Why I Founded The Samba Capital — and How It Protected My Risk as an Individual Investor

When I was deeply involved as a founder, building companies and constantly investing my own money — as an individual — something started to bother me. Every month, I poured more funds into the business, betting on the dream. But a thought kept haunting me: what if I never see this money again?

That discomfort grew big enough to push me to a solution: founding The Samba Capital. This is the story, the reasoning, and what you — current or future founder — can take away to build your startup and fundraising strategy with more structure and less risk.

The Problem: Investing as an Individual = High Risk

When you invest personally in your own startup or someone else’s, several traps appear:

• Unlimited personal exposure: You’re fully liable without the protection of an investment vehicle.
• Weak governance: Informal investments reduce transparency and often skip protective clauses like liquidation preferences.
• Role confusion: Being both operator and investor blurs priorities and metrics of success.
• Lack of diversification: One big bet equals one big risk.

In my own case, I founded a company and kept investing my savings. At first it was thrilling — a rush of ownership and belief — but eventually came the uneasy question: what if this fails? That tension started eating into my focus and peace of mind.

The Turning Point: Learning to Think Like a Professional Investor

That’s when I started studying venture capital in depth. One book hit me early on:

“Raising a fund is as much about building trust as it is about raising capital.” — Mahendra Ramsinghani, The Business of Venture Capital

That line reframed everything. I didn’t just need to invest — I needed to create a structure that represented trust, discipline, and long-term alignment. That’s how The Samba Capital was born.

Structuring the Fund

1 • Legal and Financial Separation

By setting up the fund, the investments no longer came from me personally but from a separate entity. This gave me:

• legal protection,
• stronger contracts,
• clear governance.

This structure embodied what Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson call the “discipline of terms”:

“Every term in a term sheet has a purpose — understand it before you sign it.” — Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson, Venture Deals

That became my mantra: never invest without understanding the structure.

2 • Diversification and Strategy

With the fund, I could define a thesis, allocate capital across startups, and reduce dependency on a single outcome.

3 • Governance and Transparency

Regular reports, metrics, and accountability rituals created discipline — and discipline is what separates investment from emotion.

4 • Value Beyond Capital

The Samba Capital was born with a tech-driven and founder-friendly DNA: we aim to be close to the teams, offering code, product expertise, and strategic guidance, not just checks.

For Founders Reading This

Understand that a structured fund isn’t here to take power away from you — it’s here to bring structure. Serious investors protect themselves so they can keep investing. Founders who grasp that mindset scale faster.

When I read Venture Deals, one insight hit hard:

“The best entrepreneurs treat fundraising like any other critical process — they learn the language, understand the rules, and then play to win.”

That idea pushed me to professionalize not only my investor side, but also the way I support founders.

Closing Thoughts

Founding The Samba Capital was my way of continuing to build — but with a new lens: protect the capital, build governance, and invest with intent.

If you’re starting your own company, I recommend the two books that reshaped how I think about risk and structure:

• The Business of Venture Capital — for understanding how funds are built and governed.
• Venture Deals — for mastering the language of venture terms and negotiations.

These works shaped the philosophy behind The Samba Capital — the balance between risk, trust, and structure that every serious founder and investor must learn to dance with.