Founder of Notation Capital Nick Chirls : * Likes to invest in companies that are too early * Prefers when it's hard to explain what the company is doing * Does not think now is a good time to invest in AI * And generally sounds nothing like a VC
In this episode with Ann Lai from Bullpen we talk about: * The metrics that matter for fundraising * How Bullpen invests in overlooked businesses * And how Ann bounced back from her experience with Justin Caldbeck at Binary Capital
Howard Morgan is the Chairman and General Partner at B Capital and previously the co-founder of First Round Capital. Howard shares his perspective on building successful seed funds (he's an LP in 80), what is exciting him today in tech and how he has chosen such great partners throughout his life.
Another great Southern California Series A fund and another great investor moving from the Bay Area to LA. Toba partner Patrick Mathieson tells us why he moved from the Bay Area to LA to pursue his thesis around companies building platforms for SMB. Patrick has invested in Boulevard, PatientPop, FloQast, Luxury Presence and now Candid (a TenOneTen co-invest).
David Zhang is a partner at TCV, a ~21B AUM growth fund that has invested in companies like Brex, Airbnb, Klarna, and Nubank. David leans in on FinTech investing and tells us about some of his theses on the unbundling (and bundling) of financial services. David comes from a hedge fund background and also shares why he prefers the alignment of private market investing over the more Darwinian nature of the public markets.
Don't let the joy get sucked out of investing. Investor Emilio Diez Barroso reminds us to remain focused on the joys of creativity and creating value. Emilio invests from his own family office and as a partner at Bold Capital, a Series A fund with a focus on frontier tech, biotech and innovations that have the potential to transform humanity.
When Taylor Adams advises family offices on setting up venture programs he recommends investing into fund of funds for coverage, emerging managers for access and direct investments for alpha. In addition to his family office work, Taylor is the co-founder of Rise Together Ventures, a fund enabling for-profit entrepreneurs to realize their full for-profit and philanthropic vision.
"It would be delightful if all the brightest brains in the world focused their energies on solving climate problems." Gaby Darbyshire gained deep operational expertise as a founder of Gawker Media before starting climate tech focused Dangerous Ventures. There is a lot to learn from Gaby in many dimensions.
The next version of the internet will feel a lot more like a game. Jason Yeh and partner Brian Cho helped Riot Games scale League of Legends to a massive global scale. They take a lot of lessons from gaming as they invest from $90M Patron Fund I into what they call the "spectrum of play".
Andrew Kahn from Crush Ventures invests in music, interactive media, the creator economy, and more. Crush Ventures is the venture arm of Crush Music, a global talent management firm whose roster includes Miley Cyrus, Sia, Green Day, Panic! at the Disco, Weezer, among many others.
"Good paperwork makes good friendships". Deron Quon, co-founder of Menus.com, Datassential, and Collective Solution shares thoughts on scaling and navigating a sale to private equity. Now an active angel investor and founder of Hoopla.com, Deron also talks about the importance of investing back into the LA ecosystem.
Roy Rubin dropped out of UCLA to start Magento, a massive eCommerce platform that scaled to over $100B in transactions annually. Roy is now writing $500k to $1M checks out of his fund, R-Squared Ventures. The story of his success and lessons learned is inspiring and worth a listen!
There are so many great founders and VCs moving to LA! Vinay Singh is a Managing Director at Anthemis where he leads seed and Series A investments out of their early stage fund. Vinay tells us that Anthemis is a global investment platform focused on the digital transformation of financial services, investing across all stages of growth.
What are the best ways for a startup to partner with a big corporation? Beth Kearns from Touchdown Ventures tells about different partnership models, best practices and pitfalls to avoid. This interview includes information from third party sources believed to be reliable; however, we make no representations as to its accuracy or completeness. References to strategies are for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon as a recommendation to engage in any particular strategy or to i...
Word on the street is that more deals have structure. Kareem tells us about structured equity--when it makes sense and who it's right for. Arrowroot is an 8+ year old growth equity firm in LA and Miami on Fund V ($500MM+ invested globally across 28 port cos.) that specializes in structured equity for venture-backed enterprise software companies.
Talking with Jeffrey made me wonder if I need to get a celebrity for our venture fund. Jeffrey had the opportunity to work with Alex and Drew of the Chainsmokers to set up Mantis VC and it sounds like an amazing team. Jeffrey explains the value that the Chainsmokers are able to bring and how entrepreneurs and funds can best work with celebrity.
Fred is the Chief Innovation and Partnerships officer at Caltech where he oversees the Tech Transfer office and recently set up two new funds : The Caltech Fund and the Wilson and Hill fund. Fred gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how Caltech labs are run and how his team thinks about the translational potential of scientific work.
Why is a Series B pitch so much different than pitching a Series A company? How do growth stage investors think about multiples today? Mike Fernandez talks about what he is seeing in growth rounds today and the sort of support that is needed for later stage companies.
This is a great explanation of PLG from the guy who coined the term. Blake Bartlett tells us about the different eras of business software and the problems it was built to solve--from solving a CIO's problems, to solving a business problem, to solving an end user problem. Blake explains how to get started with PLG, how the funnel changes going from a sales-led motion to a product-led motion, how to think about PLG metrics, and much more.
I learned so much about working with celebrities from Jackie Fast at Sandbox Studios : * Celebrities are not doing this for impact. It is for the money * George Clooney's $1B payday from Casamigos caught everyone's attention * It's not only about choosing the right celebrity, it's also about having the right team around them * Celebrities are so eager to work with startups, they are resorting to DMs * Celebrities and startup collaboration is going to explode
The hippies were right. From music festivals, to veganism, to eastern philosophy, and now psychedelics. In this fascinating episode, Greg Kubin tells us about the growing psychedelic movement that is gaining momentum as we start to understand more about how the brain works. Greg's fund, PsyMed is a $25M fund investing in psychedelic medicine and mental health technologies.
Should we be pouring massive amounts of time and money into web3 or is it just technology looking for a use case? Pitbull Ventures founder Brad Zions is also the producer of Kissing Jessica Stein and the co-founder of Lemonade restaurants. He tells us why movies and restaurants are bad investments and why, in his opinion, web3 is even worse. Pitbull is a generalist seed/preseed fund that targets 50+ portfolio companies per fund.
Will Bumpus from Concrete Rose joins us today. Concrete Rose has grown quickly and is now leading rounds with $1-2M checks to support a virtuous cycle of wealth and opportunity for underrepresented communities of color. Will tells us about his own focus on sustainability and where that came from in his life. He also shares why he and his partners may (hopefully) be part of a growing trend of VCs pledging a percent of their carry (50%!) to give back to nonprofits.
Marcy Venture Partners has grown from $30M to $900M AUM, now leading Series A and Series B rounds. Charlie Hanna tells us how he, Jay-Z, Jay Brown and Larry Marcus work together at Marcy to evaluate and champion the brands of the future. He points out that celebrities like Jay-Z and Rihanna didn't make their billions from their music, but from their ability to build brands.
Megan Holston-Alexander leads a16z's Cultural Leadership Fund (CLF). CLF connects the world’s greatest cultural leaders with the best new technology companies and advances young African Americans into tech. Megan tells us about the importance of getting Black capital onto cap tables, Black talent into tech and building generational wealth. She shares how a16z has grown CLF and its influential network, how startups and cultural leaders collaborate, and her own journey into venture.
B Capital has rapidly grown to over $6B AUM and has just announced its first early-stage fund, the $250M Ascent Fund run by a superstar team that includes Eduardo Saverin, Gabe Greenbaum, Karen Page, Karan Mohla, and Howard Morgan. Raj says B Capital was not an overnight success but was built steadily on the conviction that there needed to be a firm that could be best in class on value-add and also global from the outset.
What does it mean to be more authentic online and will it lead to a nicer Internet? How will future social networks make it easier to establish an online identity, find community and enable community ownership? Faraz Fatemi, partner at Lightspeed, brings his perspective on consumer psychology to today's episode of LA Venture.
Climate is eating the world. Shomik Dutta says that climate, and specifically the need to decarbonize every major industry will "eat the world" in the same way that Marc Andreessen famously said that software would eat the world in 2011. Shomik argues that the TAM in climate is multiples of the TAM in software today. The immensity of the need is one of the motivations of the work that he is doing now at Overture.
Another great example of top Silicon Valley talent moving to LA! Kyle Lui was a partner at multi-billion dollar DCM until he left to join Ben Ling at Bling Capital. He shares thoughts on how a small fund can still build best in class playbooks and processes to support founders.
Paige Craig shares his amazing story of sneaking into Iraq dressed as a CNN reporter, how he built a private military from scratch inside Baghdad and then how he parlayed that exit into an incredible investing career that includes Wish, Scale, Gusto, AngelList and many others.
