- CapitalG investor Kelly Barton is a newly crowned IRONMAN world champion.
- Barton is one of many former student-athletes who are now making waves in venture capital.
- She says that stepping away to complete her triathlon training helps her be a better investor.
For CapitalG investor Kelly Barton, being twice as busy as the average person for most of her life — including as a member of the MIT crew team — has paid off in her professional endeavors.
Barton is a vice president on CapitalG’s investment team, where she focuses on fintech and software startups. Since joining in 2021, she’s helped the fund write checks for supply-chain startup Coupa, insure tech startup Duck Creek Technologies, and wealth-management fintech Further.
Her fitness journey has also reached new highs: Barton in December traveled to Taupō, New Zealand, to compete in the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championships. She won her age group at the competition and became a world champion IRONMAN for women ages 25-29.
While her elite-athlete status makes her especially unique, Barton is one of many venture capitalists around the country who are former college athletes and for whom sports still make up a big part of their identity.
For Barton, training as an elite triathlete has only improved her investing game — she was promoted at CapitalG in early 2024 in the midst of training for her world-championship qualification.
“One thing that I’ve appreciated is that workouts create a forced space for me to think about the companies I back,” she said. “Stepping back for two-plus hours a day helps me find the space to think about their next steps.”
From rowing to triathalons
After seven years of rowing, through 2017, Barton was ready for something new. She picked up running after college, trained for a marathon, and then transitioned to triathlons with the goal of one day completing a full IRONMAN — a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and 26.2-mile run.
Barton, who at the time coached herself, was the overall winner of her first triathlon, an Olympic-distance event consisting of a 1.5-kilometer swim, 40-kilometer ride, and 10-kilometer run. She then finished near the top of her age group in her first half IRONMAN, qualifying for the 70.3 World Championships in 2021.
In 2022, she won her age group in every race she competed in. In 2023, she started winning the overall women’s field in some of her races and qualified for both the full and half IRONMAN World Championships, earning her professional triathlete license, or “Pro Card.”
While her triathlon career was picking up steam, so was her career in VC. Barton joined CapitalG in August 2021 and was promoted in February 2024 to vice president, leading investments in B2B fintech and vertical software companies.
The life of an elite endurance athlete spending tens of hours per week training might seem incompatible with the life of a VC. Barton, who spends more than two hours running, biking, and swimming most days, said her background in sports has made her a better investor because she sees the big picture, rather than fixating on small details like one missed workout or a less-than-stellar conference call.
She added that while it might seem counterintuitive, having a busier schedule encourages her to slow down and find balance between her personal and professional lives.
“You can work 24-7 if you want to, and early on I would just train, sleep and work, but I have much better balance now,” she said.
Fintech investments
Barton says that she sees investing as a natural extension of her time at MIT, where she was constantly surrounded by peers solving cutting-edge problems in research labs. She was drawn to venture capital for the opportunity to work with founders with a similar mindset.
At CapitalG, Barton focuses on growth-stage fintech and software investments. She’s particularly interested in massive profit pools within financial services, such as the $100 trillion wealth management industry in the U.S. One of her big bets last year was Farther, a tech-enabled wealth management firm that raised a $72 million Series C co-led by CapitalG and Viewpoint Ventures.
Looking ahead to 2025, Barton is excited to continue developing deep investment theses in fintech. One of the biggest questions she’s focused on is how digital banking will evolve globally. CapitalG invested in Monzo last year, and Barton is particularly interested in how regional differences affect digital banking adoption.
In the U.K., for example, Monzo has built a beloved consumer product, but the tech hasn’t taken off in other countries that have different cultures of handling money. Barton is looking for opportunities in other markets, especially where cash payments are still king.
“2025 is going to be about answering big questions on how certain markets and trends will evolve,” she said. “I’m excited to spend years thinking about these problems and working with founders to solve them.”
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