Jan 31, 2020
In this episode, Hall welcomes Sergio Paluch of Beta Boom. Beta Boom is a pre-seed fund focusing on startups in emerging tech hubs around the world. They believe that tech innovation has no boundaries and that founders from underserved groups present one of the biggest opportunities of this era for both investors and society. Beta Boom invests in and supports all founders in emerging tech hubs, and focus on reaching female founders, minority founders, younger founders, older founders, and anyone else that does not fit the old pattern.
Before founding Beta Boom, Sergio was the founder and CEO of Boom Factor, a Silicon Valley innovation consultancy where he led numerous product design and development projects for over 50 clients ranging from YC-backed startups to Fortune 500 companies like Bank of America.
In this episode, Hall and Sergio speak about the current state of investing in startups and how it’s evolving. According to Sergio in just the two years Beta Boom has been operating, he’s seen a lot of new, early-stage funds, incubators and accelerators that are opening and targeting underrepresented founders. He thinks that domain expertise, passion, and perseverance are stronger indicators of founder success, than pedigree or qualities that come from privilege, and in addition to that, founders from diverse backgrounds can better address opportunities in huge, and often overlooked markets.