Red Flags & Big Wins: Lucas Swisher on What Makes Coatue Say Yes (or No) to an Investment
Run the Numbers
The Art of Focused Growth Investing
This chapter explores the critical role of conviction and concentration in successful growth investing, highlighting the need to focus on a limited number of high-potential companies. It discusses the impact of liquidity constraints, the importance of transparent strategies, and the need for a specific capital deployment approach. The speakers also delve into evolving investment firm dynamics and the nuances of evaluating software companies, emphasizing metrics that define sustainability and market potential.
In this episode, CJ interviews Lucas Swisher, Co-Lead of Growth Investing and Software Investing at Coatue, to explore how one of tech’s most influential investment firms navigates both public and private markets. Lucas explains Coatue’s evolution—from hedge fund origins to a powerhouse in venture capital—and how the company balances short-term public market pressures and long-term private investments. The conversation takes a dive deep into data-driven decision-making and how Coatue’s proprietary Mosaic platform provides an edge while still leaving room for human intuition. They also discuss the firm’s investment philosophy, what differentiates them from other investment companies, and why they choose to have such a concentrated portfolio of investments. Lucas sheds light on how they evaluate the sustainability of a small software company's unit economics, the most important metric that they look at, and other important factors and red flags that often get overlooked when choosing where to invest.
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00) Preview and Intro
(02:18) Sponsor – RightRev | Planful | Brex
(06:15) Lucas’s Role at Coatue
(07:58) The Evolution of Coatue’s Investment Strategy
(11:36) Growth-Stage Private Assets Versus Public Markets
(14:18) Balancing Short-Term Public Investing and Long-Term Patience of Private Markets
(16:07) Sponsor – Vanta | Tropic | NetSuite
(19:50) The Service Business at the Core of Coatue’s Growth Investing
(22:08) Coatue’s Mosaic Platform and Due Diligence
(26:29) How Mosaic Helps Coatue Get to No Faster
(28:05) Creating a Concentrated Portfolio of Investments
(30:40) Coatue’s Edge Versus Firms with Other Investment Philosophies
(37:20) How the Best Investment Firms Differentiate Themselves
(41:14) Assessing the Sustainability of a Small Software Company’s Unit Economics
(44:12) Evaluating Enterprise SaaS Versus Consumer Software
(46:21) The Next Buyer Scenario
(48:53) Prediction for Coatue’s Future Structure and Strategy
(50:34) What Growth Stage Companies Should Look for in an Investor
(52:29) Advice for the Next Generation of Investors
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