Fireside with a VC

Episode #58 of Fireside with a VC discussing early stage VC in sub-Saharan Africa with Marsha Wulff, cofounder of LoftyInc Capital Management as a guest speaker at Chapman University talking to Professor Andrew Romans and his students at his class on VC.   

*Starting a VC fund to invest in sub-Saharan African early stage tech startups.  

*Overcoming challenges in raising LP capital for a "Top 3" VC fund investing in African startups. 

*Opportunities and challenges facing African entrepreneurs, VCs and LPs as well as the evolving high value angel scene in Africa. 

*Advice for African founders on how to raise angel and VC funding.  

Feel free to get in touch to learn more about investing in African or American VC funds.   

Video on Spotify and YouTube: https://youtu.be/EPgmMjJDmG8.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.  Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Episode #57, John Vitti, CEO of Versus Game on campus at Chapman University with Professor Andrew Romans

Talking about lessons learned from 4 previous startups and how we raised nearly $40m from top Silicon Valley VCs including very hands on investment and support from Eric Schmidt, Kevin Hart, 7BC Venture Capital and other investors.

Building a large business to over $100m in revenue and leveraging Hollywood TV models to drive a high growth, high margin, impact business to change the world.

Advice to founders on getting started and getting connected.

Video: https://youtu.be/KBgwdQo4NqQ.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Episode #56, Update on the war in Ukraine from the front lines in Kiev with Eric Kadyrov, Founder at Private Tech Network.

Talking about specific numbers and the state of the war with images, videos and how he has helped move weapons around the country and done direct outreach to thousands of companies to stop doing business with Russia from HP and Cisco to startups.

In this episode Eric is a guest speaker to my class I teach at Chapman University on Venture Capital. Eric is also the founder of Private Tech Network, an AI driven VC as a Service platform where I am an advisor.

Download Eric's slides here: https://docsend.com/view/x3ef7qrh8u2p5yjp.

Video: https://youtu.be/UlWOfIfQzXQ.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Venture Capital Thursdays: Discussing and understanding secondaries, VC performance metrics and evolving liquidity in the venture capital asset class across the stack from founders to angels, Seed VCs, Series A VCs, growth investors and LPs with my students in California. Recommend to play at 2x speed if English is your first language.

· Direct Secondaries – primary vs secondary investing

· How does it work with running a process, getting ROFR’d, how to not get ROFR’d

· How to waste time and not make any money trying to buy secondaries and what happens in the real world?

· Structured secondaries

· How are secondaries impacting the timing of an exit?

· How are secondaries impacting the actual value of the exit?

· How are secondaries impacting the performance of a VC fund to its LP investors?

· Understanding key VC performance terms work

· What is IRR? – impact of secondaries?

· What is MOIC? – impact of secondaries?

· What is TVPI? – impact of secondaries?

· What is DPI? – impact of secondaries?

· What is Cash-on-Cash? – impact of secondaries?

· LP Secondaries

· Discounts LP secondary buyers seek to get

· What is a Fund of Funds (FOF)

· Evolving liquidity in the venture capital asset class across the stack from founders to angels, Seed VCs, Series A VCs, growth investors and LPs

Video: https://youtu.be/qorjT7OV9nU

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Episode #54 Brian Laung Aoaeh, GP @REFASHIOND Ventures on Fireside with a VC sharing his story of going from his home country of Ghana to becoming a VC at KEC Ventures and now cofounder of REFASHIOND Ventures focused on supply chain and sharing research on how family offices can best play in the early-stage venture capital space.

· The Research Report on Family Offices: Towards A Partnership Model for Family Offices and Emerging Venture Firm Managers https://docsend.com/view/47y7zzu4rxwhtaxi

· REFASHIOND Ventures: https://www.refashiond.com/

· REFASHIOND Ventures AngelList Fund: angel.co/v/back/refashiond-seed

· The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation: https://theworldwidesupplychainfederation.com/our-vision

Video: https://youtu.be/GLeEzutBOX0

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Episode #53 Nathan Beckord, CEO @Foudersuite and podcast host of “How I raised it” on Fireside with a VC discussing all things fundraising from angels and VCs.

· How to email VCs with a warm intro or cold email.

· Researching investors and forming the most suitable target investor list.

· Developing relationships with VCs before your funding round.

· What docs founders should have prepared for a VC funding round.

· Advice on decks and financial forecasts.

· What’s the goldilocks of being too aggressive or too conservative with financial projections?

· Winning financial models and how to present the numbers including unit economics.

· Advice for recruiting and compensating advisors.

· Pricing your financing round for success.

· How to use Foundersuite to find prospective angels, VCs, family offices and CVCs.

· How to digitize your fundraising process end-to-end.

Foundersuite can be a substitute for expensive subscriptions to Pitchbook, DocSend, DocuSign, virtual data rooms, CRM, templates for legal docs, and a ton more.

Get a 30% discount on your first month of using Foundersuite with the promo code “Romans”.

If English is your first language, please play us at 1.5x or 2x faster speed.

Video: https://youtu.be/R-Kk9prqZ74.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund and join a powerful network of investors actively backing and supporting our portfolio companies. [email protected]

Episode #52 Cindy Padnos, Founder & Managing Partner at Illuminate Ventures. Discussing:

· What it was like being a woman founder and CEO raising VC funding in Silicon Valley decades ago.

· What it has been like being a woman solo GP launching a VC fund in Silicon Valley compared to being a man doing the same.

· Talking about the practical realities of how relationships are formed for women to men and women to women in MBA programs, the VC industry, and how Cindy has navigated and pioneered this reality in Silicon Valley over decades.

· How Cindy has leveled the playing field while purely focusing on financial returns.

· Building personal confidence and overcoming fears.

· Talking about the reality of diversity investing and how this is changing at the VC and founder levels.

· Valuations of SaaS startups now and portfolio construction.

· How the market has been shifting up and down on valuations and what this means for founders and investors.

· The enterprise investment focus of Illuminate Ventures.

· Unique model of forming a 50-person advisory council for Illuminate Ventures with over 50% women.

· How startups and VC funds will perform well even if the economy tanks.

If English is your first language, please play us at 1.5x or 2x faster speed.

Video: https://youtu.be/bdQpwhZRXHI.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. [email protected]

Episode #51 Kelly Perdew, Cofounder & Managing Partner of Moonshots Capital, Entrepreneur, Military Veteran, Winner of Season 2 - The Apprentice, and father of twins! Discussing:

· Advice to founders on how to raise angel and VC funding.

· How Kelly went from being a VC-backed founder to making angel investments, pooling angel investors together into running a Syndicate on Angel List and then managing his own Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), and then his own VC funds but still doing SPVs.

· Strategies for investing in late stage seed and late stage pre-IPO growth.

Video: https://youtu.be/jK5UUUsra-g.

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. [email protected]

Episode #50 Alan Patricof, godfather of the VC and PE industries, he’s 87 years old now, and founded legendary VC firm Greycroft and seminal PE firm Apax. Alan founded VC fund Patricof Company Ventures with a $2.5m fund in 1969.

· Greycroft has over $2bn of AUM with a reputation trying to keep things from getting too big and follow the path of Apax which has AUM of over $60bn. Their last fund I believe closed in January of 2021 at it’s hard cap of $11bn.

· Alan rather than just add more zeros to Apax, which I think stands for Alan’s initials Alan Patricof Associates Cross-Border, Alan moved on from Apax to found Greycroft. Proving his passion for investing early Greycroft raised its first fund (Greycroft I) with $75 million. Some of Alan’s investments include Steve Job’s Apple Computer, AOL, Xerox, New York Magazine, HuffPost, Audible, Axios, Venmo, Goop, Crafy which we invested in before Greycroft and alongside Greycroft a few weeks ago, Office Depot, and many others.

· Now Alan has teamed up with Abby Miller Levy to launch a new VC fund Primetime Partners focused on funding early stage companies that can transform the quality of living for older adults. At 87 Alan may have some insight and opinions there.

· Alan has also written a book I purchased on pre-order No Red Lights: Reflections on Life, 50 Years in Venture Capital, and Never Driving Alone.

· Abby is a Princeton and Harvard graduate, began her career at McKinsey, more recently was the Founding President alongside CEO Arianna Huffington at Thrive Global, a behavior change technology company focused on employee productivity and wellness and worked in new ventures at SoulCycle.

· Discussing how VC funds have become too large in size resulting in over funding companies and failing to make venture returns.

· Discussing what’s changed in 50 years? More people want to start their own business now compared to far fewer 50 years ago.

· Deep dive on Primetime Partners strategy with a focus on healthcare IT and fintech and the growing elderly market, which control two thirds of the world’s wealth. Primetime also backs founders that start companies over the age of 50.

· Talking about current strategy at Greycroft seeking to invest in companies that can be valued at over $10bn.

· Primetime in contrast is seeking to invest smaller checks, out of a smaller fund and more realistic exit valuations.

· Exit return targets for Primetime compared to Greycroft and reaching 3x returns fund-wide.

[email protected]

Video: https://youtu.be/T7DA1__xQCs.

https://www.amazon.com/No-Red-Lights-Reflections-Venture/dp/1637582935

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube, Spotify and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. [email protected]

Episode #49 Nicolai Wadstrom, Founder, CEO and General Partner BootstrapLabs, AI focused VC on Fireside with a VC discussing:

· What is real AI compared to AAI (artificial artificial intelligence).

· Founding a VC fund from scratch that is not a spinout of a large existing VC fund.

· Tips and tricks for raising initial LP capital.

· Raising LP capital for a first VC fund and then a second and third VC fund.

· Building a VC brand and finding differentiators.

· Investment strategy for investing in early stage startups.

· Valuations and returns pre-during and -post pandemic.

· What makes a great AI startup.

https://bootstraplabs.com/community/nicolai-wadstrom/

YouTube video: https://youtu.be/d6fElnQbNTs

Subscribe to Fireside with a VC on YouTube and all podcast platforms: https://anchor.fm/FiresideVC.

Join the 7BC Venture Capital Syndicate to co-invest with our VC fund (https://angel.co/s/sevenbc/ZZAgQ) or invest in our 506c VC fund which co-invests with our main VC fund. [email protected]