On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Samir Kaji, Senior Managing Director @ First Republic Bank, to discuss “Breaking Through the Crowd as an Emerging Manager”

Samir is a well known voice in the venture capital ecosystem having started his career at Silicon Valley Bank at the beginning of the tech boom in 1999. Samir started out as an Analyst and eventually made his way up to Managing Director of the Menlo office where he completed over $5 billion in debt transactions with over 500 companies.

Samir later joined First Republic Bank in 2012 to lead their VC and tech banking efforts with a particular focus on early-stage venture capital startups and emerging managers focused at the Seed & Series A stage.

On today's talk you will get to hear Samir's thoughts on how emerging managers can differentiate themselves when pitching institutional investors in a crowded fundraising environment. In addition, Samir shares his tips on building the perfect pitch deck and his thoughts on the issues with LP pattern recognition. Finally, Samir discusses the importance of mission statements for emerging venture funds and why he decided to launch his own venture podcast after such a successful venture blog series.

Samir’s Book Recommendations

The Success Equation

Blink - The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

The Advantage - Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business

Eleven Rings - The Soul of Success

Samir’s words of inspiration - “If you want to do something, go do it right now cause there's no better time than the present”

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