Building a next-generation tech-enabled Venture Capital firm with Chris Farmer of SignalFire

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

We're excited to be joined by Chris Farmer, Founder and CEO of SignalFire, a firm that was founded nearly a decade ago with the goal of disrupting the way Venture Capital is done.

Unlike traditional VC firms, SignalFire has been built more like a company than a traditional asset manager, as it leverages a robust purpose-built data platform to augment its unique service model to entrepreneurs.

During our conversation, we spent a lot of the time talking about his views on building a next-generation venture capital fund and the organizational design that goes behind it.

About Chris Farmer:Chris Farmer is the Founder and CEO of SignalFire. He was previously a Venture Partner at General Catalyst Partners, supporting notable companies such as Alation, Coinbase, Stripe, and Venmo. Prior to this, Chris served as a Vice President at Bessemer Venture Partners specializing in digital media and mobile investments.

In addition to his venture capital experience, Chris has demonstrated his entrepreneurial prowess by spearheading the turnaround of Skybitz, a wireless-enabled SaaS company.

His career began on Wall Street in the private equity group of Cowen & Company, and he holds a B.A. from Tufts University.

In this episode, we discuss:

(02:13) The inspiration to start SignalFire after stints at iconic firms like General Catalyst and Bessemer(04:42) Being a tech company that happens to also invest in other tech companies?(07:21) How Chris uses data to source and evaluate new deals(16:53) Balancing a founder’s past performance and their future potential(22:13) Thinking about OKRs and KPIs when starting a different sort of firm(26:28) Why hasn’t venture itself seen more innovation as an industry(30:00) How he recruited and found the right team for this new model(33:30) Why data was able to help the firm to avoid the pitfalls of the recent bullrun market(38:58) Balancing data and FOMO as a firm(43:30) What the market will look like over the next 12-18 months

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Chris. 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