things synchronized. And there's other investors that are like more easygoing. Is there something specific you do?
Matias Serebrinsky:Well, we don't have a super structured process, and I would say that's fairly intentional. It's a lot more organic. Number one, quality is more important than quantity. We're not trying to build deep relationships with every investor out there. What we're trying to do is build strong relationships that are based on mutual help and support and friendship with a handful of investors. And so it's very easy because we know these people so well, that we'll kind of share an interesting article or share an interesting opportunity with them, or as we're reviewing a company, reach out to them with specific questions because they may be experts in something in specific. The other component is that with some investors we have monthly or quarterly catch up calls, but most times we end up chatting outside of those very structured times, different occasions. What's also relevant is that I'm based in the San Francisco Bay Area and my partner Greg is based in New York. So there are a lot of things happening in offline, right, in real life, IRL, not URL. And we end up casually chatting with these investors at those events and conferences and occasions.
Pablo Castro:No, perfect. Perfect. Just being respectful of your time. I do want to get just a couple more questions we'll get it through. So being mental health and of course in startups that are focused on psychedelics, I imagine that this being part of your thesis, some of these startups are very capital intensive. How do you manage your portfolio construction? Being a small fund to make sure you have those returns to show for your next funds for investors, because it might be a longer horizon than other types maybe of startups, right?
Matias Serebrinsky:Yes. We don't expect nor pretend that we will be able to fully fund the company from zero to hero, so to speak. And so what we're focused on is, number one, helping companies graduate to the next level, right where I'm quite good at and experience is in going from zero to one. I built a company that started with zero employees and ended with a lot of revenue and employees. And so because of our investing and also entrepreneurial experience, we can help founders navigate those kind of pre seed and series A rounds. And once the company reaches that stage, we think there will be other investors that are better suited to do that. But we help companies be ready and be investable by those later stage investors. I think if we do that well, our job is done and there's someone that will take over from there. The second important part is less about the entrepreneurs and more about other investors. I see part of my job to build trust with those later stage investors. So when I'm introducing a company to them, they pay attention. And attention is a very scarce resource, so it's a very precious resource. And that's why I also spend time thinking and building those relationships, those honest and true relationships with them. About the fact that some of the companies may be capital intensive, that is absolutely right. I happen to think that is where venture is the best asset class and where it's suited to be. Right. If companies don't require a lot of investment, there may be other funding sources and also the risk reward ratio or potential is much different. So if you think about what venture has been from the 1950s until now, it's usually been successful in those types of businesses where they were capital intensive. Having said that, one of the beauties of biotech and life sciences is that companies go public while they still need a lot of funding. If you think about companies like Airbnb or Uber, that took ten plus years to go public. That is not a reality of most biotech companies, where once you've show early promising data, you will be able to go public. And so the type of investors that will take over are more like public investors. And so I don't see as an inherent problem that companies will require more money to be profitable. I think what's interesting is that you do have all the different investors that are needed, from early stage investors to late stage vc investors to more public market investors that will fund companies throughout their journey.
Pablo Castro:Perfect. Perfect. No, this makes complete sense. And thank you for clearing that up, because that was one of the first things I thought about. Also, listening to your podcast and other interviews you've been in, just how capital intensive these companies can be, and I'm sure we're going to need a round two. But I have two last questions and then we can, we'll definitely have to plan the next follow up call. What is the definition of success for you and your fund? What would you say? Maybe there are two different definitions, but what would you say would be the definitions of success?
Matias Serebrinsky:The definition of success is for me and for the fund are very similar. From a professional standpoint. The definition is create a positive impact in humanity's mental health. So we create that positive impact by supporting entrepreneurs that are building those solutions and by inspiring more entrepreneurs to build companies in this space.
Pablo Castro:Amazing. And what would you say is, if you could pass on a kernel of wisdom to new investors that are looking to raise their first fund, what is some wisdom that you could pass to them?
Matias Serebrinsky:Find your ikai. Find the place where your mission and purpose and skills overlap. Because this thing is too hard to do only for cloud or money. And so the only thing that will keep you going is the sense of having a higher purpose than just making money or being cool as an investor.
Pablo Castro:I love that. A good friend of mine says that when you get into venture capital, you know that is the last job you will want to have because it's the best job. You can't imagine working in anything else after that. So I agree 100%. And just to maybe give a small wrap to this interview, where can people find you? Where can people connect with you? LP's new investors and startups that are in this space.
Matias Serebrinsky:You can find me on Twitter at M a t I S c r E, LinkedIn as well, and for any entrepreneurs and LP's that are interested in learning more about what we do. My email is mimed ventures so m as the first letter of my name at simed Psymed Ventures and I welcome everyone to reach out and especially entrepreneurs. We always want to learn and support whatever you're doing in the field.
Pablo Castro:No, we will sure put this information and contact information in the show notes so that people can reach out. And I want to commend you for your work, for what you're doing in this world. I think it's amazing. And just being really an innovator in the space that you're tackling through venture, I think it's amazing. So I really want to commend you and thank you for being on the show, on the podcast, and we will definitely have to have around too.
Matias Serebrinsky:Sounds good. Pablo, thank you for inviting me.
Pablo Castro:Thank you Matthias, I appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the New Light Ventures podcast. I'm Pablo Castro and it's been a pleasure bringing you insights and stories from the forefront of venture capital. We hope you're leaving with valuable knowledge and inspiration to carry you forward on your own venture journey. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast, leave a review and share it with your network updates, additional resources, and to suggest guests for topics of future episodes. Visit our website and follow us on our social media channels. We're excited to continue this journey with you, exploring our ever evolving landscape of venture capital. Until next time, keep innovating, keep investing, and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible. This is new light venture signing off. Let's keep the light.