Marcos Fernandez - Fiat Ventures
"Don’t chase hype. Chase simplicity, focus, and traction. The best companies are often the ones that are the most boring."
Connect with Marcos
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcosfernandez0401/
VC Uncovered's View
Described by colleagues as the “nicest guy you’ll ever meet,” Marcos Fernandez approaches venture capital with a perspective forged far from the traditional hubs of Silicon Valley or Wall Street. He grew up in El Paso, Texas: a community where the way you treated people mattered more than your credentials or net worth. There, Marcos developed a profound sense of empathy and a clear-eyed view of how solutions actually impact end consumers. This foundation is critical because the world venture capital aims to shape is increasingly diverse, demanding investors who see beyond established networks and recognize value in overlooked places.
At Fiat Ventures, Marcos is part of the new wave of investors reshaping the future by prioritizing the person over the pedigree. Marcos holds a firm conviction that VCs should work for their founders, not the other way around. This commitment to service, trust, and transparency represents the kind of genuine partnership that VC Uncovered champions, one where investors roll up their sleeves and build alongside entrepreneurs during their toughest moments.
What truly sets Fiat Ventures apart is its unique model designed to "reverse engineer venture capital." By integrating a consultancy, advisor network, and hands-on support, they gain unique visibility into emerging trends and founder capabilities before investing. This unconventional structure allows them to move with an agility that larger legacy funds often lack.
Marcos balances this grounded philosophy with an audacious appetite for risk, aiming not just for home runs, but for "grand slams in Game 7 of the World Series." Yet, he remains wary of hype, emphasizing that the most transformative companies are often the "most boring." This blend of ambition and pragmatism is exactly the forward-thinking mindset needed to drive the next era of innovation.Meet Marcos
Q: You can be anywhere. Eating, drinking, and reading your favorite thing. What is it?
A: I’m on the road a lot for work, so all I want on the weekends and in my personal time is to hang with my wife and two kids Benny (4) and Sofia (2).
So if I could be anywhere I’d be eating pizza (my kids favorite), drinking a beer, and hanging out in my back yard with the family. I’m fortunate to travel the world through my work, so all I want is simple family time at home.
I LOVE reading anything on behavioral economics, mostly by Michael Lewis 📚.
Key Quotes
"Don’t chase hype. Chase simplicity, focus, and traction. The best companies are often the ones that are the most boring."
"Our role is simple… we work for our founders."
“We’re not going for singles or doubles. We’re not even going for home runs. We’re going for grand slams in Game 7 of the World Series.”
"Most founders think their most precious resource is capital. But it’s focus… painful prioritization and focus."
“I don’t care who you are or what you do; I try to approach each conversation and engagement in the same way—being present and having as much empathy as possible.”
"It’s possible to “do good and do well”
Original Responses (Lightly Edited for Clarity and Flow)
Background and Personal Journey
Experiences Shaping My Investment Approach
It really has to do with my upbringing and background, having grown up in El Paso, Texas, to two parents who grew up in Mexico and came to the US early in their lives. I was raised in communities with wonderful people, but without the abundance of financial resources that other areas across the US and the world have.
As a result, people didn’t judge each other based on title, car, or home, but rather based on the quality of their character and how they treat each other. That stands with me today. I don’t care who you are or what you do; I try to approach each conversation and engagement in the same way—being present and having as much empathy as possible to understand how solutions impact the lives of end consumers.
The world a decade from today looks a lot different than our world today. It’s more diverse, yet it’s also more homogeneous in many ways, and it’ll serve a larger audience. It’s possible to “do good and do well,” and I’m grateful to have co-founders and limited partners who share this same vision and values.
Moment Inspiring Venture Capital Career
I’ve always wanted to make a positive impact on the world around me. Initially, it was through operating roles while advising and writing angel checks to founders in my network. Over time, I realized that my “side hustle” of investing and advising was where my real passion was, and that my day job as an operator was just funding and allowing access.
When the opportunity to co-found Fiat Ventures came around, I remember thinking, “This is too early, I need to operate for another decade.” I spoke to one of my mentors at the time who said, “If you want to be in venture, just be in venture.”
It sounded too simple.
“Who knows? Maybe you’ll get the opportunity in a decade, and maybe you’ll hate it. Why wait for the perfect opportunity when you have the opportunity now?”
I really appreciate her advice, because she was right. In life, there’s no perfect time, and the opportunities for pivoting into the venture industry are rare. The good news is I love venture, and am incredibly grateful that I decided to jump into building Fiat Ventures.
Influences on My Worldview
My parents by far.
My father is the embodiment of the American dream. Having grown up in Mexico in a lower-class family, he immigrated to the US at a young age, worked his way through school, and ended up becoming an executive within the banking space.
He taught me that there’s no shortcut to success: it takes time, effort, and risk-taking at the right moments. He never sacrificed being a father for being ambitious, something that sticks with me today as I raise my own two young children.
My mother has a similar background, growing up in Mexico and moving g to the US during high school. She became successful in the medical field as a nurse, and eventually raised my brother and me with a strong moral compass.
She taught me to treat everyone the same. There’s nobody above you, there’s nobody below you, we’re all going through our own struggles. It’s important to have empathy and to give back daily. Never sacrifice your integrity, and always help others.
Today, I find myself in the same situation with two young children, teaching them about the world around them. I think about my parents often, and do my best to instill similar values in them.
Unconventional Belief
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
It’s so easy to get caught up in hype cycles and mania around new technologies, but that doesn’t mean that you should cut corners in your diligence and research.
As early-stage investors, we over-index on “founder-market-fit” and back founders who are solving unique problems through lived experience. If that same founder can’t succinctly and clearly explain what they’re building, it’s a major red flag.
If they can’t explain it to you, how will they explain it to a potential customer, to a new hire, to a future investor? Don’t chase hype, chase simplicity, focus and traction. The best companies are often the ones that are the most boring.
Balancing Intuition with Data
We always say that we invest in the “Four Ts”: Team, TAM, Traction and Trust. The first three are pretty common, but the fourth is unique to us. “Trust” doesn’t just mean if we believe the story, but rather the insights that we gather through our unique model to reverse engineer venture capital.
We’re grateful to have built one of the most unique platforms in venture with a larger Fiat ecosystem around us including our consultancy, advisor network, media org and hands-on support. That means that we get unique visibility to the founders and trends that are shaping the market around us. We see, we develop a thesis, we work with companies, and then we invest.
At the end of the day, we back great founders. We like to balance that with unique insights from our large platform, and from our network of clients, advisors and partners across financial services.
Best Advice Received
You can have the hardest day on the job, where nothing goes right, but if all is well at home, then none of that matters. It doesn ’t work the other way around. Prioritize accordingly.
I’m fortunate to have the world’s best wife, best kids, and best parents who set an example of how you can work hard and still be present for your family. Today, I find myself on the road frequently, away from those that I love the most, chasing this dream of building Fiat Ventures into a world-class firm.
I often reflect on this advice and prioritize my time accordingly. When I’m not working, I’m with the kids. I don’t have many hobbies nowadays, and I don’t take any trips for fun without the family. I’ve never been happier.
I’m grateful to have co-founders and partners who are in similar stages in their own lives, and with young families of similar ages. We provide space for each other, and if something comes up at home, we immediately offer support. No questions asked.
As my Co-Founder, Alex Harris, says, “Life is too short, it’s important to work on problems you care about, do it with people you love and trust, and that have an impact on the world around us.”
Philosophy and Insights
Investment Philosophy
Fintech is embedded in everything.
Having operated in the Fintech space for over a decade, we’ve seen wave after wave of digitizing brick-and-mortar banking services. Moving forward, we’ll see the combination of two trends:
Everything is a Fintech, including the brands that we use most (i.e., Starbucks, Apple, Shopify).
Fintech is Everywhere embedded into healthcare, climate, the future of work, and applications of AI.
We’re proponents of the idea that the next wave of innovation will be at these outer edges, and that’s exactly where we like to invest.
Values When Working with Founders
Above all, I prioritize trust and transparency. There should never be a hidden agenda when working with founders, especially at the early stages.
I have such a deep respect for founders. You have to get the team right, the timing right, the customer set right, the tech right; there’s so much that can go wrong.
You also don’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, perfect. If you’re not breaking things, then you’re not moving fast enough. It’s ok to make mistakes, as long as you learn from your lessons and move forward quickly.
It’s essential to work with founders while being transparent, and to work through those challenges together. We’re here through the ups and downs, and we want you to feel that.
The Perfect Founder Pitch
It would be short and sweet. I’m solving this problem with this solution, because of this experience. Tomorrow, the vision is to do this, but today I’m very clearly solving that.
Short, simple, focused.
I have a lot of empathy for founders because it’s a challenging thing to convey. You have to prove you have focus today, while building for a much larger vision tomorrow.
Approach to Risk
We welcome risk; it’s a part of a venture industry that’s still largely governed by the Power Law. Vice versa, I’m always questioning any idea or investment that doesn’t take too much risk.
Our goal as venture investors is to back companies with 50-100x outcomes. The analogy I like to use is that “we’re not going for singles or doubles… we’re not even going for home runs… we’re going for grand slams in Game 7 of the World Series.”
Failure is ok, it’s a regular part of what we do. Risk is good, and we’re fortunate to be able to work hand in hand with founders to help them mitigate a lot of that risk when it comes to go-to-market and growth.
Measuring Success Beyond Returns
DPI is the name of the game. Distributions to Paid-In Capital essentially means “cash in, cash out.” It’s what we’re tracked on, and how we’re graded.
It’s not the only thing that matters.
We’re big proponents that it’s possible to “do good and do well” and that financial technology is the greatest enabler of financial access and mobility. At the end of the day, we want to make sure that end consumers can lead better financial lives based on the technologies we back.
Returns are important, and you don’t have to sacrifice our vision and values to reach those returns. We’re lucky to have such incredible limited partners (LPs) and investors who share our values and who are hands-on with our founders' success.
Trends and Future Vision
Exciting Trends and Technologies
Stablecoins and cross-border finance are reshaping the way money moves globally, and in a very real way.
Having worked in the crypto space, I saw firsthand how there were a lot of “Web 3 solutions solving Web 3 problems.” The introduction of Stablecoins is one of the first Web 3 use cases solving real-world Web 2.0 problems (cross-border finance).
We’re in the early innings, too. The global market cap of stablecoins today is just over $225bn, while global cross-border payments topped ~$150trn in 2024. That’s a fraction of the market, but momentum is on our side.
Global adoption of stablecoins and central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) is on the rise. Financial institutions are more comfortable holding digital assets, and regulators are providing clear guidance and guidelines around their use.
Today’s adoption is more than just hype and anticipation, but allows consumers globally to gain better access to stable currencies, financial systems, and to transact with relatives overseas. It’s an incredibly exciting time, and a good promise for blockchain and digital asset technologies.
Misconception About VCs
Most VC investors think they are the reason companies succeed. They think that founders are commodities and that success is inevitable. We couldn’t disagree more.
Our role is simple… we work for our founders. We provide capital, we provide introductions, and in the case of Fiat Ventures, we can provide hands-on support for GTM, growth and cost-focused scaling.
Not all founders lean on us the same. The best know how to extract value from their investors, the worst ones only come around when more capital is needed. At the end of the day however, if a company succeeds, it’s 100% because of the efforts of the founders.
Improving the VC Ecosystem
I wish there could be more transparency into the Limited Partner (LP) ecosystem, and how decisions are made. I don’t mind a quick “no” or “not for us,” but the prolonged “maybes” are the hardest to work with.
Unfortunately, the culture is very similar for how VCs communicate with founders. They don’t want to make a mistake or burn a bridge, so founders get ghosted instead of being given a direct answer.
I feel it from LPs, so I try not to replicate those bad habits with our founders. I like to be very transparent about where they are in our process, about our biggest concerns, and about what we like. I’m an open book (maybe to a fault) but feel that honesty is the best policy, and founders who understand the business of venture investing tend to appreciate the transparency.
Challenges for Early-Stage Founders
Most founders think their most precious resource is capital. The biggest challenge is focus… painful prioritization and focus.
In a world with so many distractions, it’s easy to get caught up in hype cycles and trends. Especially if you feel a certain action will help you raise more capital, get a product to market, or lock in a big logo.
VCs need to help their founders by letting them know that their time is precious, and that focus is more important than scale at early stages. We do this by limiting requirements for founders that don’t have to do with progress toward the business. Quarterly updates with just key information, board meetings to just discuss key items, and to put us to work when we can take something off their plates.
There’s an unintended power dynamic between investors and founders. It’s the investors’ role to make sure that’s limited, and that any requests don’t take away from focus on the business at hand. It’s also our job as investors to help our founders cut through corners and re-prioritize their business. We have a unique vantage point and ability to open up doors to customers, partners, and capital providers.