- Capitalg Investor Kelly Barton is a newly crowned Ironman world champion.
- Barton is one of the many former students-athletes who are now vague in venture capital.
- She says that moving away to finish her training in triathlon helps her to be a better investor.
For Capitalg Investor, Kelly Barton, being twice as busy as the average person for most of his life – including as a member of the MIT crew team – has borne fruit in his professional efforts.
Barton is vice-president of the capital’s investment team, where she focuses on fintech and software startups. Since her participation in 2021, she has helped the fund to write checks for the cutting of supply chain startup, to ensure the technological startup Duck Creek Technologies and the fintech of wealth management.
His fitness journey has also reached new heights: Barton in December went to TaupÅ, New Zealand, to participate in the Ironman 70.3 world championships. She won her age group during the competition and became an ironman world champion for women aged 25 to 29.
While his status as an elite-athlete makes her particularly unique, Barton is one of the many venture capital across the country which are former university athletes and for whom sports always constitute a large part of their identity.
For Barton, the training as an elite triathlete only improved her investment game – she was promoted to Capitulg at the beginning of 2024 in the midst of training for her world championship qualification.
“One thing I appreciated is that training creates a forced space for me to think about the companies I come back,” she said. “The decline for more than two hours a day helps me find the space to think about their next steps.”
From rowing to Trialons
After seven years of rowing, until 2017, Barton was ready for something new. She resumed the race after university, trained for a marathon, then was passed on to triathlons in order to finish a complete Ironman – a swimming of 2.4 miles, a 112 -thousand bike ride and a 26.2 miles race.
Barton, who at the time trained herself, was the winner of her first triathlon, an Olympic event consisting of a 1.5-kilometer swimming, a 40-kilometer walk and a 10-kilometer race. She then finished near the top of her age group in her first semester Ironman, qualifying for the 70.3 World Championships in 2021.
In 2022, she won her age group in each race in which she competed. In 2023, she began to win the female field in some of her races and qualified for the full and a half Ironman world championships, obtaining her professional triathlete license, or “pro card”.
While his triathlon career was steam, his career in VC too. Barton joined Capitalg in August 2021 and was promoted in February 2024 to the Vice-President, conducting investments in B2B finch and vertical software companies.
The life of an elite endurance athlete spending tens of hours a week may seem incompatible with the life of a VC. Barton, who spends more than two hours running, cycling and swimming most of the time, said her history in sport made her a better investor because she sees the overview, rather than fixing on small details like a missed training or a less than stellar call conference.
She added that even if it may seem counter-intuitive, having a more busy schedule encourages her to slow down and find a balance between her personal and professional life.
“You can work 24-7 if you wish, and at the beginning, I would train, sleep and work, but I have a lot better for balance,” she said.
Fintech investments
Barton says that she considers investing as a natural extension of her time at MIT, where she was constantly surrounded by peers solving advanced problems in research laboratories. It was attracted by venture capital for the opportunity to work with founders with a similar state of mind.
At Capitalg, Barton focuses on finch and software investments at the growth stage. It is particularly interested in massive profit pools in financial services, such as the heritage management industry of 100 billions in the United States, one of its big bets last year was further, a wealth management company of $ 72 million compatible with technologies.
In 2025, Barton was delighted to continue to develop deep investment theses in Fintech. One of the biggest questions on which it is focused is how digital banks will evolve worldwide. Capitalg invested in Monzo last year, and Barton is particularly interested in how regional differences affect the adoption of digital banks.
In the United Kingdom, for example, Monzo has built a beloved consumer product, but technology has not taken off in other countries that have different money manipulation cultures. Barton is looking for opportunities on other markets, especially when cash payments are always king.
“2025 will be to answer major questions about how certain markets and trends will evolve,” she said. “I am delighted to spend years thinking about these problems and working with founders to solve them.”
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