Work with ‘companies that matter’ lands VC partner on Forbes 30 Under 30 list 

Samuel D. Garcia, BBA ’16, has been named to Forbes magazine’s 30 Under 30 list for venture capital. He is a partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm that says it helps build “companies that matter.” He serves on the boards of companies that Amplo has invested in and guides them by offering advice on hiring, fundraising, sales pipeline growth, and more. Garcia currently works with Lightyear, Flume, Kredi, Tradespace, Wizehire, Steno, Axion Ray, and Doxel. 

“When we say ‘companies that matter,’ we mean companies that are driven to change the world as we know it for the better,” Garcia says. “There are a ton of ways to do this, from making telecom procurement easier to enabling small-business hiring.” 

His work with startups led to an invitation to do a guest lecture at Harvard Law School, where he earned a Juris Doctor. And that lecture led to teaching a class this spring called “Applying Legal Skills to VC Business Diligence.” The course focuses on real scenarios in which knowing the law and regulations could help avoid a huge investment mistake or lead to outsized returns. With the course, Garcia becomes one of the youngest Latino lecturers to work at Harvard Law School. “So far, I have been blown away by the student reception to this class,” he says. “My class size has been expanded due to the high demand, but there are still over 70 students on the waitlist.” 

Garcia has also written for numerous national and state newspapers and websites. In addition, he and his brother, Ricco Garcia, co-wrote a book about political upsets, “How a Goat Became Mayor and the Political Spring That Followed.” That was a fun story, he says, because when he was younger, he raised goats for more than six years in the Rio Grande Valley, and they have long been a part of his life.  

Those years also contributed to his desire to make a difference and inspired another of his books, “How Goats Can Fight Poverty: Complex Problems Do Not Always Need Complex Solutions.”