Fund 81

In this latest Fund81 podcast episode, I share my 2020 plans for the Fund81 forum and podcast (https://www.mergelane.com/fund81), and a few reflections from my short bout of holiday depression.

Despite the fact that I have a wonderful life with many blessings to be thankful for, I have always struggled with depression over the holidays. Because of the work I’ve been doing in Conscious Leadership (https://www.mergelane.com/post/mergelane-runs-on-conscious-leadership), my holiday depression was shorter and less biting than ever before. I also better understand the causes of my depression. However, my depression still reared its ugly head. I’m sharing some of the lessons I learned from this experience in hopes that it might help others who struggle with holiday depression and depression in general.

A few of the articles I mentioned in the episode are as follows:

https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-conscious-leadership-bought-me-5-hours-of-extra-time-each-day

https://www.mergelane.com/post/using-the-enneagram-in-venture-capital-investing

https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-75-ski-days-made-me-a-better-venture-capitalist

https://www.mergelane.com/post/when-giving-first-gets-to-be-too-much

https://www.mergelane.com/post/episode-13-mental-health-in-venture-capital-with-brad-feld

If you could benefit from the work we do in Conscious Leadership, join us for Camp.

https://www.leadership.camp/upcoming-camps

It’s radically changed every aspect of my life. I highly recommend it.

Onward.

In this episode, I interview Liza Benson. Liza is a partner with Moderne Ventures, an early-stage VC fund focused on technology companies innovating within real estate, mortgage, finance, insurance, hospitality, and home services.

At MergeLane, we’ve been thinking about how changing market conditions may affect our fund in the future. I know many of our listeners are asking themselves that question as well. I invited Liza to share some of her thoughts. With 20 years of VC experience, Liza lived through both the dot-com crash in 2000 and the 2008 financial crisis. Her fund, Moderne Ventures, launched in 2008. That experience played a pivotal role in the development of Moderne’s strategy.

Enjoy.

Beezer Clarkson invests in early-stage venture funds primarily in the US, Europe and Israel as the managing director at Sapphire Partners (the division within Sapphire Ventures that invests in venture funds). In this episode, Beezer shares her perspective on venture capital trends, VC firm differentiation, and nonobvious mistakes for VC fund managers to avoid.

There are some great interviews that cover Beezer’s path to becoming an LP and a few of the key things she looks for when making investments. I recommend listening to these three:

Notation Capital’s Origins Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elizabeth-beezer-clarkson-sapphire-ventures/id1111792048?i=1000368208534

Seed to Scale: https://medium.com/eniacvc/seed-to-scale-episode-22-with-beezer-clarkson-md-at-sapphire-ventures-7384f9ec4e79

Venture Stories: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lp-perspective-beezer-clarkson-and-chris-douvos/id1316769266?i=1000443429018

Beezer also recently championed the effort to relaunch #OpenLP (https://openlp.sapphireventures.com/) to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. Here are just a few of the #OpenLP articles I found helpful:

How to Build a Better Data Room: https://sapphireventures.com/blog/openlp-fundraising-tips-how-to-build-a-better-data-room/

The Master List of US Micro-VCs: https://medium.com/@Samirkaji/the-master-list-of-us-micro-vcs-aa35d9b294ab

Navigating the New Seed Landscape: https://www.pear.vc/the-new-seed-landscape

Episode #18: Assessing Hustle with the Hustle Fund

Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner at the Hustle Fund shared her thoughts on how to assess a startup’s ability to “hustle”. Her thoughts are applicable to venture capitalists, startups and anyone who wants to work with hustlers.

Elizabeth started her career as an entrepreneur when she founded the adtech platform Launchbit which was acquired by BuySellAds in 2014. Elizabeth then jumped into venture capital as a partner in 500 Startups before launching her own fund, the Hustle Fund in 2017. The Hustle Fund invests in “hilariously early” hustlers at the Pre-Seed and Seed stages.

In full disclosure, MergeLane is an investor in the Hustle Fund. As an LP, I’ve had the chance to get to know Elizabeth, her team and some of their portfolio companies. From this and my experience reviewing 271 other venture funds, I think the Hustle Fund offers a truly unique approach that is resonating with entrepreneurs. This episode is worth a listen.

For more context, I recommend these podcast interviews that outline Elizabeth’s origin story (http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/elizabethyin/), how to hustle (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eric-bahn-hustle-fund-how-to-hustle/id1223825795?i=1000435067462) and the Hustle Fund strategy (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/investor-connect-episode-158-eric-bahn-of-hustle-fund/id1270191805?i=1000426732925).

Elizabeth also draws on her experience reviewing 20,000+ pitches to offer practical early-stage startup advice on her blog (https://elizabethyin.com/).

Enjoy.

This discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of MergeLane or any company we discuss. Our conversations are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal, business, investment or tax advice and is not intended for use by any investor. Certain MergeLane funds own, or may own in the future, some of the securities and companies discussed in this podcast.

We asked our Fund81 forum for venture capitalists to nominate portfolio companies to participate in a startup showcase. We received over 50 nominations. Four of those startups are featured in this episode.

Presenting Startups:

Veho, nominated by Morris Wheeler from Drummond Road Capital

https://shipveho.com/

Nori, nominated by Hannah Davis from the Techstars Sustainability Program in partnership with the Nature Conservancy

https://nori.com/

Soona, nominated by me, Elizabeth Kraus, from the MergeLane venture fund

https://soona.co/

Leaf, nominated by Ethan Austin from the Western Union Accelerator powered by Techstars

https://www.leafglobalfintech.com/

Fund81 Forum membership is by invitation only, but if you’re someone we absolutely must have in our group, drop me a line to tell me why. https://www.mergelane.com/fund81

This discussion is an expression of personal opinion and does not represent the opinion of MergeLane or any company we discuss. Our conversations are for informational purposes only, including any mention of securities or funds. This is not legal, business, investment or tax advice and is not intended for use by any investor. Certain MergeLane funds own, or may own in the future, some of the securities and companies discussed in this podcast.

Jocelyn Goldfein, Managing Director at Zetta Venture Partners, joined the Fund81 podcast to share her approach to investing in artificial intelligence (AI). With the cost of creating software continuing to decline, Zetta believes that the companies of the future will need to build more than just great software to thrive. Zetta invests in AI software that learns from data to analyze, predict, and prescribe outcomes. This is what Zetta defines as the fourth era of computing: the computation of huge volumes – zettabytes – of data on distributed systems and the development of software that can learn from this data.

This interview combined with Zetta’s other content is the most insightful information I’ve seen on this topic. It’s really worth a look.

More Content from Zetta Venture Partners

Investing in Artificial Intelligence: http://investorfieldguide.com/ash/

Why SaaS is Not a Fit for VC and How AI Compounds Competitive Advantage: http://fullratchet.net/161-why-saas-is-not-a-fit-for-vc-and-how-ai-compounds-competitive-advantage-ash-fontana/

Growing Up in the Intelligence Era: https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/growing-up-in-the-intelligence-era/

Data Is Not the New Oil: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/27/data-is-not-the-new-oil/

Measuring AI Startups by the Right Yardstick: https://medium.com/zetta-venture-partners/measuring-ai-startups-by-the-right-yardstick-6c5f6745dd22

Sourcing with Zetta’s Jocelyn Goldfein: https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/venture-confidential/ep-15-sourcing-with-zettas-jocelyn-goldfein/

Enjoy.

I love being active and outdoors, but I also have extremely high professional aspirations. I’ve spent the last 16 years trying to find a way to fit fitness into my life in a way that feels spacious and supportive to my business, relationships and health. In this episode, Nicole DeBoom, pro triathlete turned founder and CEO of Skirt Sports, and I share our thoughts on how to fit fitness into a startup schedule.

Before you listen, I recommend listening to our previous conversation in episode 139 of Nicole’s Run this World podcast:

https://www.nicoledeboom.com/139-elizabeth-kraus-asks-herself-3-questions-every-day/

While you’re there, subscribe to her podcast. Seriously. Nicole interviews extremely inspiring Olympians, entrepreneurs and just everyday people who have overcome seemingly insurmountable challenges. As entrepreneurs and startup investors, we all have top and bottom of the roller coaster moments. It’s what I listen to when I’m at the bottom and it never fails to pull me up.

For more tips on fitting fitness into a busy schedule, check out:

https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-conscious-leadership-bought-me-5-hours-of-extra-time-each-day

https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-a-26-inch-powder-day-increased-my-conviction-for-my-business-my-team-and-the-15-commitments

https://www.mergelane.com/post/why-my-day-in-the-woods-was-my-most-productive-work-day-yet

https://www.mergelane.com/post/how-75-ski-days-made-me-a-better-venture-capitalist

Enjoy.

Fundraising doesn’t come naturally to David Cohen, founder and co-CEO of Techstars. He’s an introverted, shut-up-and-deliver kind of guy, but he’s learned how to leverage his strengths and team to convince hundreds of LPs to invest in the venture capital funds that power the Techstars network. In this episode, he shares his honest and authentic reflections from his unique perspective as an non-natural fundraiser.

We’ve invested in several Techstars graduates and are big believers in the power of the Techstars network. I try to track Techstars’ progress, but it wasn’t until I prepared for this interview that I fully grasped how much David and his team have achieved. Techstars has grown to 43 accelerator programs from LA to Tel Aviv, with focuses from sustainable agriculture to blockchain, and corporate development-focused programs in partnership with companies like Barclays, Amazon, and Comcast. Of the more than 1600 Techstars graduates, over 87% are still active or have been acquired. Graduates have raised over $6 billion in funding and have a market cap of over $17 billion.

With $500 million under management, and portfolio companies like Uber, DigitalOcean, ClassPass and Twilio, it’s VC arm, Techstars Ventures, invests in companies built by Techstars accelerator companies and alumni.

Techstars also hosts Startup Studios, Startup Weekends and Startup Weeks across the globe, and supports underrepresented communities and entrepreneurs through its Techstars Foundation.

For more content from David, check out the recently released second edition of “Do More Faster: Techstars Lessons To Accelerate Your Startup” which he co-authored with Brad Feld. David and Brad also co-host The Give First Podcast (https://givefirst.techstars.com/). David writes about all things startups on his blog at DavidGCohen.com.

In this Fund81 podcast episode, I invited Brad Feld, founding partner of Foundry Group, to share his thoughts on maintaining mental health in the fast-paced venture capital world and supporting portfolio companies, colleagues, friends and family wrestling with mental health issues.

Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of Techstars. He’s written a number of books as part of the Startup Revolution series and writes the blogs Feld Thoughts and Venture Deals.

Brad has openly and authentically written about his own mental health issues and supports a wide range of mental health efforts. His transparency has sparked a dramatic shift in mental health consciousness and conversation in the startup ecosystem.

SC Moatti recently joined the Fund81 podcast to talk about how to discover and vet products in venture capital. In this episode, we talk about how VCs can spot early indications of future product success, creative ways to look under the hood before investing, and the product-related questions most venture capitalists fail to ask.

SC Moatti is the founding partner of Mighty Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and Products That Count, one of the largest communities of product managers, leaders, and founders in the world. Previously, she built products that billions of people use at Facebook, Nokia and Electronic Arts. She also serves on boards of both public and private companies, including Opera Software (OPERA:Oslo). An award-winning bestselling author, Moatti has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and on NPR. She lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA and has a Master of Science in electrical engineering. For more information, visit scmoatti.com.