Stephanie Palmeri and Melody Koh of NextView Ventures on incentives within venture partnerships, the changes in seed financing, and operating remotely

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.

We’re joined by Stephanie Palmeri and Melody Koh, Partners at NextView Ventures. Nextview was founded in 2010 and recently raised $200MM for their new set of funds. Located in SF, NY, and Boston, the firm invests all across the US and has invested in over 170 companies at the seed-stage since its founding, including Devoted Health, Thread up, and Attentive. We had a great conversation about how NextView thinks about firm partnerships, what seed and pre-seed investing look like today, and what they believe it means to successfully work with founders. 

About Stephanie Palmeri:Stephanie is a Partner at NextView Ventures and is based in San Francisco. She focuses on the power of technology to positively transform how we live, work, learn, play, and care for our planet and each other. Her investments in the “Everyday Economy” have spanned many industries, including social commerce, circular retail, education, digital health, marketplaces, transportation, and finance. 

Previously, Stephanie was a partner at Uncork Capital, where she spent a decade investing in dozens of seed stage companies, including Poshmark ($POSH), Clever (aqu. by Kahoot!), Chariot (acq. by Ford), ClassDojo, Carrot Fertility, Hallow, Panorama Education, Phil, Wrapbook, and Wonderschool. Before venture investing, Stephanie worked as a technology consultant and marketer at Accenture, Estee Lauder, and several startups.

Stephanie holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Marketing and Management Information Systems, magna cum laude, from Villanova University.

About Melody Koh:Melody is a Partner at NextView Ventures, based in its New York office.

Prior to joining NextView, Melody was Head of Product at Blue Apron (NYSE: APRN). Melody joined Blue Apron as the first product hire when the company was 18 months old with 20 HQ employees. She helped scale the business through hyper-growth (25x in 3.5 years) and to its IPO.

Previously, Melody was a Product Manager at Fab.com leading marketing & analytics products and the founder/CEO of a seed-funded wine subscription e-commerce service. Melody was also a venture investor at Time Warner’s strategic VC group and was one of six inaugural members of First Round Capital’s Product Co-op initiative. Melody began her career as a tech/media M&A investment banking analyst at Evercore Partners.

Melody holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and the University of Virginia.

In this episode. we discuss:(01:54) Why NextView strives to not be a pack of lone wolves(03:35) How the carry economics of the firm drives a deeper partnership(06:57) Building firm culture with so many locations(11:21) How NextView uses strategic in-person time to remain connected(13:42) The benefits to founders by being more strategic in their investments(16:33) How the NextView model performed in the different market conditions over the last few years(21:04) What the moving goalposts of the market has meant to founders and investors(25:27) The advice they are giving founders to get through this difficult funding cycle(29:18) Why NextView sees themselves as invited guests and why that translates to happy founders(34:31) How they think about the growth and evolution of NextView

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Stephanie and Melody. 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

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