Kelly O’Connell and Fernanda Carapinha: Building Infrastructure for Founder Success

In this episode of THE IMPACT PITCH, Lee Schneider interviews a VC, Kelly O’Connell, managing partner of the 360 Venture Collective, and a founder, Fernanda Carapinha, founder and CEO of WE Intelligence and creator of Founderverse® Why do 90% of startups fail? Not because founders can't succeed-but because they lack the intelligence, systems, and infrastructure to scale effectively. Fernanda Carapinha believes that the 90% startup failure rate is not evidence that most entrepreneurs can't succeed. Rather, it's evidence that most founders are building without the intelligence, systems, and infrastructure needed to scale effectively. Drawing from a unique background spanning psychology, behavioral intelligence, AI, and more than fifteen years as a senior executive in Hollywood, she is building technology designed to improve decision-making, execution, and outcomes for founders and the capital allocators who support them. Through WE Intelligence and its flagship platform, Founderverse®, Fernanda is working to address one of the largest inefficiencies in the innovation economy: helping founders identify and mitigate execution gaps before they become critical, while helping capital allocators cut through overwhelming deal-flow noise to gain deeper insight into founder readiness, execution capability, and growth potential. Today we'll explore why she believes the future advantage is no longer access to knowledge—it's the ability to transform knowledge into action. Then, Lee interviews Kelly O'Connell, managing partner of 360 Venture Collective, about what venture capital actually looks for in founders. Kelly explains why they don't chase unicorns-instead, they back founders deeply committed to solving meaningful problems, and why impact and business performance aren't two separate conversations. You'll learn: Why assessing the founder matters more than evaluating the idea How to transform knowledge into action through better systems Why founders pitch features when investors want to hear about outcomes How to integrate impact and sustainability into your business model What makes a founder investable in a rapidly changing ecosystem Perfect for founders, investors, and anyone building solutions that matter. 00:00 - Introduction 01:24 - Introduce Fernanda Carapinha 19:36 - Introduce Kelly O'Connell 36:32 - Lessons Learned 38:10 - Host Closing The Impact Pitch: How Tech Founders Tell Stories that Attract Capital Episode 3 June 24, 2026 ★ Episode details: https://share.transistor.fm/s/64a7689a ★ Additional episodes: https://redcupagency.com