Jennifer Hopp

Jennifer has been building companies and investing in startups as a Limited Partner (LP), Venture Partner, Angel Investor, Venture Capitalist (VC) and Founder for over 25 years. Currently, Jennifer is the Managing Partner at ATO Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm based in Puerto Rico that funds technology startups globally, with special focus on Puerto Rico and LATAM. She also runs the GPx program for the Plexo Foundation, sits on it's Board of Directors (BOD) and is the interim Executive Director (ED).

Recently, Jennifer wrote and published Valid Startup, a step-by-step, interactive program to walk founders and aspiring entrepreneurs through the process of starting a business from idea to launch with an emphasis on ensuring profitability before committing time and money to development. The program is the basis of all ATO Ventures incubators and is now available to others, both individual founders and for use as course or coaching curriculum. https://validstartup.com

Jennifer began investing in the capital markets at age 19, while an undergrad at the University of Oxford. She became an LP in an early stage Venture Capital fund at age 23. Several years later, Jennifer became a Venture Partner with Outsell, and then an active startup Advisor and Angel Investor. She founded ATO Ventures in 2018, one of the first, early stage Venture Capital funds in PR.

As an entrepreneur, Jennifer started her first company at age 8, but she officially became a tax-paying citizen at age 10. After college, she was a testifying & consulting Commercial Damages Expert before returning to her passion - entrepreneurship! She founded her software company, WeMakeItSafer, shortly after attending business school at UC Berkeley. After launching in 2011, the company was acquired in 2016.

Along the way, Jennifer also held two interim CEO roles to get new companies off the ground, and has been advising startups on identifying revenue models and the importance of validating markets before launch. Now, Jennifer is using her expertise to help other investors achieve higher returns at lower risk through ATO Ventures, which uses a Market Validation Testing model to ensure market fit before seed investment.

Jennifer began visiting Puerto Rico as a startup mentor in 2016 and quickly fell in love with the island. She is now happy to call San Juan home and is fully committed to supporting and growing the quickly emerging startup ecosystem in PR.

The best place to connect with Jennifer is on instagram: http://instagram.com/Hopp.vc