Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, I sat down with Logan Bartlett , Managing Director of Redpoint Ventures . We explore the evolving landscape of venture capital and startup investing and dive deep into the challenges facing unicorn companies post-2021, the transformative potential of AI, and the critical factors for successful startup investments. Logan shares insights on identifying promising...
Jun 18, 2025•51 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome to another episode of Venture Unlocked. In this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming Villi Iltchev , founder and managing partner of Category Ventures. Villi has had a long history in tech, both in operating roles at companies like Box and Lifelock, as well as investing roles at August Capital and Two Sigma, where he departed in 2024 to launch Category Ventures . W...
Jun 04, 2025•44 min
Today, I sat down with Victor Lazarte , a Benchmark partner who transitioned from founding a billion-dollar mobile gaming company in Brazil to becoming a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley with Benchmark in 2023. Victor shared Benchmark's unique investment philosophy, which focuses on deep, meaningful partnerships with entrepreneurs, with each partner doing only 1-2 deals per year. We also spoke about the equal partnership Benchmark has, and what that means in practice day to day from a decisi...
Mar 19, 2025•45 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Had a great conversation recently with Tomasz Tunguz Founder and General Partner at Theory Ventures. We dug into how AI is reshaping venture capital and everyday life, from the rapid advancements in the space to what it all means for startups and the broader market. We covered everything from the declining cost of training AI models to the open vs. closed-source debate and how...
Mar 05, 2025•36 min
Follow me @SamirKaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We recently had the pleasure of hosting Zal Bilimoria , Co-Founder of Refactor Capital . Zal has had a fascinating career from building products at Microsoft, Google, Netflix, and LinkedIn to making the leap into being a VC. His story is one of relentless curiosity and a deep passion for technology, something that started early in his life while working in his family’s compute...
Feb 19, 2025•47 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Brian Ascher , a veteran venture capitalist at Venrock , a firm with a storied history dating back to 1969 as part of the Rockefeller family office. Brian, with nearly 30 years in the industry, shared his journey from product management at Intuit to becoming a key partner at Venrock. We dove into the firm's evolution, investment strate...
Feb 05, 2025•44 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, I have the pleasure of conversing with Gaurav Mathur , Partner at Pinegrove Capital Partners . Together, we dive into the evolving venture capital landscape, focusing on liquidity solutions and the rise of secondary markets. Gaurav shares insights from his extensive experience, discussing the growth in assets under management, the trend of companies staying pr...
Jan 22, 2025•47 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today I’m excited to speak with the founding team of Chemistry , a new venture firm led by Kristina Shen , Ethan Kurzweil , and Mark Goldberg , who recently spun-out of blue chip firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and Index Ventures, respectively. The firm just announced a significantly oversubscribed $350MM debut fund. As a new entrant to the market (in the toughest time to...
Oct 30, 2024•43 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, Sam Heshmati and Vince Timoney from Citizens Private Bank stop by to talk about all things venture banking and how the industry is recovering from the 2023 regional banking crisis. Sam and Vince, both of whom have extensive experience in the banking sector, share their insights on the challenges faced during this period, including the impact on startups and ve...
Oct 16, 2024•48 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we welcome the three co-founders of Saga Ventures : Ben Braverman, Thomson Nguyen, and Max Altman. Saga Ventures is a seed-stage investment firm that recently closed its first fund of $125M. The conversation dives into their experiences in raising their first fund, building a team, and navigating a competitive seed-stage market. The co-founders bring unique skill set...
Sep 26, 2024•48 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we're thrilled to be joined by Glenn Solomon , managing partner at Notable Capital . Along with Granite Asia , Notable Capital was one of two groups to emerge from GGV Capital, which recently split into two groups with Notable based in Silicon Valley, New York, and covering companies in the U. S., Israel, Europe, and Latin America. Glenn brings nearly 30 years of venture...
Aug 28, 2024•41 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Ben Sun , co-founder of Primary , a seed-stage fund based in New York. Ben shares his journey from investment banking to startup founder, and eventually to co-founding Primary, which has backed companies like Coupang and Jet. Ben provides deep insights into venture math and the intricacies of completing a GP-led secondary. He di...
Aug 08, 2024•52 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week I'm excited to sit down with Lindel Eakman from Foundry . Lindel has been an investor in funds and companies since the early 2000s when he started at UTIMCO. In our conversation, Lindel talks about being one of the first investors in Union Square Ventures, his preference for smaller partnerships, and the art of conducting quality reference calls on GPs. Having known ...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Tom Loverro, General Partner at IVP is our guest as part of our Venture Unlocked Shorts series intended to go deep on a single topic. We revisit Tom’s Twitter post from early 2023, which spoke to the market shift that was in motion and the difficulties start-ups would face in a capital-constrained market. Specifically, he spoke about 2024 as being a time of reckoning for many ...
Jul 17, 2024•36 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're re-joined by Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate , this time to discuss his just released new book "Pattern Breakers." Mike was first on the pod in 2021 and it was great to catch up again, this time to discuss the importance of identifying founders who are true pattern breakers. We spoke about how his observations on the last 14 years at Floodgate inspired him to write the boo...
Jul 10, 2024•48 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're joined by TX Zhuo , Co-Founder and General Partner of Fika Ventures . His tech career began in college when he started an online textbook marketplace. After working at McKinsey and as a CFO at an operating company, TX joined Innovation Endeavors. He then co-founded Karlin Ventures, which was backed by a single family office. In 2016, he co-founded Fika Ventures, which no...
Jun 27, 2024•41 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are back with another LP-focused episode with Michael Kim , Founder of Cendana Capital . Michael shares how he started Cendana around his thesis (at the time very early) of backing small, emerging managers. This led to early investments in firms such as IA ventures, Forerunner, and Lerer Hippeau. During our discussion, we chatted about what qualities he’s seen in great emer...
Jun 05, 2024•51 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are back with Amy Saper , partner at Uncork Capital . Amy shares her journey from Silicon Valley operator at Twitter and Stripe to venture capitalist. She talks about Uncork’s strategy, including its recent $200 million seed fund and $200 million opportunity fund, and how the firm balances growth with specialization. Investors will find her perspective on non-consensus inve...
May 15, 2024•49 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we have another version of Venture Unlocked shorts, and this time it will be focused on topics within the GP/LP world. Joining me again is Meghan Reynolds , who leads capital formation at Altimeter Capital . This time we discuss the significant liquidity challenges in the venture capital market, focusing on the concerns of LPs about funding future capital calls and the l...
Apr 19, 2024•25 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we're doing another special roundtable discussion with a focus on the seed stage market. Joining us are Jenny Fielding of Everywhere Ventures , Kirby Winfield of Ascend , and Nate Williams of UNION Labs . This whole conversation was focused on seed stage investing. We spent most of our time discussing how the market reset affects seed-stage decision-making, fund sizi...
Apr 10, 2024•45 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are thrilled to bring you a conversation with David Sacks , Founder and Partner of Craft Ventures . Based in San Francisco, Craft was founded in 2017 and currently has over 3 billion in assets under management. Across the last three decades, David has been incredibly influential as an investor, entrepreneur, and public thought leader. When starting Craft, he was able to dra...
Mar 27, 2024•56 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we are pleased to be joined by Adam Bain of 01 Advisors , a San Francisco-based firm with nearly $1 billion under management. Adam and his partners, including Dick Costolo, have taken a very different approach to the venture model, drawing from their experiences as operators. While Adam was COO and Dick was CEO at Twitter, they helped the company scale from zero to i...
Mar 13, 2024•48 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We have a conversation with Mitchell Green , Founder and Managing Partner at Lead Edge Capital . With offices in New York and Santa Barbara, the firm has over $5B in Assets under management and specializes in helping growth-stage companies scale. The firm has an interesting model that combines elements of PE, growth, and an active network of over 700 LPs to build a very powerf...
Mar 06, 2024•42 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we have another version of Venture Unlocked shorts, and this time it will be focused on topics within the GP/LP world. Joining me for this around-the-water-cooler recurring series is Meghan Reynolds , who leads capital formation at Altimeter Capital . Meghan recently attended iConnections in Miami, one of the biggest global capital intro summits in the world, which serve...
Feb 23, 2024•25 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We have a conversation with Samir Kaul from Khosla Ventures . Founded in 2004, Khosla is one of the largest and most well-known venture capital firms in the world and led by legendary investor and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla . The firm is known for investing in companies that are solving very large and complex problems. The firm currently has over $15B in AUM investing in compan...
Feb 16, 2024•42 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This is our second episode of Venture Unlocked Shorts where we highlight a specific point of view of our guest. These points of view may come through a tweet, an article, or an offline conversation, and our goal is to unpack these interesting views in a short conversation. In this week’s Venture Unlocked Shorts, we’re joined by Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures . Aileen wrote a no...
Jan 31, 2024•26 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. As we continue to grow Venture Unlocked, we are now going to release short conversations highlighting a specific point of view of our guest. These points of views may come through a tweet, an article, or conversation, and our goal is to unpack these interesting views in short form. Our first guest in this format is Ed Suh Founder and Managing Partner of Alpine VC . Ed recently...
Jan 26, 2024•19 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are excited to bring on Brendan Wales and Kellan Carter, Co-Founders and GPs of FUSE. Founded in 2020 with a thesis centered around the growth of the Pacific Northwest ecosystem, a geography both of our guests know well. With its just-announced close of a $250MM Fund 2, FUSE has a total AUM of just over $420MM. During our conversation, we covered the strategic nature of LP ...
Jan 25, 2024•46 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this special meet the expert episode, we are discussing the venture debt market with Matt Trotter , a Managing director within Stifel Bank ’s Venture division. Stifel Bank was established in St. Louis, MO in 1890 and is an independent investment bank with the mission to help individuals pursue financial goals, businesses and organizations raise and protect capital, and comm...
Jan 10, 2024•39 min
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we are thrilled to be joined by Pejman Nozad , Co-Founder and GP of Pear VC . Founded in 2013, Pear has scaled to over $800MM in AUM with a powerful engine to help early-stage companies. As many regular listeners of the show know, we often like to highlight managers who have different backgrounds and stories leading to their careers in VC. I think of all of our guest...
Dec 22, 2023•48 min
