Stefan Sandoval is an Investor at SKY VC (formerly JetBlue Ventures), a San Francisco-based venture capital firm where he focuses on Seed and Series A investments across travel and transportation. Prior to SKY VC, Stefan worked at Mendoza Ventures and Bright Ventures and began his career at Bank of America within the structured products (options and derivatives team). He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a B.S. in Finance from Boston College. Originally from Colombia, Stefan is passionate about increasing access and reducing barriers to entry within the startup ecosystem for underserved communities.

Could you explain more about what you do in your roles at EVCA?

As co-lead of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of EVCA, my focus is creating opportunities for emerging investors to build genuine relationships while strengthening their professional networks. I've found that the best connections happen when we move beyond standard networking formats, so we organize everything from poker nights and casual happy hours to founder-centric discussions and collaborative events with partner organizations across the ecosystem. The goal is to make venture capital feel less insular — whether that's helping pre-partner investors connect with each other or creating more touchpoints between investors and the founders they're looking to back.

What made you interested in taking a leadership role at EVCA?

The Bay Area venture ecosystem has incredible depth, but that can actually make it harder to find your footing when you're starting out. When I first joined EVCA as a member, it gave me something I really needed — a structured way to build genuine connections across the industry. Whether it was through the automated coffee chats, attending events, or connecting with investors from different affinity groups and verticals, EVCA helped me find my place in what can otherwise feel like an overwhelming landscape. After experiencing that value firsthand, I wanted to pay it forward. Taking on a leadership role felt like a natural next step — a chance to be more intentional about facilitating introductions, bringing people together, and helping other emerging investors create the same sense of community and belonging that EVCA provided for me when I needed it most.

What is your most contrarian view on an existing or emerging technology trennd?

I've spent the past year deep in manufacturing automation, and I keep seeing the same pattern: VCs bet on robotics software platforms while customers actually buy from Business Process Outsourcers. The market believes software margins are superior, but in industrial markets that wisdom is backwards. Manufacturers spend 5-10% of revenue on outsourced assembly, inspection, and material handling—a $281 billion BPO market—versus only 1-2% on manufacturing software. By positioning as software vendors, startups compete for a TAM that's 10x smaller than service budgets with established procurement.

My take is that embracing human-in-the-loop should be embraced as a feature, not a bug. Pure-AI robotics fails on the 1-5% of edge cases in manufacturing, and those failures are deal-breakers. Companies deploying 90% AI with 2-5 second human oversight achieve 98%+ success rates and build moats software can't replicate: operational expertise managing remote teams and proprietary workflow data from human corrections that compounds over time.

Lasting moats will be operational—managing human-in-loop teams, integrating into customers' MES/ERP systems, and owning proprietary manufacturing workflow data. Legacy BPOs can't respond because automation cannibalizes their labor model, while robotics startups lack the operational DNA to scale service delivery.