Fellowship Spotlight: Blue Impact
“The importance of supply chain, logistics, and transportation dates back to our original journey as human beings,” explains Marlon Ramirez, Founder and GP of Blue Impact. “The first type of economy we created was barter and trade, and we’re still doing that today in a more advanced manner. But the current supply chain doesn’t have the resilience or sustainability to operate in the world we’re inheriting. We need to redesign the supply chain, and this new wave of founders bringing innovative technologies will allow us to do that.” Through Blue Impact, Ramirez is identifying and investing in these changemakers.
Reinventing the Supply Chain
Blue Impact is an early-stage VC fund investing in companies that are reinventing supply chain and logistics across the U.S. and Latin America. “We’ve identified a big problem,” Ramirez says. “The supply chain and logistics sector is the least digitalized vertical out there. And the shocks to the system that we’re experiencing – the state of geopolitics, tariffs, AI, climate impacts – are accelerating digitalization of the market.” The supply chain and logistics software market is projected to triple its value to $284B in the next seven years. “The market is expanding because the moment we’re living in is great for technology adoption.” Ramirez is seizing the opportunity that this expansion presents.
Beyond the primary focus of creating more efficiency and greater profit within the sector, Ramirez and his team are also addressing sustainability and climate impacts. “Optimization of the supply chain goes hand in hand with cost reduction and decarbonization,” he explains, “so we’re hitting the holy grail of doing well while doing good.” He offers one of Blue Impact’s early investments, LogShare, as an example. “Around 40 to 50% of trucks run empty because they’re servicing one client. LogShare allows consumer goods companies to fill the empty backhaul by finding loads when the trucks are heading back empty to the warehouse to pick up additional cargos, this solution optimizes trucking by reducing costs and emissions.”
Experience-Informed Passion
When Ramirez migrated from Colombia to New York with his parents at six years old, he was instantly curious about the contrast he experienced between the two places. “To me, seeing how developed New York and the U.S. were versus Colombia and Latin America left me with this burning question,” he explains. “How do you end up with this drastic difference, with one economy so developed and another economy so underdeveloped?” This formative early experience set Ramirez on a lifelong journey to address the gaps in economic development that he observed from a young age.
His undergraduate experience at Brown University gave him the chance to focus on the question he’d set out to answer. Majoring in international relations and economics, he shaped a course of study that allowed him to look particularly at economic development in Latin America, including a study abroad stint in Brazil that lent him invaluable experience and perspective.
Immersive Learning Experience
Upon being accepted into SEO (Sponsors for Educational Opportunity) while at Brown, Ramirez was placed in the transportation and logistics group at UBS, which offered an immersion into the complex space that he would end up working in for decades. “For me, this was a real-world application,” he says. “I came to see supply chain, logistics, and transportation as the backbone of economic development. And to this day, every business experience I’ve had has just further solidified this belief.” During this time, Ramirez had a front-row seat to the JetBlue IPO. “It was amazing to see how a small airline like JetBlue could go up against Delta in Delta’s home turf of New York and win,” he reflects. “I was just enamored by that David and Goliath story and ended up deciding to go to JetBlue.“
People around Ramirez at this time were confused about his decision to head to JetBlue coming out of UBS, primarily because they didn’t perceive airlines as a place to make money. But it wasn’t money that Ramirez was after at that point in his career. “I wanted to learn how to build a complex company,” he says. The learning he gained working across several different areas within JetBlue – financing over $1B in aviation assets along the way – informed his ability to successfully tackle gaps in economic development. Ramirez cites his access to the massively successful airline executive, David Neeleman, as the biggest leverage point of this time. “I was able to learn from the mind of the entrepreneur,” he says, “hearing and working on his new business ideas and ultimately co-founding a new airline with him.”
Deep Understanding of Complex Businesses
Ramirez’s unique track record poises him for far-reaching success in this particular work. On the heels of a stellar tenure at JetBlue, he not only co-founded an airline – one of the most difficult businesses to establish and maintain – but also expanded the airline into a logistics company. Since Ramirez was first invited to participate in the founding of Azul, the company has become one of Latin America’s largest airlines. “It was a come full-circle moment,” he reflects. “I got to go back to Latin America and help with economic development. By building the airline, we built critical development infrastructure, and that’s one of the most fulfilling experiences I’ve had.” He points out that airlines generate jobs and trade lanes for commerce and people, essential for economic development. “Airlines generate multiples of value to the regions they operate, versus what they generate in value for themselves.”.
“I’ve learned how to run very complex businesses,” he says. While building Azul Airlines, his work spanned business development and financial planning, project management, and getting the airline off the ground in record time. “Because I was the youngest founder and I spoke Portuguese,” he says, “I was also getting responsibilities that weren’t typical for a 28 year old.” This included flying into Brasilia to submit the formal application for the airline. His ability to support founders who are also tackling the complexity that comes with supply chain and logistics is fortified by the expansive learning and powerful connections he gained from these experiences.
Innovative Company Building
After getting Azul off the ground, Ramirez had the opportunity to get back into company building. “An airline is not just an airline; it’s really a conglomerate of many businesses in one,” he shares. Once the company launched, he was focused on building out other businesses like lodging, transportation, travel insurance, and cargo. “Instead of selling the cargo space to FedEx, we decided to build a parcel delivery operation focused on yielding up and getting more value for the space in the aircraft,” he explains, “and Azul Cargo was a wild success.”
With this experience under his belt, Ramirez knew he wanted to continue working in the supply chain space, and went on to co-found Modern Logistics, a logistics integrator with freighter aircraft, warehouses, and technology for multi-modal transportation. “We were really building the travel routes that didn’t exist in Latin America, and that’s where I got deeper into supply chain and logistics and started to see the problem more clearly.”
“The supply chain is very fragmented,” he points out. “We think it’s consolidated because there are large players like UPS, DHL, XPO, Maersk, DSV, MSC, and Amazon, but they don’t make up more than 50% of the market. The other 50% are small SMBs, and when you look at trucking across the world, upwards of 90% are SMBs with 10 to 15 trucks.”
The disconnect that Ramirez observed gained much wider acknowledgment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “When you have situations that shock the system like COVID, and like what we’re seeing now with climate impacts, tariffs, and geo-politics, it stresses the chain and creates a lot of problems. And the effect of that is that humanity suffers.” He’s clear about the opportunity that these problems create. “We can identify technology companies that are building solutions that allow us to have a more efficient, sustainable, and reliable supply chain.”
Investing in Inspiring and Innovative Founders
“The founders and their stories and impact they are making keeps me going.” Ramirez cites Gabriel de Godoy of Cargologik as one such founder. After multiple successful exits, de Godoy set out to improve the global flow of goods. “Without data, it’s very difficult to make fast decisions in response to unexpected events — and these events happen all the time. And the reality today is that the data is not available to the majority of companies operating the supply chain. Cargologik is a platform for small- and medium-sized logistics companies and cargo owners to be able to access AI driven insights and workflows needed to operate in an ever-shifting supply chain.” After backing de Godoy and Cargologik last year after seeing their promise and success, Blue Impact is doubling down with more support.
“It’s more than just capital. I want to be the best value-add investor to founders.” Founders in the Blue Impact portfolio meet on a periodic basis with Ramirez and the supply chain advisory board he’s built to get help with any challenges they’re facing. Across the 20 companies Blue Impact has already invested in, Ramirez and his team have provided key support that go beyond capital. In the case of Cargologik, they’ve helped the company to secure enterprise clients, including their largest client to date. They also connect founders with other aligned investors and offer strategic guidance on how to effectively and efficiently go to market.
Ramirez has a strong LP base made up of people with similar backgrounds, including exited founders and operators of logistics companies. “We’re deep in this space. It’s what we know and understand so we’re able to quickly identify opportunities, make more informed investment decisions, and once we invest, we can go all in to optimize the founders’ work.”
The ecosystem he’s cultivating positions Blue Impact Ventures to make better investment decisions and support founders with clarity and effectiveness. “Utimately, what we’re really about is helping founders in their journey through capital and using our experience and connections to open doors for them.”
Participating in the VC Include Fellowship
In reflecting on his experience in the VC Include Fellowship, Ramirez acknowledges and appreciates what he refers to as a “white-glove” approach of carefully curating cohort construction and content alike. "It's been instrumental for me to have VCI’s support to hone in on my unique story and what makes me different from everyone else,” he says.
As a result of having the time, space, and support to crystallize his message, he’s made significant changes to how he approaches and frames his work. “I’ve revamped all of my materials, and my pitch deck and how I’m presenting the fund is coming across in a more meaningful manner.”
Ramirez’s inquisitiveness, direct operational experience, and commitment to solving entrenched problems make him stand out in a competitive field and in the cohort. He credits his time in the fellowship with helping him to build a stronger foundation to launch from, and we are eager to see where Blue Impact is able to go from here.
