Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

On this week’s show, we are joined by Ashmeet Sidana, founder and chief engineer at Engineering Capital, a seed stage firm with $139.5M AUM.

Prior to founding Engineering Capital in 2015, Ashmeet spend nearly 10 years at Foundation Capital which he joined after various technical roles at companies such as VMware and Silicon Graphics.

His investments include Azure (NYSE: AZRE), Netsil (acquired by Nutanix), Palerra (acquired by Oracle), Freewheel (acquired by Comcast), InQuira (acquired by Oracle), Altor (acquired by Juniper), Appurify (acquired by Google), PrivateCore (acquired by Facebook) and StackStorm (acquired by Brocade).

Ashmeet received an MBA from Wharton, MS in Computer Science from Stanford University and a BS in Computer Science summa cum laude from USC. 

I’ve long considered Ashmeet to one of the most versatile and thoughtful GP’s in the market and his comments on this week’s show illustrate that.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:14    Ashmeet’s accidental journey into VC

02:16    Learnings from the late-great Kathryn Gould when he was thinking about starting his own firm.

05:37    The goals he set forth to the type of firm he wanted to build

07:22    Choosing to be a solo GP versus another partnership

11:53    Managing time effectively as a solo GP

14:26    What he believes to be the trigger point to adding a partner

17:56    How fund size relates to strategy

20:11    Why Ashmeet chose to grow his fund size over time

21:22    Technical risk and how it relates to capital needs

24:01    What the rush of capital means to both founder and investors

27:03    Competition between specialist seed firms and multi-stage large firms

29:55    Trends coming out of the pandemic

34:04    Why data is the new oil, but also has asbestos type of properties

35:52    His biggest learning as a VC

36:54    Ashmeet’s biggest miss

38:24    The people he has learned from the most

Mentioned in this episode:

* Engineering Capital

* Foundation Capital

* Kathryn Gould

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Ashmeet. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

Non-traditional paths into venture have been a common theme among many emerging managers, and our guest this week, Katie Jacobs Stanton, founder of Moxxie Ventures, is no exception. Katie started her career as a Banker at JP Morgan, but subsequently worked within the Obama White house as special advisor to the office of innovation, and she had operator roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color Genomics. She was also named by Forbes as the #56 on the most powerful women in the world.

Prior to Moxxie, Katie also co-founded the #Angels investment collective along with other former Twitter executives, and invested in 40 early-stage companies including Airtable, Cameo, Carta, Coinbase, Literati, Modern Fertility, Shape Security and Threads.

Katie started her career as a Banker at JP Morgan and she had operator roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color. In addition to her startup career, Katie worked in the Obama White House and State Department. She is also on the board of Vivendi.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:24    Katie’s journey into investing

05:38    The decision to start her own fund rather than joining an established firm

07:49    Why she went the solo GP route

09:51    Adaptation process of not having a team around her

11:39    How she optimized her fundraising process

14:08    Learning to deal with LPs who ghost and how “no’s” can be helpful

15:54    Patterns she noticed in LPs the believed in her

18:04    The types of questions LPs ask off sheet contacts during their reference checks

19:39    Thinking about future fund sizes when raising your fund I

22:15    How Katie works to diversify her deal sourcing

25:35    The edge she believes Moxxie has in the marketplace

28:28    The need to keep evolving to maintain competitive edge

29:49    Breaking down the time commitments needed to run a fund

31:21    The advice she would give to a new manager

32:32    The big miss of her career

34:00    The experience that prepared her the most for being a manager 

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Moxxie Ventures

* #Angels

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Katie. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

In venture, many people speak about being contrarian, but very few investors truly are comfortable with consistently thinking outside of mainstream consensus. One exception is Daniel Leff, co-founder of Waverley Capital. Waverley was founded in 2019 with Edgar Bronfmann, Jr. and is focused on investing in media start-ups.

Prior to Waverley, Daniel founded Luminari Capital, a top-performing media fund. During his career Daniel invested in companies such as Roku, FuboTV The Athletic, Headspace, and Matterport. As he’s built his firms, he’s taken a very unique approach in portfolio construction and LP composition, both of which have been very successful.

Prior to founding Luminari, Daniel was a Partner with Globespan Capital Partners.  Earlier in his career, Daniel worked for Sevin Rosen Funds and Redpoint Ventures.  He also previously held engineering, marketing and strategic investment positions with Intel Corporation. 

Daniel earned a B.S. Chemistry from The University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles. Daniel also earned an MBA from The UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management, where he was an Anderson Venture Fellow and where he currently serves on the Board of Visitors.

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aduro Advisors.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands.

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back-office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

Listeners of Venture Unlocked receive the first quarter of management company services free with promo code UNLOCKED.

To redeem, email [email protected].

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

02:03    The opportunity Daniel saw when he started Luminari

05:57    Why media tech is such a hard thing for mainstream investors to understand

09:19    The inherent edge of a strategic LP base

11:51    How Daniel activates his LPs systematically and strategically

15:40    The decision to partner with Edgar Bronfmann, Jr. versus someone that was already deeply working within the startup or venture world.

21:10    Why media startups have trouble accessing capital, and how this can be mitigated.

27:16    His thoughts on reserves.

27:24   How relationships with strategic & high net worth investors has helped their portfolio companies raise rounds

30:33    How Daniel’s venture career helped him develop conviction in his investments 

35:51    Advice for emerging managers

36:48    Daniel’s anti-portfolio

39:33    The investors he admires the most 

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Waverley Capital

* Luminari Capital

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Daniel. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

Today, we’re seeing major startup hubs emerge across the US (and globally). Up until fairly recently, LA was not considered a major US technology and venture hub. My guest on this week’s episode, Brian Garrett, has been in the LA venture ecosystem for two decades now. He also co-founded Crosscut Ventures, one of the very first seed funds in LA (if not the first). Today LA has claims companies such as Snap, TrueCar, Maker, Honey, Dollar Shave Club, Honest Company as examples of companies that reached scale in the now rapidly growing ecosystem.

Crosscut began as a very small vehicle of $6MM, but now has over 120 investments and is one of the largest seed fund platforms in LA with $300MM+ AUM. In our episode we discussed everything from the rise of LA and non SV tech hubs to fundraising during a recession to the importance of self-discovery and mental wellness.

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aduro Advisors.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands.

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back-office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

Listeners of Venture Unlocked receive the first quarter of management company services free with promo code UNLOCKED.

To redeem, email [email protected].

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:54    Brian’s journey into venture

03:48    Why they started Crosscut in 2008, initially as a part time project

06:31    Crosscut’s conviction on why LA would become a strong startup ecosystem

08:28    The strategy for Crosscut’s early funds

11:55    How they scaled to a true institutional sized fund in Fund III; did anything change?

14:30    Mental model for investing based around ownership

15:13 Why Fund IV is the best indication of Crosscut and what is happening in LA

17:22    Why big companies can be built outside SV

20:00    Thoughts on sector focused funds

22:36    Being local as an advantage

29:22    Brian’s journey into wellness

32:02    How being centered has made him a better VC, and how it’s shaped Crosscut’s culture

34:02    The best piece of career advice he’s received

35:53    His anti-portfolio

37:50    The investor he admires the most

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Crosscut

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Brian. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

The use of data is playing a bigger and bigger role in our everyday lives. Venture is no exception, but most of data use in VC is related to sourcing, picking, and helping founders.

My guest today, Kelsey Chase, co-founded a company called Aumni that uses granular level data contained in deal docs to help managers have a much better understanding of their portfolio positions and offer accurate, robust reporting for LPs. It was interesting to hear his perspectives on the problems that lie in reporting, and the rising bar LPs are expecting of emerging managers.

The company has raised $13MM to date, with their most recent round led by SVB.

Prior to Aumni, Kelsey was a venture lawyer at Wilson Sonsini and more recently DLA Piper.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

02:55    What was the main problem they saw in deal reporting

04:53    New age of expectations for emerging managers

07:04    How data that can be used to drive all aspects of investing and fund management.

08:55    The rise of secondary markets, and the important of data.

11:18    Analytics for LPs

13:18    How role of automation in GP/LP relationships

15:31    The use of software to help managers focus on investing vs. other admin.

17:40   How managers need to think about accuracy of ownership position?

Mentioned in this episode:

* Aumni

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Kelsey. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

On this week’s show, we’re lucky to have on Clara Brenner, co-founder of the Urban Innovation Fund which provides seed capital and regulatory support to entrepreneurs shaping the future of our cities.

Along with her co-founder Julie Lein, their story is very compelling, from how they raised their first fund (from primarily strategic investors and special interest investors) to how they help founders unlock large businesses by helping them navigate regulatory hurdles.

Prior to starting Urban Innovation Fund, Clara was the co-founder and CEO of TUMML, an accelerator and startup hub focused on urban technology which invested in Chariot which was acquired by Ford and Hitch, which was acquired by Lyft.  In 2014, Forbes listed Clara as one of its “30 Under 30” for Social Entrepreneurship and her urban entrepreneurship work has been featured on MSNBC and TechCrunch. She serves on the Board of Tumml, as well as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) Bay Area Local Advisory Committee. Clara earned her MBA from MIT Sloan and BA from NYU.

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aduro Advisors.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands.

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back-office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

Listeners of Venture Unlocked receive the first quarter of management company services free with promo code UNLOCKED.

To redeem, email [email protected].

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:53    Clara’s journey into venture

05:15    On their thesis, and thoughts on impact funds

07:01    Why their first fundraise was so different than most first time managers

09:15    Finding “impact curious” aligned LPs who typically don’t target first funds

10:00    Building a great institutional foundation early

12:11    Ways to stay in front of LPs between raises.

14:22    The value they drive in helping founders navigate regulatory hurdles

18:17    Staying close and adding value, regardless of investment size.

20:20    Why keeping things simple on portfolio construction and terms are the right way to go.

22:17    LPACs and best practices

24:24     How the Urban Outcomes report has helped them evangelize their story

25:01    Providing peer networking opportunities for their LPs via their LPAC

27:26    How Julie and Clara’s unique talents complement each other 

30:19    Best career advice she’s received

32:10    Biggest pre-seed deal they missed and later invested in after a lot of work

34:08    The investor that has inspired her the most

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Urban Innovation Fund

* TUMML

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Clara. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

Our guest today is Lindsay Lee, managing member of Authentic Ventures. Lindsay has over 20 years of investing experience in technology.

Prior to starting Authentic, he served as CIO for an investment management firm to which he helped grow to almost $1B in assets and also managed a family office where he focused on seed and early-stage investments. He brings a unique combination of operating experience, public market investing experience, and early stage investing experience.

Authentic Ventures was founded in 2015 and focuses on Seed and Early-stage companies.

One of their core differentiators is the “Authentic Network” which is a managed community of like-minded entrepreneurs, founders, investors and growth hackers. Indexed heavily toward diversity, the network is operationalized and focused on helping portfolio companies solve the most meaningful issues.

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aduro Advisors.

Aduro Advisors is the premier fund administrator for venture capital and private equity firms. Led by a team of industry veterans and powered by proprietary software, FundPanel.io, Aduro pairs best-in-class service with the robust and flexible technology that the industry demands.

From emerging managers just starting out to seasoned firms looking to supplement an internal team, Aduro’s back-office solution rises to the challenge of supporting your firm’s specific needs.

Listeners of Venture Unlocked receive the first quarter of management company services free with promo code UNLOCKED.

To redeem, email [email protected].

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

02:09    After so many different experiences, why focus on seed investing?

03:23    How public market investing skills can translate to privates

06:50    The inspiration behind Authentic

11:57    What the Authentic Network, and how to operationalize it.

16:39    Their focus on indexing their network heavily toward women and People of Color.

18:14    Portfolio construction methodology

27:03    Differences between investing at various stages of investments

30:37    The markers LPs look for between fund I and fund II

33:46    Lindsay’s biggest career mistake

35:20    The investors he admires

37:00    His best piece of advice to new managers

Mentioned In This Episode:Authentic Ventures

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Lindsay. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

One of the key benefits of the shift in the venture landscape has been the ushering in of more diverse funding sources to entrepreneurs. In this week’s Venture Unlocked episode (available both on Spotify and Itunes) I’m excited to bring you Ryan Hoover, founding partner of Weekend Fund.

Ryan grew up in Oregon and worked in the gaming industry prior to launching technology product discovery platform Product Hunt in 2013. Backed by some incredible angel and institutional investors, the company built the largest platform for new products, and ultimately was acquired by AngelList a few years ago.

Ryan continued to act as CEO post acquisition and just recently stepped down to focus on Weekend Fund, which he manages with Vedika Jain. At Weekend they focus on co-investing in pre-seed and seed companies.  Weekend Fund’s LPs includes Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Jana Messerschmidt, Chris and Crystal Sacca, Hunter Walk, Kevin Rose, and Garry Tan.

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni.

Truly stand out to Institutional LPs with Aumni.  Before your next fundraise, get Aumni’s best-in-class fund analytics and reporting platform powered by our team of venture experts and AI. LPs are demanding better reporting which can be a significant challenge for smaller firms. Aumni can automate fund analytics to quickly answer the toughest questions from current and prospective investors.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:49    Ryan’s journey into tech

03:49    The launch of Product Hunt and the sale to AngelList

07:48    Weekend Fund’s origin story

11:04    What growing from $3M in Fund I to $10M in Fund II has meant

14:40    How Weekend differentiates itself from other funds

19:30    Maintaining NPS for portfolio companies

22:10    Competitive landscape amongst funds creating experimentation in venture

24:01    Systemizing the fund’s deal flow operations 

28:35    Tactical considerations for raising Fund III 

31:38    LP composition and building relationships with Institutional investors

34:26    Ryan’s anti-portfolio

37:48    The best piece of investing advice he’s gotten

39:30    The investor that inspires him the most

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Product Hunt

* AngelList

* Weekend Fund

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Ryan. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked.

If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

If you enjoy the show, please subscribe at Itunes or Spotify or if you already have, leave a rating or review, as it really helps us out!!

I’m excited to bring you another duo interview, this time with Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek, co-founders and managing partners of Renegade Partners. They are without a doubt two of my favorite people in the industry as despite their incredible backgrounds, they remain humble and committed to staying scrappy to help founders through what they consider the “super critical” stage of development.

Just prior founding to co-founding Renegade with Roseanne, Renata was a Partner at Emerging Science and Deep tech inclined Lux Capital. Prior to joining Lux in 2017, Renata was a General Partner at Felicis Ventures, which as many know is one of the most successful seed entrants in venture history. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Renata was an investment manager (LP) at Stanford University’s endowment.

Roseanne has deep roots in VC; she got her start at Canaan Partners and then became a Partner at historic late stage firm IVP. At IVP, she invested across enterprise and consumer in companies such as Glossier, Compass, MasterClass, TransferWise, Looker (Acquired by GOOG), and KeepTruckin. Roseanne holds an MBA from Stanford University, as well as a MA in Biophysics and a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni.

Aumni has helped well over 100 venture firms of all sizes unlock the truth of their portfolio holding. Using a combination of a team of expert lawyers and AI, Aumni’s platform extracts the key granular level detail contained in deal documents to give managers absolute visibility into their portfolio holdings.

As a manager using Aumni, you’ll be able to make portfolio management decisions quickly, accurately, and with more confidence.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

01:58    Renata’s journey into venture

05:24    Roseanne’s journey into venture

10:59    What’s in the name Renegade?

13:03    The opportunity to disrupt venture itself by using the startup incentive model

18:16    What they did to navigate and foster the right partnership dynamics

21:08    Thinking like a startup when building a venture team

24:08    Scaling portfolio companies with the right team

29:40    What venture outcomes need to be today

31:42 Renegade’s focus on the “supercritical stage”. What does it mean and why this was a thesis.

34:20    Can investment thesis act as a moat?

38:37    Successfully fundraising during COVID by finding your believers + investors who understand the long-term nature of venture

42:32    Building lasting relationships with your LPs

Mentioned In This Episode:

* Renegade Partners

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Renata and Roseanne. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

As the Emerging Manager world continues to grow, so does the importance of providing these managers with key education, resources, and community. Enter Oper8r, founded by Welly Sculley and Winter Mead, which is looking to become the “Y-Combinator for venture fund managers”.

Prior to launching Oper8r in 2020, Winter worked as a fund-of-funds manager at both Sapphire Capital and Hall Capital Partners, While Welly most recently worked at venture backed fintech Ripple.

Oper8r selects seasoned mentors to advise the cohorts and provides them with the knowledge, networks, and tools necessary for launching (or growing) a venture firm. They completed their first cohort in the fall (to which I had the pleasure of speaking at).

Listen in to hear their observations and tips for emerging funding managers!

Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni.

Aumni has helped well over 100 venture firms of all sizes unlock the truth of their portfolio holding. Using a combination of a team of expert lawyers and AI, Aumni’s platform extracts the key granular level detail contained in deal documents to give managers absolute visibility into their portfolio holdings.

As a manager using Aumni, you’ll be able to make portfolio management decisions quickly, accurately, and with more confidence.

In this episode we discuss the following topics:

02:07    What inspired creating “a YC for fund managers”

03:33    How the program works

05:30  The profile of emerging managers Oper8r is looking to attract

12:05    The criteria for successful first-time fund managers

16:42    How different types of LPs evaluate emerging managers

24:43    Ways to jump start a first fundraise.

31:47    Should you start with focusing on an anchor investor?

34:25    What’s Minimal Viable Fund size and what percentage you can first close on

41:42    Viable tactics for getting to a first close

43:43  LP communication and courtship process

Mentioned in this episode:

* Oper8r

* Y Combinator

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Welly and Winter. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency