Erika Aquino is a next-generation family office allocator and angel investor building on a Filipino family business legacy.
In this episode of Billion Dollar Moves, Erika shares how her family moved beyond wealth preservation to deploy capital with purpose across wellness, education, sustainability, and the future of work.
We discuss how she allocates to venture, why she prefers pre-seed and seed-stage companies, what she looks for in founders, and why proximity to the problem matters.
Erika also speaks candidly about mental health, personal resilience, fiduciary responsibility, and the lessons she carries from supporting more than 25 early-stage companies around the world.
00:00 Introduction
01:00 Erika Aquino’s Family Legacy
03:00 Success as a Community Measure
04:10 From Wealth Preservation to Purpose
07:20 Allocating 25% to Venture
08:45 Building a Global Investment Mandate
09:35 Direct Investments vs. Funds
11:00 Why Erika Invests at Pre-Seed and Seed
11:35 Backing Scrappy Founders
13:00 Expanding Access to Angel Investing
14:00 Investing in Solutions Close to Home
15:15 What Erika Looks for in Founders
16:20 Building a Global Founder Ecosystem
17:30 Investing Across Different Markets
19:00 Fiduciary Duty and Venture Debt
20:20 Erika’s Mental Health Journey
23:10 How Personal Experience Shapes Her Investing
24:40 Supporting Underdog Founders
26:20 Advice for New Family Office Investors
28:20 The Role of Angel Investors
29:40 The Rise of the Modern Matriarch
31:00 Lessons on Money, Ambition, and Vulnerability
32:00 Own Your Confidence, Purpose, and NumbersAbout Erika Aquinohttps://www.erika-aquino.com/
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Billion Dollar Moves Podcast | The Top Global Venture & Business Podcast for Founders & Funders | Backed by HubSpot Podcast Network
Conversations with billionaires, unicorn founders, and the world’s leading funders.
Hosted by Sarah Chen-Spellings, Billion Dollar Moves examines how enduring companies — and the capital behind them — are built.
Through long-form conversations, the show explores decision-making under uncertainty, capital allocation, and the inflection points that shape category-defining businesses. From early platform backstories to allocator frameworks used across private markets, the focus is on judgment, incentives, and long-term value creation — beyond headlines and hype.
New episodes weekly.
Built for those who take the long view.
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