Our team

Jesse Downing is the founder of Downing Capital Group. Under his leadership, the firm is revolutionizing early-stage company investing with a highly differentiated model. He has co-founded companies across various sectors, including hospitality, e-commerce, healthcare, cybersecurity, FinTech, and tech-enabled services.  

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Prior to establishing the firm, Jesse was an investor at The Baupost Group, a $30 billion investment partnership, where he led investments across industries such as media, healthcare, packaging, software, agriculture, aircraft, grocery, consumer products, business services, entertainment, and leisure.

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Jesse graduated with high honors from Harvard University, where he studied Economics and Mathematics. He is the co-author, alongside Norton Reamer, of Investment: A History, published by Columbia University Press. The book explores the evolution of investing from early human civilization to the modern era and has been featured in Institutional Investor, The New York Times, and The Economist.

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Fernando has played a key role in launching several ventures, including Maro, a cybersecurity company; Bloomwell, a network of ABA therapy clinics; and Cedar Brands, a DTC e-commerce company.

Before joining Downing, Fernando was the CEO and co-founder of Kekanto-DD, a marketplace and SaaS company backed by Accel and acquired by Locaweb (LWSA3). He also served as COO of ClickOn, a group buying company with US$700MM GMV, which was acquired by Mosaico Internet Holdings.

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Fernando is also an active early-stage investor, having backed companies like Brilia, which was later acquired by Cartesian Capital Group, among others. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Fernando worked as a management consultant at McKinsey and as an investment banker at JPMorgan.  

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Fernando holds a degree in Finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Sam has been instrumental in launching several ventures, including Portoro, a tech-enabled property management company; Ownershift, an acquisition platform for Main Street businesses; and Immersiv Health, an ambulatory infusion center company.

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Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Sam was a hospitality-focused real estate investor at MCR, a leading hotel investment and development group in New York City. He also worked as an investor at Kensico Capital, a $6 billion fund, where he invested across industries such as software, consumer products, media, food and beverage, technology, and retail.  

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Sam holds a degree in Economics from Princeton University and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Philip is responsible for launching AlphaNode, an AI-enabled platform to support research professionals, and Wellnest Fertility, a fertility clinic operator.

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Prior to joining Downing Capital, Philip was the first investment professional at the FinTech and SaaS builder LabCo from 2017 to 2021. He played a key role in building several successful digital services companies in the FinTech and HR space.

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Philip began his career at UBS in New York City as an investment banking analyst. There, he covered industrial companies -particularly in the transportation, aviation, and building materials sectors - while executing M&A and capital raise transactions.

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Philip graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia with a degree in Finance and received his MBA from Columbia Business School where he was a Mark Venrick Fellow, Columbia Venture Fellow, and graduated with Dean’s Honors.

Prior to joining Downing, Marah served as an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where she specialized in helping companies rapidly launch new ventures and transform their operations. During her time at McKinsey, Marah worked across all phases of business building, from ideation to scaling startups. She also contributed to pro-bono consulting efforts with McKinsey's InNYC initiative, assisting underrepresented founders in New York to tackle significant challenges and achieve sustainable, inclusive growth.

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Earlier in her career, Marah worked in Strategic Finance at Moda Operandi, where she supported a successful Series fundraising effort. She began her professional journey in Equity Research at Jefferies and Telsey Advisory Group, focusing on the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) sectors.

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Marah holds a Bachelor of Arts from Johns Hopkins University.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Fausto was an Executive of NuviGroup, a leading conglomerate with industrial, retail, and agriculture operations. During his tenure at NuviGroup, Fausto oversaw large-scale industrial investments, founded one of the leading retailers in Sub-Saharan Africa, which employed over 2,500 individuals, and was CEO of a greenfield agriculture operation.

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Previously, Fausto launched two e-commerce ventures, Zanui in Australia, and Linio in Colombia – which was backed by Rocket Internet and exited to Falabella. Prior to his entrepreneurial journey, he started his career as a McKinsey consultant.

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Fausto graduated with high honors from Católica-Lisbon School of Business & Economics, where he studied Finance, and from Columbia University where he completed a Postbaccalaureate in Premedical Studies.

Prior to Downing Capital Group, Mariana was one of the first employees at Pagaleve, Brazil’s first Buy Now Pay Later startup. She was responsible for creating the customer communications workflow as well as coordinating the development of their website and other first marketing channels. Mariana was also in charge of the outbound sales area where she successfully closed the company’s first four B2B deals.

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Mariana is a last year student at Fundação Getúlio Vargas in São Paulo, Brazil, and has also taken part in a 6-month exchange program at EmLyon Business School, in France.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Sean was a Talent Partner at High Alpha Innovation, a venture studio that partnered with leading corporations and universities to launch new SaaS startups. While at High Alpha Innovation, Sean recruited founders across a dozen new ventures in various industries, ranging from healthcare to marketing tech to waste management.

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He previously worked as a technical and executive recruiter at The Org, a Series B startup in NYC, where he partnered with various tech startups to support their early hiring efforts. In addition, Sean is a US veteran that served for 6 years in the Army National Guard and graduated from Babson College with a degree in Business Administration.

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Gabriella is a seasoned recruiter with a knack for identifying top talent in the tech and startup sectors, including SaaS and health tech. With experience spanning both technical and business roles, she has successfully recruited for companies such as Vimeo and Carrot Fertility across the US and EMEA regions.

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Holding a degree in Management and Marketing from Touro College, Gabriella is driven by her passion to leverage her expertise in supporting the growth and success of early-stage startups.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Piectra was in talent acquisition at Intrials Clinical Research, a Clinical Research Organization. She previously worked in talent acquisition at Samsung Research and Development Institute.

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Piectra holds a degree in Psychology from Pontifical Catholic University of Campinas.

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Stephanie is a seasoned executive recruiter with a track record of partnering with venture capital and private equity-backed tech startups to build high-impact teams. She began her career at True Search, specializing in identifying top talent across diverse industries and functions. Driven by a passion for business problem-solving, strategic hiring, and cultivating high-performing teams, she has helped startups align their talent strategies with their growth objectives.

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A proud graduate of Howard University, Stephanie holds an Honors degree in Business Management, reflecting her commitment to excellence and leadership.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Lily worked at Brightflag, a legal technology start-up, where she supported the Chief Customer Officer and growth team.

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She received her Bachelor’s in Public Health and Master’s in Health Administration from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Renata began her career at Bain & Company, focusing on revenue strategy and operational optimization. She then joined UME, a fintech backed by NFX and PayPal, as Head of Finance and Investor Relations, where she structured a debt instrument that guaranteed $64m in credit lending for consumers and raised $10 million in equity funding to support the company’s expansion. Renata later served as Head of Finance and Operations at Killb, an international payments company backed by Lightspeed, managing cross-border transactions in both crypto and fiat currencies across five countries while overseeing FP&A and accounting for the group's entities.

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Renata holds a degree in Civil Engineering from UNICAMP, a top-tier university in Brazil, and her career reflects a strong track record in strategic and operational management.

Prior to joining Downing Capital, Leticia worked at Norton Rose Fulbright, a global law firm where she worked in administrative affairs.

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Leticia studied Production Engineering at Faculdades Metropolitanas Unidas.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Leonardo was the Strategy Lead at Treinta (YC 21'), a fintech startup that raised US$63 million. While there he oversaw growth, strategy, operations, and customer experience for Treinta’s POS Terminals and Digital Payments verticals. Leonardo began his career as a consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, where he worked on projects in the CPG, retail, and energy sectors for major Latin American clients in Colombia and Peru.

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He holds a BSBA from Georgetown University in Operations & Information Management and International Business, with a minor in Economics.

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Julie is an MBA Candidate at Columbia Business School, where she is a Columbia Venture Fellow. Previously, she worked as an investor at FemHealth Ventures, a women’s health focused venture capital firm based in New York where she invested in early-stage startups developing drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health applications.

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Julie started her career at Clarion (now Lumanity), a life sciences consulting firm based in Boston. She partnered closely with biopharmaceutical clients to assess new opportunities and develop strategic plans on assets ranging from small molecules to cell therapies. She has engaged with companies in immunology, rare diseases, neurology, and oncology spaces.

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Julie graduated from Amherst College where she studied Neuroscience.

Sanchie is an MBA Candidate at Harvard Business School and a campus investment partner at the MBA Fund. Previously, she worked as an Investment Associate at SoftBank, a $140B+ venture capital firm where she invested in growth-stage tech startups across Consumer, SaaS, and FinTech. Sanchie also worked with WestBridge Capital, an $8B+ crossover fund based in India and the US. Having deployed ~$400M as an investor, she partnered closely with the portfolio founders on GTM, C-Level hiring, product strategy, and improving unit economics.

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She started her career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and has spent time across O&G, Steel, and Pharma practice.

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Sanchie graduated from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, where she majored in Business and Finance.

Prior to joining Downing Capital Group, Pedro was an intern at QMC Telecom International, a telecommunications company with a diversified portfolio of towers and indoor signal solutions. While at QMC, Pedro worked under the Chief of Staff to research churn trends in the telecom sector to aid the team in making strategic negotiation decisions. Prior to that, he also interned at Hub Accounting, an accounting consultancy firm.

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Currently Pedro is in his 6th semester studying Economics with an emphasis in Financial Engineering at FGV.