THIS IS MY STORY
I was born to Brazilian parents in Parkdale, a neighborhood in downtown Toronto, Canada, on what some would consider the "wrong side of the tracks."
My upbringing became like JediSkool - shaping me into the successful entrepreneur and limitless person I am today.
Growing up during the age of Hip Hip is how I developed a growth mindset and the skills to assess the unexpected, make timely and calculated decisions, solve problems creatively, and measure my surroundings. And no matter what, stay the course.
With my parents working and my grandmother raising me, I spent most after-school evenings and weekends with my extended family - a global melting pot of first-generation immigrant kids from Africa, the Caribbean, India, the Middle East, the Philippines, and South America.
Outside my window, I observed two worlds: One where my parents left our apartment for work to ensure my brother and I would experience a better life than they did, and the other, the streets, where hustlers and entrepreneurs created and assembled around a dope culture and lifestyle known as Hip Hop. And though I didn't know how to articulate it then, I witnessed and recognized over time how my parents and Hip-Hop fueled the growth of North America's economic engine but didn't accumulate asset value from their years of contributions. So, my need to understand how money moves ignited and would later catalyze my life mission.
At age 12, I started my first business, buying and selling used goods in my neighborhood. Sixteen years later, after my street team evolved into a digital brand marketing company, digital would lead me to tech and tech to wealth management.
Economics, sciences, sports, and art were my defaults in school. Despite being awarded multiple basketball scholarships, I pursued my parents' dreams and applied to university. I barely got into business school, studied for three years, and dropped out, following in the footsteps of Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Michael Dell (Dell), and Jack Dorsey (Twitter). The entrepreneurial pull from my gut led the way, and there was no turning back.
In 2014, I stumbled upon my Partner and CTO, and together, we launched a startup where we experienced the difficulty of raising capital. In 2018, our team of 12 engineers and designers launched NicheeLabs—an engineering corporation building software, machine learning, and artificial intelligence-powered solutions that produce intuitive experiences, improve systems performance, accelerate time to market, and impact bottom-line growth. Eventually, we succeeded by growing the company with no outside capital. In 2019, we had an exit after partnering with a family office to build a machine-learning-powered logistics system.
In 2022, I took a year off, then founded Matr Ventures, a VC fund investing in deep tech software and hybrid companies.
Before shifting my time to build Matr Ventures, I was a Partner and head of Investment Banking at a boutique advisory firm in Toronto. The firm, a former client for four years, invited me to be a Partner in 2018. Becoming a partner wasn't part of my plan. Still, it's how the universe blessed my path into investment banking and earned me the title "The Girl Who Moves Money." By 2022, I had completed buy/sell transactions totaling over $5 billion in AUM for wealth managers - including discretionary, non-discretionary money managers, family offices and banks.
Why Matr Ventures:
In 2021, a prolific CFA and portfolio manager invited me to co-found a cross-border wealth management firm. Launching a holistic planning and wealth management firm to help business leaders preserve and grow their wealth aligned well with my true north—economic empowerment through entrepreneurship.
Instead, with my experience in the private and institutional wealth management space, and having built enterprise software and deep tech systems from scratch, I decided to launch Matr - an alternative investment firm offering accredited individuals, wealth advisors, family offices, and institutional investors access to proprietary deals across deep tech software companies (applied artificial intelligence, semiconductor solutions, robotics automation, machine learning, and computer vision), all with a commitment to founder success and superior fund performance.
Let's go!!!