Mark Phillips, Founder of 11 Tribes Ventures, joins Impact Investing Roadshow to discuss his firm's founder-first venture capital thesis and their investment in NQS (National Quality Systems), a vertical AI platform transforming trauma registry management for U.S. hospital emergency departments.

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Founder, 11 Tribes Ventures

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Masters of Resilience Podcast | Co-hosted Mark Phillips and Ryan Seger

Founded by multi-time entrepreneur Mark Feinberg, NQS is a vertical AI platform designed to streamline trauma registry management for hospital emergency departments. The company addresses a highly specialized domestic market of approximately 2,400 trauma registry departments—a space previously served by a single, broad-based incumbent whose undifferentiated software left users deeply underserved.

11 Tribes co-invested alongside lead investor Long Run Capital, committing an initial $750,000 check into a priced seed round at an $8 million post-money valuation, with the total raise of $2 million split between the two firms. A defining feature of the investment was NQS's 16 signed hospital contracts at the time of closing—despite the product being six to eight weeks from launch—a rare validation of both market urgency and founder credibility.

Operating partner Carolyn Wilson, former COO of the University of Chicago Health System, provided critical domain expertise during diligence. The round closed in March 2025, the product launched within weeks, and NQS has since grown rapidly. 11 Tribes has made two additional investment tranches, including a recent $750,000 follow-on that effectively constitutes a Series A.

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This podcast and related content are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any investment decisions. A full disclaimer of liability and disclosure of important information is available with the show notes for each episode and on our website at impactinvestingroadshow.com/disclaimer.

Rob Boyer, CEO and founder of Narthex Properties, joins Impact Investing Roadshow to discuss his firm’s mission of acquiring and repositioning underutilized historic church properties as thriving faith-based community hubs—illustrated through the Our Lady of Lords transaction in Raytown, Missouri.

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Guests:

Rob Boyer: CEO and Founder, Narthex Properties

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Deal Highlights:

The Our Lady of Lords Catholic Church in Raytown, Missouri—a multi-building compound on three acres near Arrowhead Stadium—had been vacated by the Archdiocese and left largely unused. Narthex acquired the property in 2023 for $1,290,000 after negotiating down from a $1.9 million asking price, then invested approximately $910,000 in renovations including HVAC upgrades, bathroom additions, and general refurbishment, bringing the total all-in cost to roughly $2.2 million.

The project was financed at a 50/50 equity-to-debt ratio, with $1.1 million in investor equity. Narthex secured City KC—a rapidly growing Kansas City congregation led by Pastor Armor Stevenson II, whose membership has grown from approximately 1,000 to nearly 2,000 since moving in—as the anchor tenant.

Under a two-year lease structure, City KC is under contract to purchase the property for $2.5 million, generating a projected 15% IRR and approximately 50% cash-on-cash return for investors over a three-year hold.

I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn. You can find me here.

This podcast and related content are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Always consult a qualified professional before making any investment decisions. A full disclaimer of liability and disclosure of important information is available with the show notes for each episode and on our website at impactinvestingroadshow.com/disclaimer.

Christy Johnson, Founding Partner of Fireroad Ventures, discusses the firm’s thesis around applying AI to small and local businesses and digs into their pre-seed investment in Ando, a workforce scheduling platform designed to improve job quality and scheduling flexibility for the 82 million hourly W-2 workers across food service, hospitality, and transportation.

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Guests:

Christy Johnson: Founding Partner, Fireroad

christy@fireroad.io | LinkedIn

Deal Highlights:

Ando is a workforce management platform serving industries with large hourly W-2 workforces—food service, hospitality, and transportation—where chronic overemployment and unpredictable scheduling drive turnover rates exceeding 150% annually. The platform delivers AI-powered predictive scheduling for employers while simultaneously giving employees cross-employer schedule visibility, enabling workers to coordinate hours across multiple jobs and personal obligations. The company is targeting the 82 million hourly workers in the U.S., positioning itself to build the largest labor graph in the country.

Fireroad invested in Ando’s approximately $1 million pre-seed round via a SAFE note, writing a check in the $100–200K range. Diligence spanned roughly three weeks, from an initial partner call on April 7 to an investment committee decision on April 25, with the round closing in early June. Key conviction drivers included founder and CEO Paul Wellens’ deep domain experience scaling brands such as KFC and Einstein Bagels, a rigorous 40-page first-party research white paper, and early commercial traction with multi-location partners. The company, originally named Methodic, rebranded to Ando ahead of a planned $ 3–4 million seed raise targeting further commercial expansion.

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