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- VC Mx: Esteban Reyes, GP & Founder at Zenda Capital
VC Mx: Esteban Reyes, GP & Founder at Zenda Capital
Zenda Capital is a thesis-driven VC firm backing early-stage founders modernizing traditional industries with technology.
Mack Meyer
May 27, 2025
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Zenda Capital is a thesis-driven venture firm investing in groundbreaking solutions that modernize industries. With deep operational expertise and networks, founders receive hands-on support in scaling engineering teams and go-to-market strategies.
Zenda Capital partners with early-stage founders who apply modern technology to traditional industries, supporting them from idea to product-market fit.
Dropping out of FAU
Esteban Reyes’ entrepreneurial journey was shaped by his family’s entrepreneurial legacy. “When I was about six years old, I heard the story of a coal miner in 1940s Colombia who wanted a better future for his family.” That coal miner, his grandfather, migrated to the U.S., worked his way up, and returned to Colombia as a successful business owner. “That became a powerful mental model that shaped everything I did.”
Reyes’ entrepreneurial path began early, he taught himself to code and, while in college, worked at a lending company, where he spotted inefficiencies in borrower verification.
This led Esteban to co-found a fintech company in 2001, which eventually served 400 banks and was acquired by what is now the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
After selling, I spent a few years integrating the company, ran their fraud solutions division, and realized I didn’t want to be a corporate executive.
Early Investing Days
Reyes started investing informally. “I started investing without really calling myself an investor, more like a founding investor or a co-founder with an expiration date.”
In the following years, Esteban launched eight companies, three of which successfully exited, contributing to a total exit value of $1.1 billion. This experience led him to formally back founders, launching his first venture fund in 2016, Zenda Capital.
GP’s and Venture Partners
Fund History & Investment Stage
Zenda Capital’s Investment Thesis
By and large, what we do at Zenda today is looking for founders as early as possible that are trying to bring modern technology to traditional industries and being their partner of choice as they plan to go from idea to product-market fit.
“The common thread was software and data applied mostly to traditional industries, although there were some things outside of the software space”, Esteban Reyes told VC Mexico.
The fund is structured to work closely with founders, providing hands-on support in refining business models, securing initial customers, and positioning companies for scalable growth.
This conviction is often built on prior relationships, extensive founder tracking, or an exceptional background that can be validated. For early-stage investments, Zenda looks for compensating factors, either strong pre-existing demand, clear product traction, or a unique insight that makes a non-obvious idea worth pursuing.
With a focus on financial services, supply chain, and healthcare, Zenda emphasizes speed of execution and go-to-market strategies as key differentiators. Portfolio construction is designed for high conviction, with 60-70% allocated to first checks and 30-40% reserved for follow-ons through Series A and B.
Reyes also emphasizes that venture capital is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Not every company is venture scale. In fact, there are more companies that are non-venture scale. And I think it's really important to understand venture capital as a resource and as a part of the toolkit, but not as the only choice to go build a company
This philosophy shapes Zenda Capital’s selective investment approach, ensuring that companies align with the venture-scale potential required for substantial returns.
Zenda’s Approach
Zenda Capital emphasizes the importance of founders fully understanding the implications of venture funding before committing to it. The firm encourages entrepreneurs to consider alternative funding strategies that preserve flexibility and maximize financial outcomes.
Esteban Reyes shares his own experience with this approach: “I started a company called FlexiPlan, which helps motorcycle distributors provide financing at the point of sale to consumers. We made the conscious decision to self-fund that business and grow it organically without raising outside capital.”
Zenda's approach is informed by firsthand experience in both venture-backed and self-funded companies, recognizing that not all businesses require external capital to reach their full potential.
If you haven't really thought through the maximum expression of your business and what it means to take on venture funding versus other sources of capital, you may be missing out on flexibility, optionality, and even financial outcome.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, Zenda Capital aims to continue identifying exceptional founders tackling inefficiencies in traditional markets.
We want to be the first call for founders who are rethinking traditional industries with modern technology.
By leveraging Reyes’ experience in both bootstrapped and venture-backed models, the fund offers a strategic advantage to early-stage startups navigating complex market dynamics.
We are committed to helping founders not just raise capital, but truly scale their companies in a way that maximizes both impact and financial success.
Zenda Capital is positioning itself to take advantage of a more rational early-stage investment landscape. After navigating the uncertainty of 2022 and 2023, the firm now has more capital available to deploy in a market where valuations and investment dynamics have stabilized.
Reflecting on this shift, Reyes notes, “Very little exposure to 2021 and 2022 means we have more capital to deploy now in a market that seems more rational and just more favorable.”
Moving forward, Zenda aims to continue its disciplined approach to underwriting investments, prioritizing long-term value creation over short-term trends. By focusing on strong founder partnerships and ensuring alignment on incentives, the fund seeks to back companies that can thrive in both favorable and challenging market conditions.
Identifying Emerging Opportunities
Zenda Capital takes a thematic approach to investing, focusing on opportunities that align with well-developed theses rather than specific geographies.
We are thematic investors. We follow certain theses that we develop, and our sort of territory is the Americas, but we’re less concerned about geographically mapping how we invest and more about finding the best companies that track towards our thesis, regardless of where they’re located.
When evaluating startups, Zenda prioritizes teams with a strong chance of execution.
If we’re going to invest in an idea, we need to have a very high degree of conviction that the team has a 50% or better chance of bringing that idea to life.
Advice to Entrepreneurs Looking to Raise Venture Capital
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