InVitro Capital’s Venture Studio Model Builds AI-Powered Startups from Idea to Exit
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Show Notes:
In this episode of Mission Matters, Adam Torres interviews Amir Barsoum, Founder & CEO of InVitro Capital, about how his venture studio is changing the way startups are built. Focused on AI and service-based businesses, Amir shares why the traditional VC model is broken—and how his approach unlocks smarter, faster growth.
About Amir Barsoum
Founder, investor, and venture builder with a track record of scaling AI-powered companies in under-innovated sectors. Founder of Vezeeta, the leading digital health platform in the Middle East and Africa, scaled to 1,000+ professionals and 30M patients across five countries, with a successful exit to the region’s largest private equity firm.
Currently leads InVitro Capital, a venture builder based in Orange County, focused on creating scalable, capital-efficient businesses. In three years, the firm has grown to 150+ professionals and four portfolio companies.
Held previous roles at McKinsey & Co. and AstraZeneca M&A. MBA from MIT Sloan. Board member at Bloomberg New Economy Health Council, UN Global Compact, and Endeavor.
About InVitro Capital
At InVitro Capital We Build In A Controlled Environment.
Their hands-on approach transforms untapped sectors into scalable, profitable enterprises, delivering exceptional returns through autonomous AI solutions and cutting-edge innovation.
As builders, not just investors, they strategically deploy capital and expertise to disrupt high-potential industries, driving growth from idea to exit.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. Alright, so today I’m at the original mixer in Los Angeles, California. Let me tell you, Los Angeles Consulting Group puts on a heck of a show here.
I’ve been coming out here, out here for going on three years. Original mixer, one of my favorite events out here in la and they hold it at the Lux, which is a great, great venue. And my guest today, Amir. Amir, man, welcome, welcome. Thank you very much, Adam, for having me. Alright, so I always like to get the origin story here.
How’d you get involved with the original mixer? What brings you out today? So we’re we usually invited as a, the in vitro capital. We are a venture studio, fund and builders based out of Orange County. Yeah, a little bit south of la. A little bit of a drive. That was good. A little bit of a drive.
It is. How’d you originally get involved? Like how did you learn about either Los Angeles Consulting Group or Kathleen or the original mixer? Where’d that start? We got invited into different family offices events with Kathleen and that’s how we started to get to know her. Yeah, and her amazing, amazing group.
Yeah. What makes those events different, by the way? ’cause sometimes people hear are family office events, and I’ve been around this community for a bit now, so I’m seeing it as different. Like, what do you, what keeps you drawn and attracted to it? I think it’s the quality of the caliber that you see around.
Mm-hmm. And the kind of conversation that, that you’re gonna see. Yeah. Happening around it. I think these are the two biggest things. Yeah. And so tell us a little bit more about e Mitro, by the way. So in Vitro Capital is a venture studio and a venture studio fund. Mm-hmm. Where we build companies from idea build and fund companies from idea to exit.
Yeah. And we’re pretty much focusing on the intersection of AI and services. Mm. How did you get involved in that business? I’m a tech entrepreneur. Exit my company in the Middle East, moved here. And, and for the, the start of the first company, it’s called all our X did very well. And then we thought, you know what, let’s do it again.
And that’s what we that we do today. Now, why did, there’s a lot of different models you can choose why the Venture Studio model, like why, why do you feel that fit what you wanted to pursue? I think there’s three pieces if you add them together to give you the answer to this. So one, we don’t think.
The, the venture, typical venture capital model, the traditional venture capital model works well. Mm-hmm. Unless you have a very, very wild innovation. Yeah. And that basically things like a foundational level and models and things like that. Mm-hmm. Biotech, but we think many of the software applications, the venture capital model, will be over investing in building and the returns are not gonna return to investors or themselves, the, the expectations there.
Second, it’s very easy to build. Great applications today. Mm. Which basically have created a lot of fragmentation in this market. Mm-hmm. So another big piece, and then hence the exit potential is not gonna be as big as it used to be. Mm. Third is the tremendous experience that we as a team have accumulated over years.
Yeah. So if you look at these three together, we thought that we can build these great companies and create real, real value. Being super capital efficient. Yeah. So that’s what we’re doing for us and for the people who are working with us and our investors as well. Hmm. Anything in the portfolio that you care to?
Like give some, like, to give some, give some love to, I don’t know. I, I think a lo I would love to give it a super big hug and love to a company called Asta. Yeah. Which is an ai AI for home repair. Mm. You take images for your home, it evaluates, it gives the diagnostics that give you a price. Again, I will send you somebody.
Yeah. To fix it. It’s, it’s crushing it. We’re growing at almost two x every month now. Amazing. It’s crushing it. Another one is enta, which is an AI software as a service to assisted living facilities. Mm. We are adding around 15 facilities every month now. Wow. Growing super fast as well. Hmm. I have more, but I would stick to those.
Well, I, I was gonna ask you what trends are you following right now? But it seems like there’s a, a ai component to many things you’re looking at, but I don’t wanna put words in your mouth. What trends are you following? You’re you’re not putting words in my mouth. You’re, you’re spot on. I think I, I we’re, we believe that AI is changing every single thing around us.
Mm-hmm. As a technology and and the capa the capabilities of this technology. Yeah. And we believe that the software industry, the service industry, both gonna be massively disrupted. Mm. And that would have an impact on the job market. What jobs’s gonna disappear, what job’s gonna pop up and appear?
Yeah. And I think we’re seeing a huge. Not, it’s not only a trend of AI, because that’s a cliche, everybody knows that, but we’re seeing significant impact on the quality of AI product to take the jobs of people. Yeah. But allowing those people. To do different jobs that we have already scarcity at. Mm-hmm.
Just give you an example, big time. Big of the most of the time of the doctors have been wasted in administrative matters. Mm-hmm. Now I can take that all completely by AI making them focus on other things and so on and so forth. I’ve seen some of the phone calls and some of the things that they’re doing now, and it’s like.
Well, and it’s amazing because like now you can get service. Yep. And it’s, no offense, it’s just the old motto was hard. Like you got, so you can only fund so many people depending on the size of the office. You can only have so many people at the front desk that before. It’s just like, is adding another person actually adding service?
Yep. A hundred percent. Yeah. And it, and it gives you, it’s not only a significantly better cost of the service. Yeah. But also the quality of the service, which is what you’re saying. Absolutely. More accurate. The training. The training curve way down. They’re not gonna make you wait online. Yeah. They know how to answer it effective immediately.
I love it, man. Yeah. You know, all the driving is coming. Robbo taxi, just, they send the pictures today morning. So we looks like we’re gonna see cars without drivers taking us around. The town I’m in, I’m in. I like it. I like it. I like a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs that listen to this. I like to dream big.
So what’s, so what’s, like, what, what’s a technology or something where you’re looking at, where you’re like, this is a game changer. This is something like what’s that thing that you’re following? I know you’re following the whole industry, but like, what’s that thing where you’re like, we’re this changes things?
We’re, we’re also very, very excited about the, the data components. Mm-hmm. When it comes, the different softwares and how you can actually access data that used to be extremely unstructured before. Yeah. And takes a lot of time to structure it. But you can get this data today. So get, think about the big data, immense amount of data.
Yeah. Like the data mining versus the, the data mining. But, but think about the, the massive amount of data and AI component Yeah. Looking at it and extracting value out of it. Yeah. We’re seeing a lot of, of play there. One of our companies that actually gonna be launching it in the coming two months. Mm.
Focusing on that, on the category. Mm-hmm. And we’re very excited about the space. Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah. Well, Amir last thing I’ll ask you if people wanna get involved how, or if they wanna learn more about the fund or anything else you’re up to, I want you to look in the camera. How do they connect?
You can find Amir [email protected]. LinkedIn, you can find a me but Zoom. And I’m pretty actively responsive to, yeah, to, to any incoming conversations. Amazing. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the links in the show notes so you can just click on ’em and head right on and over and.
Speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show. Each and every day we’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way in your journey as well.
So again, hit that subscribe or follow button. And Amir, man, appreciate you coming on the show, Adam, thank you very much. Loved it.