Susana Garcia-Robles is a recognized expert on entrepreneurship, high-impact investment, building diversified VC ecosystems, and an investor in startups and seed and VC funds. She is a Managing Partner at Capria Ventures.
Before joining Capria, she served as Chief Investment Officer and Gender Initiatives Coordinator at the Inter-American Development Bank. She was the leading architect of its investment strategy for early-stage funds and startups from 19990-2020. She is also a Senior Advisor, a member of the Women’s Council and a former Board member of the Association for Private Capital Investment in Latin America (LAVCA).
An avid supporter of ecosystems, she co-founded the Argentinean VC/PE Association/ARCAP and the Colombian VC/PE Association/Colcapital. She served on the Advisory Boards of the Brazilian VC/PE association /ABVCAP, the Board of Directors of Village Capital (2020-2023), and currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Argentinean VC/PE association/ARCAP, ForoMET, the CITES company builder/fund, the IThink VC fund, as well as in the investment committee of the Bancoldex Fund of Funds (Colombia) and the Fondo de Capital para Emprendimientos Innovadores (Peruvian Fund of Funds from COFIDE).
In 2012, she co-founded Wexchange (now housed at IDB), the first networking platform and pitch competition for LAC women STEMpreneurs, dramatically improving women’s access to funding. In 2019, she co-founded WeInvest Latam, a platform for women investors with LATAM as the central focus region.
A recognized expert on development finance innovation, Susana has analyzed and coached thousands of seed and VC funds and startup founders and invested and managed over 100 funds and many startups. She’s now transferring her knowledge and experience building the VC industry in LATAM to other places in the Global South, mainly Africa.
For her pioneering work in LATAM and efforts to make the VC industry more inclusive, she has been dubbed “the godmother of VC in LAC.” Americas Quarterly recognized her as one of the five 2020 Top Champions on Gender Equality.
Susana has master’s degrees in Philosophy and Education from the Universidad Catolica of Argentina, and in International Relations, concentrating on International Economic Policies from Columbia University.
Currently, she lives in Virginia with her husband, Daniel Q. Kelley, visits her sister in Buenos Aires as often as she can, and is very close to her other sister and her family, also residing in Virginia.
