Brendan Wallace of Fifth Wall on building a different type of venture firm - Venture Unlocked 009

In just a few short years, Fifth Wall Ventures, which focuses on investing in companies in the “built world” economy, has quickly become one of LA’s largest venture firms with over $1.2B in committed LP capital.

I met Co-Founder Brendan Wallace when he and Brad Greiwe started Fifth Wall nearly five years ago and the trajectory of the firm has been nothing short of astounding.  

Brendan started his career at Goldman Sachs in real estate investment banking after graduating from Princeton. What’s always struck me over the years is Brendan’s unique vision on how he thinks about building a consistent alpha generating firm.

In this episode, Brendan and I cover:

* How to manage a LP based with both corporates and financial LPs.

* Providing value add and driving synergies between his LPs and portfolio companies.

* Why the conventional wisdom that large fund sizes are a direct line to weakening performance isn’t always the case if certain characteristics are present in the firm’s model.

* How he thinks about developing and managing a platform that includes advisory, operations and investing.

* Why he doesn’t think the traditional venture model is well constructed for outsized returns at scale.

* How different type of fund products under one roof can drive cross-over value and improve return profiles.

Mentioned in this episode:

* Fifth Wall

I’d love to know what you took away from my conversation with Brendan Wallace. 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.

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