LA Venture

Everybody is going to have an AI assistant that does top of funnel triage on inbound requests. We talk about what this will look like with Spencer Rascoff, partner at 75 & Sunny and founder of Zillow, Hotwire, Pacaso and now HeyLibby.    You can listen to the podcast or chat with Spencer's AI assistant at heylibby.ai/spencerrascoff

Brian Garrett wants to get the message out that Crosscut VI is not the same firm that invested in ShoeDazzle and Ipsy in 2009, but they will continue to follow the talent of SoCal into FrontierTech and beyond.   Brian concedes that LA is never going to be the #1 AI hub, but engineers in LA have been building "hard shit" for a very long time. Crosscut VI will invest in space exploration, clean energy and advanced manufacturing.

With AI enabling copycat products to be brought to market incredibly quickly, the ability to scale and find unique distribution is the new moat. Arteen explains distribution lessons learned and much more from his vantage as Fika's returning partner.

Nanxi Liu shares how she deliberately cultivated an extraordinary network. In interviewing, as in networking, Nanxi looks for excellence. This talent for spotting excellence helped lead her to a very successful sale of her first company, Enplug. She's now Co-CEO of Blaze.tech and a Partner at XFactor Ventures. 

Katia Ameri, Partner at A16Z and the mind behind LA Tech Week, discusses her journey from being Pear VC's first hire to creating a thriving tech phenomenon in Los Angeles. She outlines the rapid growth of Tech Week, evolving from 30 events in 6 weeks to thousands in multiple cities. Katia shares insights on the importance of community engagement, innovative sponsorship strategies, and the impact of the pandemic on the LA tech landscape, emphasizing the need for authentic connections and effective distribution for products to succeed.

Matter Venture Partners recently launched their $311M Fund I. Mel Tang was previously CFO at Ring and Demand Media. In this episode he shares why he believes the future of tech lies in hardware and how to set up systems to enable good decision making and successful growth.

From side hustle to industry disruptor: John Tabis shares how his side hustle turned into Bouqs, a leading flower delivery company. Now at M13, he’s helping others bring big ideas to life!

Shrina Kurani is an investor actively writing checks to help catalyze emerging managers as part of IBank’s Venture Capital Access Program.  Shrina and the team at IBank are happy to be a part of a fund's first close and they participate with meaningful capital ($5M-$10M). It is easy to apply to the IBank program and Shrina says that she hopes to be "bombarded" with decks from amazing fund managers.

Venture capital is a team sport masquerading as an individual sport.  Rayfe Gaspar-Asaoka, partner at Canaan Partners, tells us why he thinks VC partnerships resemble a swim team.   We also talk about space and defense tech, the evolution of venture capital, how generational transition can work well and why a thoughtful reserve strategy has outsized leverage, especially in early stage venture firms.

More growth rounds in 2024!  Avery Rosin is writing $50-300M checks for Lead Edge Capital. He thinks PE firms are going to continue being acquisitive, companies are going to reorient around the Rule of 40 and more reasons for his optimism.