Madelyn O’Farrell is a Principal at Dynamo Ventures, where she invests at the earliest stages across the physical economy; think energy, infrastructure and construction, manufacturing, logistics and transportation, and commerce enablement. Prior to Dynamo, she covered climate tech and health tech across fund and growth equity investments. Madelyn holds a B.S. in Finance from the University of Utah, and when she’s not thinking about industrial startups, she spends her time cooking, reading, lifting, and perusing Architectural Digest.

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

With EVCA I spend my time finding ways to build the community of emerging investors in New York City. Sometimes this is more traditional events like panels and happy hours, and sometimes it's an art class downtown. 

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

Venture is a unique, and often opaque career path. While it's an incredibly relationship-based field, this often comes down to trading deals, co-investing, and the like. It's not often about career development itself. While the former is always great I found it compelling to be a part of a community of emerging investors that can share insights and empower one another as we continue in our field.

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

While I'm as excited about robotics as the next industrial-focused investor, I don't believe robots are going to fully solve the problems we face around labor shortages & industrial capacity. That means there are less-loved, but still critical, opportunities to invest in solutions that serve the human side of the equation. Something that's top of mind for us at Dynamo are vertically-integrated platforms for the skilled trades pipelines.