Wenyi Cai goes to plop down in a chair in a cramped, bare-bones office with white walls, sticky notes and black scuff marks. I pin her at about 29, but to be polite, I pass over the question. Plus, she’s just jumped off a call with an investor that she admits was stressful. “Do you want this one?” I ask, hastily pushing the more comfy chair toward her. “No, it’s fine, whatever,” she shoots back. “Let’s do this. So, I’ve got like … what? Fifteen minutes.”
Cai, who is actually 30, is in a rush because she and her four other partners are out to build businesses through venture capital, but not Silicon Valley Cool. Her Colombia firm, Polymath Ventures, is all at the unglamorous end of the business, searching for ways to build scalable companies and services in underserved markets for Latin America’s emerging middle class. Continue reading on OZY…
photo credit: Juan Felipe Rubio
Wes Michael Tomaselli 