Colleen Poynton is the Vice President of Core Innovation Capital where she sources and invests in companies that make financial services more efficient, affordable, accessible, and secure for individuals and businesses.

Prior to her involvement in Core, Colleen worked on the sourcing and selection team at Endeavor Global and helped launch and scale the commercial real-estate startup, IIC, as the first employee. She has a MBA from Columbia Business School and graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University.

In this episode, Colleen speaks about her experience with investing and her role in Core Innovation Capital as well as emphasizing the importance of networking in order to become a strong investor.

• 03:38 - How Colleen got involved with 37 Angels in the beginning
• 05:50 - Getting an investor’s perspective at an early age
• 06:37 - What Core Innovation Capital invests in and does
• 07:36 - How Core Innovation Capital founder, Arjan Schütte’s investment thesis brought
•  Colleen into the world on investing
• 09:28 - Core’s investment thesis and mission
• 12:25 - How the members of Core assembled together
• 14:54 - Challenges in raising an institutional fund
• 17:28 - What would Colleen tell her younger self
• 21:00 - Walkthrough of soft due diligence at Core
• 24:09 - How teams are mentored at Core
• 27:21 - The importance of being self-aware and receiving feedback
• 29:46 - What are the typical advice startups receive
• 32:02 - Follow on investing and helping startups fundraise at the next level
• 34:12 - Relationships with early stage accelerators
• 36:10 - How to build enterprise value
• 39:04 - Trends in the FinTech industry

Full show notes: http://www.sheinvests.com/21