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Episode 116: Eva Yazhari: Beyond Capital Ventures

Author

Barbara Bickham
July 25, 2025

Hi Impactful Listener!

In this insightful episode, host Barbara Bickham sits down with Eva Yazhari to discuss her journey into venture capital, the unique thesis at Beyond Capital Ventures, and the significance of conscious leadership in emerging markets. Eva breaks down how her firm supports scalable startups addressing essential needs in Africa and India, while fostering transparency, shared ownership, and community among founders.

Key Points Discussed

  • Eva Yazhari’s unexpected path from math major to venture capitalist, and the foundational skills she gained in institutional finance.

  • The investment thesis at Beyond Capital Ventures: supporting conscious leaders building essential solutions for rising middle classes in Africa and India.

  • The importance of formalizing and scaling informal markets—especially in agtech and mobility—to unlock economic growth and opportunity.

  • How Beyond Capital Ventures diversifies with a multi-asset approach, expanding into senior secured lending in addition to VC investments.

  • Eva’s leadership style focused on alignment, shared success, and building a culture of above-the-line thinking.

🎧 Watch the Episode

Chapters

  • 00:20 Eva’s journey into finance and venture capital

  • 02:34 Overview of the Beyond Capital Ventures thesis

  • 04:11 Formalizing informal markets & agtech examples

  • 07:10 Growth into a multi-asset firm & lessons learned

  • 09:42 Perspectives on the evolution of venture capital

  • 11:42 Eva’s leadership approach and creating shared ownership

Full Topic Guide

Unlocking Impact: Conscious Venture Investing in the Emerging World
How Eva Yazhari and Beyond Capital Ventures are Changing the Paradigm

Introduction
In Episode 116 of the Female VC Lab Podcast, Eva Yazhari, Managing Partner of Beyond Capital Ventures, shares her compelling journey from mathematics student to a pioneer in impact-focused venture capital. This episode delves into how Eva leverages her institutional finance background to enact transformative change in Africa and India while building strong, conscious founder communities.

From Math Major to Venture Capitalist
Eva’s entry into finance was serendipitous. As a math major at Columbia, a suggestion from a friend led her to investment banking, which in turn opened doors to the hedge fund world. There, Eva became employee number two at a rapidly growing fund-of-funds. During her tenure, the team raised $4.8 billion and built deep relationships across the industry. These experiences grounded Eva in both operational know-how and the importance of relational investment—insights she carried into launching her own VC fund.

A Conscious Investment Thesis for Real-World Needs
Beyond Capital Ventures is driven by a bold thesis: Invest in need-to-have products and solutions led by leaders who consider all stakeholders—customers, communities, governments, and the climate. As Africa and India’s middle classes surge, Eva argues, investing in businesses that are mindful of their broader impact isn’t just ethical—it’s essential for scale and sustainability.

Eva highlights sectors like healthcare, fintech, mobility, and increasingly, agtech. These areas are foundational to socioeconomic growth, and her firm seeks out startups that create lasting value, not just profit.

Scaling “Informal” Markets—From Agtech to Mobility
One core theme Eva discusses is the formalization of “informal” sectors—dynamic but fragmented parts of emerging market economies. Rather than displace the millions of smallholder farmers in Africa, Beyond Capital Ventures helps them scale and access financial systems. Eva spotlights Cinch, an agtech portfolio company that aggregates underutilized farmland, allowing smallholders to generate income and meet large commercial contracts—critical for sustainably feeding a growing population.

Similarly, in mobility, Eva’s fund backs ventures that not only innovate on hardware (like bikes) but also infrastructure solutions, such as battery swap networks. These investments enable underserved populations to leapfrog outdated systems and rapidly scale new technologies.

Innovating the Venture Model: Multi-Asset Strategies and Shared Success
Beyond traditional venture capital, Eva’s team recently launched a credit strategy, making senior secured loans to portfolio companies. These tools both diversify the fund and provide investors quicker, more reliable returns—a rarity in VC. Eva believes this hybrid approach increases resilience and aligns with her broader goals for impact.

Crucially, Eva fosters a culture of shared ownership. Beyond Capital Ventures extends carry (a share of fund profits) not only to every team member—including executive assistants—but also to founders. This incentive-based model creates alignment, builds community, and drives everyone toward collective success.

Building “Above the Line” Leadership
Eva’s commitment to conscious leadership is woven throughout her work. She’s focused on creating a culture where “above the line” behaviors—abundance, collaboration, and integrity—prevail. By modeling this daily, Eva aims to build stronger teams, better investments, and communities united by shared purpose.

Conclusion
This episode underscores that venture capital, when guided by accountability and vision, can profoundly transform emerging economies while driving strong returns. Eva Yazhari’s approach blends financial acumen with deep empathy, offering a roadmap for the future of impactful, inclusive investing.

Notable Quotes from the Guest

Viral VC Strategies: "VCs need three things. They need to invest, they source better, they need to invest better, and they need to add value. And then I'll throw in a fourth, which is my bonus, which is the exits start on day one. They need to exit better." - Eva Yazhari

The Future of Venture Capital: "The alpha is in the niche piece." - Eva Yazhari

Fun Facts or Interesting Tidbits

  • Beyond Capital Ventures makes every team member, including executive assistants, a participant in the fund’s carry.

  • Founders in the portfolio can earn a share of carry by reaching milestones or undergoing re-investment, fostering a sense of collective ownership.

  • The firm’s book recommendation: The Culture Code, guiding Eva’s team in scaling leadership and collaboration.

Episode Resource: Learning, Reading, and Listening

Here are the specific resources mentioned in this episode:

These resources were highlighted by Eva Yazhari as influential to her continued personal and professional development.

Eva Yazhari is an experienced investor, author, and advocate for conscious capitalism. As Managing Partner of Beyond Capital Ventures, she leads early-stage investments in East Africa and India, focusing on essential sectors with the potential to impact millions.

Her investment portfolio spans over 50 equity and 9 debt deals, reaching more than 100 million customers and championing equitable ownership for all founders. Eva began her career on Wall Street as Vice President at EnTrust Capital, managing over $5 billion in investments.

She now brings that institutional expertise to mentoring founders and scaling purpose-driven companies in emerging markets. She serves on the boards of Viebeg Medical, Lal10, and CarePoint, and contributes strategic oversight across the BCV portfolio. She’s also a member of the Athena Leadership Council at Barnard College.

Eva is the author of The Good Your Money Can Do and co-hosts The Beyond Capital Podcast and The BCV Podcast.

Fund Information

We have been investing as a team in these markets for over a decade. We launched Beyond Capital Ventures to scale and invest in many more early-stage businesses primarily in healthcare, financial services, and agriculture, with a focus on distribution, economic development and emerging markets to there rest of the world.

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I really appreciate Daphna Ziman sharing her new song Humanity, the spoken‑word piece she released on July 14, 2025, calling for unity, compassion, and healing in our world.

Humanity

Daphna Ziman · Single · 2025 · 1 songs

open.spotify.com/album/6LHNmZmqVHUPjVFxOLRp0X

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Best,
Barbara

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