La Frontera 🌵 Podcast, Episode 8 - LatAm VC Trailblazer: Investing Across Borders & Empowering Women

We first connected with Susy Espinosa through a cold LinkedIn message. From the beginning, she was warm, direct, and generous with her time. Susy is one of the first female venture capital partners in Mexico, and her journey into venture is as unconventional as it is inspiring.

From a cold email that launched her VC career to co-founding Mujeres Invertiendo, Susy has helped shape the venture ecosystem in Mexico and is now actively investing in and supporting Latin founders across both the US and LatAm through Dux Capital. This conversation pulls back the curtain on what it’s really like to fundraise in LatAm, what kinds of businesses are truly venture-backable, and how we can bring more women into investing roles.

Whether you’re a founder, investor, or someone interested in breaking into VC, this episode has a lot to offer.

Episode 8 Summary

• Susy’s Unconventional Path into VC: From a cold email in college that landed her an internship to a six-year career at Angel Ventures, all before an MBA in Madrid.

• Founding “Mujeres Invertiendo”: How seeing zero female VCs in Mexico drove Susy to co-found an organization empowering women investors and eventually become one of the country’s first female GPs.

• Dux Capital’s Cross-Border Thesis: Why Dux bases itself between Austin and CDMX, investing in Latinx founders in the US to bridge markets, and how this strategy helps mitigate risk while tapping huge opportunities.

• Fundraising Challenges in LatAm: The lack of exits and secondary markets makes raising capital tough. Susy explains how limited exits have many local LPs waiting on the sidelines (and what that means for emerging fund managers).

• Hard Truths on Female-Founded Startups: Susy’s candid take on why many women-led businesses in LatAm don’t fit the traditional VC model - and why that’s okay. (Plus, how risk appetite and “impostor syndrome” play a role.)

• Bringing More Women to the Cap Table: From launching an angel investor academy to mentoring, Susy shares how we can encourage more women to become investors and write checks in the ecosystem.

• Mexico’s Startup Community Boom: The evolution of Mexico City’s startup scene – from a handful of founders in 2016 to hundreds of events at Tech Week 2025 – and how a vibrant, party-loving culture is building a tight-knit tech community.

Dux Capital: Investing in the next generation of founders

💰 Assets Under Management: $4M+ across one fund
📍 HQ: Austin, TX with an office in Mexico City
🎯 Stage Focus: Seed and Series A
🌎 Geographic Focus: Mexico, Spain, and the US
📊 Check Size: $750K–$1.8M initial, with follow-on capacity
🏆 Exits: One exit with Zubut exiting to Mensajeros Urbanos

🚀 Notable Investments:

• Mozper (Mexico) — Mozper provides the first debit card designed for children managed by parents. The card allows control of expenses to promote financial education from early years, and teach young people to manage money.

• Cheddies (USA) — Cheddies is the first company to create a light, crispy, cheesy cracker produced with real regenerative cheddar cheese high in protein.

• Innovare (USA) – A Chicago-based edtech platform that empowers school and nonprofit leaders with data analytics tools.

• Trato (Mexico) – A legaltech SaaS platform that simplifies contracts so companies have better control and traceability.

• Fintonic (Spain) – A Madrid-based fintech company offering a mobile application that serves as a personal finance manager, allowing users to aggregate their financial accounts, monitor expenses, and receive personalized financial advice.

Learn more here: www.duxcapital.vc

📧 From Cold Emails to Partner at Dux Capital: Susy’s Path

Susy didn’t grow up dreaming of venture capital, she discovered it by accident after organizing TEDx talks at her university and becoming curious about startup founders and how they built their companies and raised capital.

After taking, and acing, a class with a few local VCs, she was frustrated when she didn’t get offered an internship. So, she emailed Hernán from Angel Ventures (and cc’d one of his LPs for good measure), offering to work for free.

She spent six years at Angel Ventures, rising from intern to portfolio manager, and only later pursued an MBA in Madrid. Still, she never saw another woman in a decision-making role. So, she co-founded Mujeres Invertiendo, a network for women in private equity and venture capital.

Today, Susy is one of the few women in Mexico to become a Partner in Venture Capital and she’s opening the door for others.

👩 What Was Missing: Mujeres Invirtiendo

In all her time at Angel Ventures, Susy never once worked with a female partner. So she co-founded Mujeres Invirtiendo, a network of women in VC and PE aimed at fixing the representation gap.

That MBA was at IE in Madrid. But before and after, she organized dinners, networking events, and advocacy efforts to encourage firms to bring in women, not just as analysts, but as decision-makers.

It worked. Now, she estimates that 36% of the startups in Dux Capital’s pipeline are female-led, even though Dux Capital doesn’t promote that as a mandate.

🌉 Dux Capital’s Edge: Cross-Border, Latino, Bootstrapped

Dux invests in Latino founders in the US, a niche with unique challenges and big opportunities. It’s a deliberate strategy: build bridges between Latin American talent and the US market, and unlock better paths to scale, exits, and liquidity.

These aren’t founders with elite networks or pedigree, they’re operators who have often bootstrapped to seven figures in revenue before raising capital.

The result? Lower risk, stronger fundamentals, and startups that can go the distance.