Creating the change we want to see

The true magic of the Cartier Women’s Initiative is its community — a global network of hundreds of passionate changemakers who generously donate their time to advise, connect and uplift one another. 

Longstanding community member Anna Raptis, founder and managing partner of female-first venture capital fund Amplifica Capital, is a trailblazing investor dedicated to increasing economic participation and opportunities for women in Latin America. 

Within the Cartier Women’s Initiative community, Anna serves as a capital mentor. Capital mentors are experienced investors within the community who help fundraising fellows to scale their business and impact by providing support and connections across the capital spectrum. In this blog, Anna reflects on what she’s learned from the mentoring experience so far.

Driven by creating tangible results

“The more I learn about the Cartier Women’s Initiative, the more impressed I am by its depth and impact — and by the fellows themselves. Supporting them in reaching their goals has been so deeply rewarding. I served as a jury member in 2023 and 2024, then became a capital mentor in 2025. It complements my work as an investor and allows me to continue building meaningful relationships within the community,” Anna begins.

“When I reflect on my mentorship journey, there’s one particular story that reaffirms why I chose to take on this role — and you’ve actually already told the tale on the blog. When I first met Atilana Piñón through my role as a jury member in the 2023 Awards edition, I was so impressed by her grit and her determination to build Retorna, a financial platform for migrants. I saw how she developed and grew over the course of the program and I was determined to support her to take Retorna to the next level. I connected Atilana with other people in Latin America who could support her with her fundraising and my fund was eventually able to invest too.”

In the end, 50% of Retorna’s oversubscribed seed round of $1.8 million USD was secured through introductions facilitated by Anna.

“This experience helped me see how I could help fellows get results,” Anna explains. “That’s what’s most important to me. As an investor, I hear a lot of talk about supporting women — but what they really need is investment.”

Balancing impact and returns

Anna recounts, “I’ve invested in three Cartier Women’s Initiative fellows to date. The second is 2021 fellow Valentina Rogacheva, founder of Verqor — which gives data-based cashless credits to financially excluded smallholder farmers, which they can use to buy agricultural supplies on Verqor’s platform. I also invested in 2015 fellow Komal Dadlani, whose business Lab4U develops web and mobile technologies to turn smartphones and tablets into science instruments, through 0BS, a firm where I’m a general partner.”

She expands, “Each of them perfectly fits my investment thesis: that investing in women drives both positive impact and financial returns. There's no hierarchy there; you can’t have impact without financial returns or vice versa. I'm always looking for both. They all share the vision to scale and potential for an exit. This is important because, alongside impact, I also want to realize excellent financial returns for my investors.”

Authentic, aligned relationships

Anna notes, “I actually met Valentina in 2019, before she joined the Cartier Women’s Initiative. I have a background in the agricultural space and an appreciation for its challenges, so I was attracted to the problem Verqor was trying to solve and the embedded impact in its solution — that’s really important to me. After Valentina passed through the Cartier Women’s Initiative program, I could see how her business model had developed and how much traction she had achieved, and I then invested. With equity investment especially, decision-making can be quite slow, but when you develop authentic, aligned relationships, that’s when the most value can be added.”

She continues, “Our investment turned out to be catalytic, as it led to Valentina meeting SP Ventures, an agricultural fund based in Brazil. Verqor was its first investment in Mexico. This institutional capital gave other investors greater confidence and Verqor has brought many other funders on board since then. It goes to show how one connection can unlock another, then another, and the resulting impact can be transformative.”

Inspiration runs both ways

“My biggest takeaway from being a capital mentor is an even deeper conviction in my investment thesis,” says Anna. “At Amplifica Capital, we’re looking to invest in companies where women have a proportional share of the equity. Being part of the Cartier Women’s Initiative community has introduced me to so many impressive women, founders and CEOs with a significant equity stake in their company. When I see women, not just in Latin America but across the world, building highly impactful businesses while generating wealth for their investors, it's helped me to feel more conviction than ever in my path — and more certain that we need more investment in this space!”

Anna continues, “With that in mind, I'm always looking to meet more entrepreneurs in Latin America that meet my investment thesis — please apply through our website! I love developing authentic relationships with entrepreneurs anywhere in the world, especially CWI fellows.”

She reflects, “Through the Cartier Women’s Initiative community, I’ve also connected with investors around the world who share a similar approach. Meeting inspiring people with the same mindset as me gives me energy to keep doing the work I am doing — it can sometimes feel very lonely when you are swimming against the tide with so many challenges.”

A parting message

Anna leaves aspiring women entrepreneurs with one final encouragement: “Just start.”

“Perfect is the enemy of good. One of the things that's most important when you're an entrepreneur is to get out there and try and iterate. What you start with is never going to be what your end product ends up as, so go out and test things and start so that you can evolve.”