Origins - Inside Venture Capital, Hosted by a GP and an LP

As CEO of the Danish Growth Fund since 2001, Christian Motzfeldt has been instrumental in building the new Danish ecosystem of entrepreneurship. Through the Danish Growth Fund, he has built one of the largest portfolios of venture and small-cap funds in the Nordics, and now has 2 Billion USD under management. This is the first sovereign wealth fund that we've had on the show, so we dive deep into exactly what that means, as well as the strategic and financial goals for a public fund like the DGF.

In this episode of Origins, Beezer Clarkson turns the tables and interviews Nick Chirls and Alex Lines of Notation. Having just closed Notation II, we figured this would be a good time to explain who we are, what we do, and why we do it. We cover our time working together in the early days at betaworks, our decision to ultimately leave and start Notation, the process of raising our first and now second funds, and how we think about the future of the firm. * One small footnote - We recorded this episode almost a year ago, when we first closed Notation II, so some of the language is a bit out of date - For example we prefer using "first-check" instead of "pre-seed." Check out our new website and Notation II launch announcement to see what we mean :-)

On this episode of Origins, we sit down with Semil Shah of Haystack, an early-stage venture firm based in SF. Semil has a non-traditional background for VC and has been vocal about the unique way he's building the firm, recently making the transition into an institutionally backed fund. He's an active blogger, and an investor in startups like Instacart, Giphy, Carta, and many others. In the interview, we focus on how Semil has approached each of the Haystack funds, the stories behind some of his best investments, and lessons learned along the way as he's grown the firm.

On this episode of Origins, we sit down with Roland Reynolds, a managing partner at Industry Ventures. Industry Ventures is a fascinating “full stack venture capital firm.” Their funds invest into companies and venture capital partnerships through both primary and secondary transactions, which is an important part of the venture ecosystem that we have yet to cover on the Origins podcast. We cover a lot in this episode — including Roland’s experience working earlier in his career at JP Morgan and Columbia Capital, as well as founding one of the first dedicated micro-VC fund of funds more than ten years ago. Roland’s firm, Little Hawk Capital, was an LP in Industry Ventures, and ultimately merged into it to begin their primary fund of funds business. What we found most interesting about this conversation was the breadth of the Industry Ventures business — their flexibility to approach the venture landscape in many different ways — as buyers of other LP’s positions in VC funds, as well as secondary buyers of individuals and employees shares in VC funds and companies, as primary investors in VC funds, and finally as direct investors in startups. Industry has the ability, and in fact mandate, to do it all. We learned a lot in this episode and think you will too.

On this episode of Origins, we sit down with Bruce Ou, a Managing Partner at Grove Street Advisors. GSA is a unique type of investment firm in that they build customized private equity fund portfolios to address each of their LP clients’ individual investment needs. Their sole business is to manage discretionary separate accounts, investing in lower middle-market buyout, growth equity and venture capital.  Bruce is a member of the firm’s Investment Committee, and leads investments across all segments of private equity and venture funds. Bruce also co-leads GSA’s strategy and portfolio development in China and is actively involved in the firm’s secondary fund investing activities.  In this episode, we dig into all areas of the GSA business as well as Bruce’s background as an LP, and particularly his work across the globe and in China. His insight into the Chinese technology industry is a fascinating look into the second largest venture market in the world behind the U.S., and a good reminder that innovation today is found everywhere.

In this episode, we sit down with Andy Weissman, a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. Previous to USV, Andy was a co-founder of betaworks, and earlier in his career an executive at AOL. Andy’s one of the most thoughtful and admired VCs in the industry, and this was plain and simple one of the best episodes we’ve ever recorded.

Michael Larsen is a managing director at the global investment firm Cambridge Associates, based in Boston. Mike works with endowments, foundations and other large institutional investors on their private investment programs, particularly focused on venture capital exposure. He spends his time meeting with managers, sourcing new ideas, and implementing VC programs for his clients’ portfolios.

David Frankel is a managing partner and co-founder of Founder Collective, which launched in 2011 with a simple mission: To be the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. In the years since, they've become one of the most respected and highest performing venture firms in the industry. Before starting Founder Collective, David spent most of his life as an entrepreneur, co-founding Internet Solutions, the first ISP in Africa, at the ripe old age of 23. When Internet Solutions was acquired by Dimension Data, he served as a key executive and on the board through its successful listing on the London Stock Exchange and up until it was ultimately acquired by NTT Japan for $3.2B.

Aaron Gershenberg is a founder of Silicon Valley Bank’s fund of funds and direct investment group, SVB Capital. Aaron joined SVB in 1999 and has been part of the venture capital industry since 1996. Under his leadership, the group has over $3.3 billion under management across fund of funds, direct funds and separate accounts. In this episode, we sit down with Aaron and discuss SVB Capital's beginnings, surviving through the dot com, and how they differentiate their fund of funds practice by being part of the broader SVB bank and ecosystem. Because of SVB's vital role in the technology industry and as a public company itself, Aaron has a particularly unique perspective in evaluating and working with VC managers, and as a pioneer and thought leader in the LP ecosystem for almost the past two decades.

Bradley Tusk started Tusk Ventures to help startups work with governments at scale. To date, this unique venture capital firm has worked with companies like Uber, Fanduel, Handy, Eaze, and others to help them navigate regulatory challenges. Tusk Ventures grew out of Tusk Strategies, which Bradley started in 2010 to help major institutions run multi-jurisdictional campaigns to shape their public reputation, overcome regulatory hurdles, and proactively engage governments to solve problems and seize opportunities. Previously, Bradley served as the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s successful re-election bid in 2009, and before that he served as the Deputy Governor of the State of Illinois from 2003-2006.