Kauffman Fellows Podcast

In this episode, Maggie Kenefake, Venture Partner with Royal Street Ventures, talked with Victor Gutwein, M25 Founder and Managing Director on Venture in the Middle. Victor and M25 focus on very early-stage deals in the Midwest, starting with his first fund of $1 million in 2016 and moving through Fund 3 of $31 million in 2019. They’ve made more than 108 investments in 24 different cities and have found abundant opportunities with a geographic focus.

In this series, Maggie Kenefake, Venture Partner with Royal Street Ventures, talked with investors about the untapped potential for venture capital in the Midwest. In this episode, Founder and Managing Director of Exposition Ventures, Karen Kerr, talks with Maggie about her career in industrial tech, her firm’s focus on the digital transformation of the industrial value chain and why she started her firm in Chicago.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. In this episode, listen as Pinn talks with Bejul Somaia, Managing Partner at Lightspeed Ventures, India. Bejul got his first exposure to the VC world as an operator just before the dotcom boom and bust, started another company, and then leapt into the venture capital game with gusto.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. In this episode, listen as Pinn talks with James Mi, founding partner of lightspeed China, a leading China focused venture investment firm with over $2 billion under management. James ranks 21st on the 2024 global top 100 VC Midas list.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. In this episode, listen as Pinn talks with Vaibhav Gupta (VG), Co-founder of Udaan, India’s largest B2B ecommerce platform. VG, Pinn noted, has been “annoyingly successful,” having established two unicorns in the last decade, in Udaan and Flipkart, which is the largest Indian B2C ecommerce platform.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. This episode finds Pinn talking with Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO of OYO Hotels and Homes. The company is one of the leading technology and revenue growth platforms for over 100,000 small hotels and home owners globally.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. This episode finds Pinn talking with Jenny Lee, Managing Partner at GGV Capital, which has funded many emerging-market success stories.

In this series, Pinn Lawjindakul, venture investor at Lightspeed Ventures Partners, explores the challenges and best practices of venture building in emerging markets through conversations with leading investors and founders across India, China, Southeast Asia. In this episode Pinn talks with Nick Nash, Managing Partner and Co-founder of Asia Partners. After starting his career with McKinsey, Nick moved to General Atlantic and was Group President of Sea, Greater Southeast Asia’s leading internet company, where he led the internet company on a journey from a private company to the largest US IPO from Southeast Asia. Nick is a member of the global Kauffman Society for leadership in venture capital.

Continuing her series on women leading deep tech investments, VP at Boost VC, Maddie Callander, sat down with Future Ventures Co-Founder and Partner, Maryanna Saenko, to discuss everything that makes deep tech so fascinating. Maryanna Saenko is the Co-Founder and Partner at Future Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on frontier technology investments. She has an academic background that mixes material science, biomedical engineering, and robotics, having worked on everything from lunar rovers to long-range, low-frequency communication, and all sorts of interesting robots.

Continuing her series on women leading deep tech investments, VP at Boost VC, Maddie Callander, sat down with Grit Ventures Managing Partner, Christy Cardenas, to discuss how universities have been so valuable for sourcing deep tech investments. Christy Cardenas is the Managing Partner at Grit Ventures, which funds pre-seed and seed-stage deep tech investments in robotics, AI, and energy startups disrupting major industries like construction, agriculture, transportation, and logistics. She has ten years and $12 billion in investment banking, private equity, and venture capital transaction experience, including M&A, debt, equity, fundraising, and fund management.