Investors Like Me: Asya Bradley

Asya Bradley is a founder, angel investor, limited partner (LP), advisor, and board director for tech start-ups and emerging fund managers, including Uplinq -- the first global credit assessment and scoring platform for SMB (small-business) lenders. She is also a former founder of Kinly (previously First Boulevard): The Unapologetically Black, Digitally Native, NeoBank Building Generational Wealth for Black America.

With over 20 years of tech experience (with the founding team at Synapse, as co-founder of Kinly, and as a Cisco alum) and a track record of supporting underestimated founders, Bradley is an experienced investor, operator, and fintech entrepreneur. Bradley champions diversity and gender balance in the workplace and works tirelessly to promote women, minorities, LGBTQ+, and other underrepresented communities.

I come from an immigrant family. When I immigrated to the West, we basically came with nothing but the shirts on our backs. Nothing has come easy in terms of "Oh, you know, my father taught me this," or "My uncle taught me this," or "You know, some relative got me an internship somewhere at Goldman Sachs, so I was able to be put on this fast track."

That gives you a natural curiosity and a natural drive, right? Because nothing is handed to you. Everything has to be earned. When you've had to really work for everything, you have a certain respect for it. The money piece stemmed from watching my parents pinch every penny they could possibly pinch in their budget. Nothing they ever bought was brand new -- they understood we couldn't afford it. We couldn't afford a brand-new car; we could never afford brand-new clothes.

So we knew the value of every penny in our wallets and didn't just spend it freely. Nothing in our home was disposable. Even disposable items were reused. You know, the three R's -- reduce, reuse, recycle? I mean, it was definitely for the environment, but really, it was because we just didn't have money to throw things away. So everything got repurposed. If you had pants and ended up with a hole in them, they became shorts or were cut into an entirely different piece of clothing. Essentially, when it came to money, you realized it wasn't something that came easy, and so you worked toward multiplying it as much as possible.

When I didn't have money, I used to do those fantasy portfolios. I was lucky because our school had those kinds of competitions. Even as kids, we found that very interesting. It was interesting because even though my parents are completely uneducated -- my father has a maximum grade-eight education; my mother, probably grade three or five, maybe even less than that -- the importance of education was instilled in us very, very early.

So we really enjoyed school. Whenever we had things like that in school, we actually participated very actively. So I would say probably very, very early on, we all had piggy banks in our home. Whenever we got money for birthdays or religious celebrations -- we grew up as Muslims, so any time there was a holiday celebration, you got money -- we would put that into our piggy bank. We were constantly saving money. So I would say it started very, very early in terms of learning how to manage money.

Growing up, math was also tremendously important in our family. It was one of the few things my father did have some education in, and in an Asian household, you enjoy your STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects. So math was the one subject our father was able to help us with. We learned a lot about numbers.

Nearly every day, I'm the only woman and person of color in a room filled with white male money managers I have to pitch for companies I feel passionately about. Operating in a space filled with such inequity teaches grit and tenacity. Ultimately, you need to stay laser-focused on what inspired your work in the first place and let that purpose guide the rest, including how you grapple with various obstacles. Working in a field disproportionately made up of white males, I've learned not to be discouraged by gender, age, or ethnicity and to always stand up for what I believe in.

Then, of course, my journey stems back to my immigrant upbringing. We could have easily been that family that didn't make it out of South Asia. We had cousins, and uncles, and aunts who were living in dire conditions and not doing very well at all. It was the luck of the draw that our parents were able to immigrate to the West. They were able to leave the country and take us.

That has never ever been lost to any of us. We could easily still be living in South Asia and be in poverty. For example, my birth was never registered because, at the time I was born, nobody bothered registering girl children. Infant mortality was so high -- "Let's see if she's going to survive. Well, she's a girl, so you probably aren't going to send her to school. She's never going to work. She's going to get married. She's going to have children, and that's it." That could have very easily been our future. That's never been lost on any of us.

My father always wanted to make sure that the girls in our family understood that we needed to be able to support ourselves. You're not always going to be relying on a husband or a male relative. He wanted to make sure that all his children, including his daughters, were very independent, and that included being financially independent.

He made sure we all understood -- you're going to get a good education, you're going to be able to support yourself, you're going to be able to get a great job, and you're going to learn to manage your money and make sure you can provide for your family.

And then, of course, the immigrant experience that Ron (CEO of Uplinq) and I share as well, it really does make you look at things differently, you know. You don't take anything for granted. Anything that comes into your hands is something you cherish, and you treasure, and you respect. And so that's also part of that immigrant experience, not taking anything for granted because you literally could still be living in the mud. So how do you rise from the mud and make something of your life? You feel like you're a representative, right? And I think a lot of immigrants feel this way, whether we like it or not.

Honestly, I wouldn't. I think I'm pretty good. I'm pretty happy. I wish I had more time to read and research more. But at the same time, I wouldn't change that, either. I have four incredible children and am working on number five. I feel like I have an awesome balance in life.

I get to be an investor. I get to be a founder. I get to work with incredible founders. And I get to be a mom to four feminist boys and have an amazing partner. Life can suck at times -- and no one's life is perfect. But this is the perfect balance of crap and enjoyment. I wouldn't change a thing.

What I'm really excited about is seeing the different types of founders coming out. I love it. Ron (CEO of Uplinq) was able to fundraise recently from investors I really respect, such as Cambrian Ventures. I was super excited because Rex is somebody I really respect. So I thought, oh my God, a neat validation, right? Then I found that Cambrian also invested in a female founder I had invested in -- Sophia Goldberg. I thought, "People are starting to notice the companies that I have been spending a lot of time with and investing in."

That kind of stuff is exciting because I feel there's validation to my investing strategy. What scares me is that this pace is very slow, right? I've been doing this for years and years and years, and I've invested in some of these companies two, three years ago. So yes, they're coming around, but why does it have to take so long? It's amazing because in literally every single one of these companies I have put money into, a big guy has come in -- but years after. I wish it would happen sooner.

We are holding women and people of color to much higher standards than we are applying to white male founders. If a woman makes a mistake, suddenly -- "Oh my God. What did you do as a woman?" If you're an immigrant, and you've done something: "Oh my God, that immigrant did this. All immigrants must be terrible now." When you are an "Other," where you end up being held up in this way whether you want to or not -- and it is unfair -- but you end up being the representative for your entire identity group, and you feel that responsibility. That's the part I would fix.

I'm an LP in Cowboy Ventures -- I really admire the founder, Aileen. She coined the term unicorn and has built a fantastic team around her, including Jillian Williams, who was one of my first investors at my last start-up.

I also admire Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark. I love how unapologetically herself she is. We may not agree ideologically on all things, but I respect how she stands behind her investment decisions, whether they are popular at the given moment or not. She plays the long game and doesn't waiver under short-term fluctuations.

I'm also an LP in Ganas Ventures, founded by Lolita Taub. It's a smaller fund, but I love the energy and authenticity Lolita brings to the industry. She's super smart and is founder first.

I do read The Motley Fool! I enjoy seeing balanced views from all sides of things so I can understand perspectives that differ greatly from my own. I need to know those other viewpoints. A lot of folks like to be insular and avoid something that doesn't match. But I think it's important to look at the conflicting viewpoints to better understand your own. And if you need to adjust your viewpoint, that's great, right? I think The Information is an important resource as well.

I think everyone who is a fighter will appreciate this quote. Coming from Rocky, one wouldn't think this is the quote I'd pick, but I think every woman I know can relate. The daily hits we take and keep going. It's one that has always kept me moving forward:

"It ain't about how hard you can hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward." -- Rocky Balboa