Kendrick Nguyen: "There is No Question in my Mind that Retail Capital is Coming to the Private Markets."

1. Intro.
2. (1:11) - Start of interview.
3. (3:04) - Kendrick's "origin story". He was born in Vietnam and grew up in the Bay Area. After law school he worked at Goodwin Procter for a couple of years before taking a position in-house for a large fund-of-funds (Permal Group) in NYC. He then worked at the Stanford Rock Center with Joe Grunfdest.  After Stanford, he joined AngelList as the GC, and launched Republic in 2016.
4. (4:37) - On the origin and mission statement of Republic. In 2016, Reg CF allowed equity crowdfunding from unaccredited investors for the first time. The vision is that "there will be a seismic shift of consumers wanting to be investors." "We call this the ownership economy." "This will become the dominant driving force in changing VC and PE, and broadly speaking, the financial markets in the coming years."
5. (7:58) - The evolution of equity crowdfunding in the last 5 years. "It took the SEC 5 years to increase the cap from $1 million to $5 million in Reg CF, and $75 million in Reg A, effective since March 2021. "The first 5 years was slow, but now Republic has deployed $700 million in capital and much of it (over $600 million) came in the last 18 months."
6. (10:13) - International crowdfunding. The UK allowed equity crowdfunding before the US, it has been a very successful model, the cap is $15 million and there are tax advantages to invest via crowdfunding. "About 20% of all early fundraising in UK tech startups comes from equity crowdfunding."
7. (11:30) - Equity crowdfunding in the U.S. in 2020.
8. (12:28) - Republic's different platforms. "Republic is as much a legal tech company as it is a just a tech company."
9. (14:43) - His take on the evolution and growth of private markets: "There is no question in my mind that retail capital is coming to the private markets." "There will be many changes, mimicking changes in society." "This will give rise to a new multi-trillion market that will probably eclipse the size of VC and PE if you're just looking at tech."
10. (18:17) - How "retail capital" will impact corporate governance (where institutional investors has reigned in both public and private markets). "Private companies will soon have a lot more stakeholders, including thousands investors from the customer base."
11. (21:57) - How will venture capital change with the rise of retail capital. "The very top VCs (those with real value add) will remain important players, but the next cohort of VCs will need to be nimble to adjust to 1) the new forces of retail capital; and 2) other sources of capital that will enter the space." "The flow of capital will be more robust (from retail capital and high net worth capital) and it will challenge the VC market."
12. (26:11) - How will VC-backed companies (or retail-backed companies) change the composition of their board or their corporate governance? "One of the advantages of raising $5 million in crowdfunding from tens of thousands of investors is that it is very founder-friendly, it does not come with a board seat." "It's still very early in the evolution of retail capital to work out these details." "Retail investors (tens of thousands of customers that may only invest $10 or $20 each in the company) may care more about the social narrative, liability or image of the company than their return on investment."
13. (29:00) - Crowdfunding stories from Gumroad (raised $5 million from thousands of investors in 12 hours), Backstage Capital (raised $5m in exchange for 10% of the management fees and carried interest in the VC firm), Bucket List (raised ~$3m from ~30,000 investors), Robot Cache (a gaming company that raised ~$30m in a Reg A fundraising over 2 weeks) in the Republic platform.
14. (31:21) - Some corporate governance implications of having retail investors in the cap table in private companies.
15. (38:13) - How crypto has impacted the fundraising scene. Republic itself has raised ~$70 million since its founding, ~$50 million in equity and about $20 million in a token offering. Since 2018, Republicy Crypto has been on the forefront of the U.S. regulated securities fundraising in the blockchain space.
16. (44:44) - On the governance of Blockchains, could it disrupt corporate governance itself and thoughts on Decentralized Autonomous Organizations ("DAOs"). "[One issue] is that organizations [in my subjective experience] tend to have a group of people that have superior knowledge, dedication and drive [so the idea] of consensus decision-making is challenging. It sounds good in theory but in practice is it compatible with building a complicated organization?" "Institutional investors are still not 100% on board with crypto."
17. (53:05) - A recent book that he recommends: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership (2015), by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman.
18. (53:25) - His mentors:
    1. Joe Grundfest, Stanford Law School.
    2. Naval Ravikant, Co-Founder of AngelList.
19. (54:15) - Quote that he thinks of often, or lives his life by: "Happiness is success."
20. (55:35) - An unusual or absurd habit that he loves: Sleeping in sofas, even when there is a comfortable bed!
21. (56:17) - The living person he most admires: there isn't one person (other than his parents). There is something to learn from everyone.

Kendrick Nguyen is the Founder and CEO of Republic, a private investing platform launched in 2016 for investors seeking high growth potential across startups, gaming, real estate, and crypto.

If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. 

__

 You can follow Evan on social media at:

Twitter @evanepstein

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ 

Substack https://evanepstein.substack.com/

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

You can follow Evan on social media at:

X: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ 

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/

__

Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License