Evolving for the Next Billion

Today on the show we have Irving Fain. Irving is the founder & CEO of Bowery Farming, the largest vertical farming company in the US. Based in New York City, Bowery’s smart farms are powered by their proprietary operating system the BoweryOS. Their produce is available in almost 800 grocery stores and many e-commerce platforms. Bowery is a GGV portfolio.

Before founding Bowery in 2015, Irving was the co-founder and CEO of CrowdTwist, a loyalty marketing SaaS business later acquired by Oracle. Prior to that, he launched iHeartMedia at Clear Channel and began his career helping early-stage companies raise capital as an investment banker at Citigroup.

This is a crossover episode with Unscripted, a video series hosted by GGV managing partner Jeff Richards. Jeff and Hans host this episode. You can check out the video on GGV’s YouTube channel.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
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Today’s episode is a rerun of our conversation with Grab’ President Ming almost 2 years ago. If you have been following the news, you probably know that Grab recently announced its plan to go public in the US via SPAC. It is the world’s largest SPAC merger deal up to date and is expected to be the largest IPO by a Southeast Asian company in the US. We’re very fortunate to be part of Grab’s journey since 2014 and it’s truly inspiring to see how consistent the team has been in pursuing its mission. 

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com

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Today on the show we have Binny Bansal. Binny cofounded Flipkart in 2007 and played a pivotal role in scaling it to a market leading e-commerce space which still has so many fundamental customer and supply problems along the way. From a small beginning, Binny along with his friend Sachin Bansal turned Flipkart into a massive online commerce venture that was bought over by Walmart in 2018, for a whopping $16 billion. He's also a prolific angel investor and mentor, with over 30 investments in startups ecosystem in India.

This episode is co-hosted by GGV Colleague Madhu Yalamarthi. 

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
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Today we have our first ever husband and wife duos on the show, Sonny Vu and Christy Trang Le from Arevo. Arevo develops technology to enable direct digital additive manufacturing parts for end-use applications in high volume. It makes advances in materials science, 3D printing software, and robotics to automate the production of carbon fiber reinforced polymer structures, otherwise known as CFRP. 

Sonny is a serial entrepreneur, currently the CEO of Arevo. Previously, Sonny founded various startups including Misfit which was bought by Fossil for $260 million. Before that, he worked at Microsoft Research NLP, under Kai-Fu Lee, and worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics at MIT under Professor Noam Chomsky. Both Arevo and Misfit are GGV portfolio. Christy is the CFO and president of the Vietnam operations for Arevo. Previously, Christy was a country director for Vietnam at Facebook, and before Facebook, she built Misfit along with Sonny. Prior to Misfit, Christy was a consultant at McKinsey and an investment banker at HSBC. She graduated Double First in Economics at Oxford (BA & MPhil) and an MBA from MIT Sloan. 

This episode is co-hosted by GGV Colleague Dimitra Taslim. 

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
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Today on the show, we have Allon Bloch, CEO and co-founder of K Health.

K Health is America's number one most downloaded medical app with over 4 million users. It uses AI and advanced technology to provide better and more affordable health care. Unlike other symptom checkers that rely on static rules or protocols to give you the best guess at a diagnosis, K was trained on millions of real anonymized medical records to give you more accurate results that are personalized to your situation.

K Health is a GGV portfolio.Since this episode was recorded, K Health has expanded into Pediatrics to help the whole family access high quality care, 24/7.

Allon is also a board member and former co-CEO of Wix, and has served as the co-founder and CEO of Vroom. Allon is a partner at Jerusalem venture partners, and spent time as a consultant at McKinsey&Company. He holds a BS in biology from Tel Aviv University, and an MBA from Columbia University. He was born and raised in Israel and moved to the US in 1995.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
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Today's episode was recorded back in 2019, way before Affirm became a 27 billion dollar public company, and the BNPL (that is buy now pay later) won over young consumers across the world.

Before Affirm, Max was known as the co-founder of PayPal, where he designed the company's system to detect fraud. A "fintech nerd", as he called himself and serial entrepreneur, Max shared how Affirm was a product of his guiding principle in life, and how his wife was the voice of reason when defining what was fun for him.

This episode is co-hosted by GGV managing partner Glenn Soloman and first appeared on Glenn's podcast Founder Real Talk.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
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Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or assets are for illustrative purposes only; such references do not constitute any recommendation to either buy or sell such securities or assets and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision, nor do they constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services. Any information provided by third parties in this content does not reflect the views of GGV Capital and its subsidiaries or affiliates. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon, when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by GGV Capital. Any investment or portfolio company mentioned, referred to, or described is not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by GGV Capital, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results.

Today on the show, we have Jim Miller, CTO of Wayfair. Wayfair is one of the world's largest e-commerce companies that sells furniture and home-goods. Wayfair is not onlyWayfair.com. It also owns Joss & Main, AllModern, Perigold, and Birch Lane. All dedicated to help shoppers quickly and easily find exactly what they want from a selection of more than 18 million items across home furnishings, décor, home improvement, housewares and more. The company generated $9.1 billion in net revenue for full year 2019. It recently turned a profit for the first time since its IPO in 2014.

Before joining Wayfair, Jim served as the Vice President of Worldwide Operations at Google for almost 8 years. He also spent 7 years as a senior executive at Cisco leading supply chain and logistics, Asia operations, new product introduction, advanced technology, and global operations while the company ramped from $18B to over $40B in annual revenue. Prior to Cisco, Miller was the Vice President of Supply Chain at Amazon and was a key contributor to Amazon's rapid growth into a global company. Jim received his bachelor's degree from Purdue University, an M.S. from MIT, and an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
Join our listeners' community, go to nextbn.ggvc.com/community

Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or assets are for illustrative purposes only; such references do not constitute any recommendation to either buy or sell such securities or assets and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision, nor do they constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services. Any information provided by third parties in this content does not reflect the views of GGV Capital and its subsidiaries or affiliates. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon, when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by GGV Capital. Any investment or portfolio company mentioned, referred to, or described is not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by GGV Capital, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results.

The conversation was recorded at the end of 2020. We sit down with GGV Capital managing partner Jenny to get her take on memorable moments, new habits developed during lockdown and her hope for 2021.
For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
Join our listeners' community, go to nextbn.ggvc.com/community

Today on the show, we have Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy since 2017. Etsy is an innovative online marketplace that connects millions of passionate creative sellers and buyers around the world. With the mission "keep commerce human", the global destination for unique and creative goods has 3.1 million active sellers and 60.3 million active buyers from nearly around every country on our planet. In 2019, 40% of Etsy sellers were located outside the US, 83%of sellers were women. Josh has two decades of leadership experience include growing consumer technology companies and scaling global marketplaces. Before Etsy, he served as president of consumer products and service at AmEx, CEO of Skype, and CEO of shopping.com. And he has held various executive roles at eBay. Earlier in his career, Josh co-founded Evite 20 years ago, where he was also served as the company's first CEO until sale to IAC.

This is a cross episode with Founders Real Talk, our sister podcast hosted by GGV Managing Partner Glenn Solomon.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
Join our listeners' community, go to nextbn.ggvc.com/community

Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or assets are for illustrative purposes only; such references do not constitute any recommendation to either buy or sell such securities or assets and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision, nor do they constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services. Any information provided by third parties in this content does not reflect the views of GGV Capital and its subsidiaries or affiliates. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon, when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by GGV Capital. Any investment or portfolio company mentioned, referred to, or described is not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by GGV Capital, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results.

Today on the show, we have Harley Finkelstein, the President of Shopify. Shopify is a leading global e-commerce company, providing trusted tools to start, grow, market and manage a retail business of any size. Headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, Shopify powers over 1 million businesses and more than 175 countries and is trusted by brands such as AllBirds, GymSharks, PepsiCo, Staples, and many more.

Harley has been with the company since 2010. Prior to his current role, Harley founded numerous startups and ecommerce companies. He is currently an advisor to Felicis Ventures. Harley holds a Bachelor degree in Economics from Concordia University and a J.D./M.B.A. joint degree in Law and Business from the University of Ottawa.

This episode is co-hosted by GGV colleague Robin Li. Based in New York, Robin invests in eCommerce, social, consumer internet, and digital economy.

For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com
Join our listeners' community, go to nextbn.ggvc.com/community

Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or assets are for illustrative purposes only; such references do not constitute any recommendation to either buy or sell such securities or assets and are not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision, nor do they constitute an offer to provide investment advisory services. Any information provided by third parties in this content does not reflect the views of GGV Capital and its subsidiaries or affiliates. Furthermore, this content is not directed at nor intended for use by any investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon, when making a decision to invest in any fund managed by GGV Capital. Any investment or portfolio company mentioned, referred to, or described is not representative of all investments in vehicles managed by GGV Capital, and there can be no assurance that the investments will be profitable or that other investments made in the future will have similar characteristics or results.