The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: NEA Partner, Dayna Grayson on Sourcing, Picking, Winning, Gut vs Data in Investment Decision-Making & The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Expectations of Venture

Apr 8, 2019

Dayna Grayson, a Partner at NEA, brings a wealth of experience from her background in engineering and product design to venture capital. She shares her insights on sourcing investments, emphasizing the importance of building personal connections with founders. Dayna discusses balancing data and intuition in decision-making and how NEA's approach to unanimous voting shapes their strategy. The conversation also touches on evolving entrepreneurial expectations and the dynamics between boards and CEOs, highlighting the importance of collaboration.

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ANECDOTE

Dayna's Career Path

Dayna Grayson's career began in product design and engineering before an IPO experience sparked her interest in finance.
She transitioned to venture capital after Harvard Business School, working at North Bridge Venture Partners before joining NEA in 2012.

ADVICE

Sourcing Strategies

Proactively research spaces and network with potential future founders, especially director and VP-level individuals.
Prioritize warm introductions from trusted sources and supplement them with your own proactive outreach.

ADVICE

Evaluating Entrepreneurs

Take many meetings early in your venture career to develop your judgment of entrepreneurial potential.
Focus on assessing the person, not just the idea, and observe their trajectory over time.

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Dayna Grayson is a Partner @ NEA, one of the leading venture firms over the last 4 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Opendoor, Jet.com, Uber, WorkDay, Plaid, Box and many more incredible companies. As for Dayna, she has led the firm's investments in the likes of Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Onshape, Glamsquad, Framebridge and Curalate, just to name a few. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy. Before venture Dayna was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies, later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson and also a product designer at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dayna made her way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner at NEA from her roots in product design and engineering?

2.) Sourcing: How does Dayna approach the sourcing component of venture today? What does the deck filtering process look like to Dayna, prior to meeting? What has Dayna found works best in really building rapport in the first meetings? What does the conviction building process look like for Dayna from there? If negative, how has Dayna found is the most effective way to say no?

3.) Decision-Making: How does Dayna think about optimising the investment decision-making process? How does Dayna balance between data vs gut? Does NEA require unanimous decision-making? Why does Dayna believe that at A or earlier, the price really does not matter? When does price really become a big issue?

4.) Evolution of Expectations: How does Dayna believe entrepreneurial expectations of VC has changed over the last decade. Where does Dayna believe investors can really provide the most value? Which board member has been the most impressive to Dayna when sitting alongside them on the board? Why?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Dayna’s Fave Book: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Dayna's Most Recent Investment: WhireWheel

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