Caro Zimet, co-founder of Panambi Ventures and Panambi Studio, joins Sunny Ray to discuss building an entire ecosystem for mental health, longevity, and consciousness investing across Latin America before launching a fund. Based in Uruguay, Zimet spent years as an economist in finance before founding two startups, one of which she had to close, a formative experience that shaped how she thinks about venture. She explains Panambi's four pillars: the Psycom conference, the Expand retreat and experience platform, the upcoming Dandelion training platform for psychedelic assisted therapy built with TherapSil, and Panambi Ventures itself, which invests in drugs and discoveries, therapeutics, prevention, and infrastructure. Zimet argues Latin America's mental health and longevity market mirrors an earlier stage of what is already happening in the United States, with lower valuations and significant long-term upside. She discusses convincing skeptical LPs and doctors, closing her first startup, and Panambi's near-term goal of closing a 1 million dollar round and backing two new startups. The conversation closes with her vision for a mature, ten-year ecosystem in the region.
Economist turned founder Caro Zimet on building Latin America's mental health and longevity investment ecosystem before raising the fund.
What's Panambi Ventures, and what's your unique view of the world you're building there?
I'm co-founder of Panambi Studio, a platform for consciousness, mental health, and longevity. We're building an ecosystem in Latin America that doesn't exist yet, across four verticals: Psycom, our conference on psychedelics and longevity; Expand, a platform selling experiences around consciousness and retreats; Dandelion, launching next year to train psychologists on MDMA and psilocybin with TherapSil; and Panambi Ventures, where we invest in mental health and longevity startups across Latin America.
You spent years as an economist in finance, then built two startups. What did the operator years teach you that the finance years couldn't?
Reality is very different when you have a startup than when you're behind a computer analyzing companies. In finance I slept in Four Seasons hotels and gathered with billionaires, but it was white collar work. With a startup you make the strategy and also clean the floor. I went to China, unloaded boxes from a lorry, dealt with a rat at 3am. It's the white collar world meeting the real world.
Which of your two startups taught you the harder lesson, and what was it?
My hardest lesson was closing my first startup, a multi-level company like Avon in Uruguay, which I ran with my brother. He stepped away, thousands of women depended on it for income, and I had employees. Deciding to close it and executing that decision was the hardest part. It wasn't what I had dreamed about anymore, and it took about a year before I felt okay again.
When did mental health and longevity become an investable category for you rather than just a personal cause?
I've meditated since I was 17, and my two kids, 13 and 11, meditate and do yoga nidra too. When I met my partner starting this ecosystem, I wanted in immediately. We're all talking about AI and the future of work, but we'll still be humans, suffering anxiousness from how we live and living longer. The real question is how we live those extra years, so that's what I invest in.
What does an economist see in the well-being economy that a doctor or technologist might miss?
Most doctors are comfortable with the world as they know it. Using game theory, they have no incentive to move because their jobs feel secure, unlike a tech founder who's always threatened by competitors. So many doctors see the union of health and technology as a threat rather than an opportunity, even though living longer with poor health for the last ten years is a huge burden on us and on governments.
You built the ecosystem first, conferences, retreats, education, before the fund. Why that order?
Because Latin America's mental health and longevity ecosystem barely exists yet. Investors watch what's happening in the US but don't know how to invest here since it's just starting. Two years ago we hosted a talk on menopause in Argentina and people asked why that mattered. After Midi Health became a unicorn, everyone wanted menopause startups. We have to teach people where the opportunities are before the capital can follow.
Can you explain Panambi to an LP who has ninety seconds? What do you invest in and why now?
We invest in four categories: drugs and discoveries that change the body, like our investment in Aua's biosynthetic psilocybin for export; protocols and therapeutics for longevity and mental health; prevention, like sleep and diet; and infrastructure to get medicines to people across Latin America's fragmented markets. Valuations here are still low compared to the US, and I believe northern companies will eventually come buy the winners we've helped build.
What's the objection you hear most from LPs about investing in mental health and longevity in Latin America, and how do you answer it?
LPs agree it's a great thesis but are disappointed by past exits in Latin America. My answer is that venture capital here is only fifteen years old, and the last four years have been especially rough. If you compare us to the Standard and Poor's, you're not prepared for venture. We have to teach LPs that this is early, and with a longer view the multiples will be very different.
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