If you enjoy the show, please subscribe at Itunes or Spotify or if you already have, leave a rating or review, as it really helps us out!!I’m excited to bring you another duo interview, this time with Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek, co-founders and managing partners of Renegade Partners. They are without a doubt two of my favorite people in the industry as despite their incredible backgrounds, they remain humble and committed to staying scrappy to help founders through what they consider the “super critical” stage of development. Just prior founding to co-founding Renegade with Roseanne, Renata was a Partner at Emerging Science and Deep tech inclined Lux Capital. Prior to joining Lux in 2017, Renata was a General Partner at Felicis Ventures, which as many know is one of the most successful seed entrants in venture history. Before becoming a venture capitalist, Renata was an investment manager (LP) at Stanford University’s endowment. Roseanne has deep roots in VC; she got her start at Canaan Partners and then became a Partner at historic late stage firm IVP. At IVP, she invested across enterprise and consumer in companies such as Glossier, Compass, MasterClass, TransferWise, Looker (Acquired by GOOG), and KeepTruckin. Roseanne holds an MBA from Stanford University, as well as a MA in Biophysics and a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni.Aumni has helped well over 100 venture firms of all sizes unlock the truth of their portfolio holding. Using a combination of a team of expert lawyers and AI, Aumni’s platform extracts the key granular level detail contained in deal documents to give managers absolute visibility into their portfolio holdings.As a manager using Aumni, you’ll be able to make portfolio management decisions quickly, accurately, and with more confidence.In this episode we discuss the following topics:01:58    Renata’s journey into venture05:24    Roseanne’s journey into venture10:59    What’s in the name Renegade?13:03    The opportunity to disrupt venture itself by using the startup incentive model18:16    What they did to navigate and foster the right partnership dynamics21:08    Thinking like a startup when building a venture team24:08    Scaling portfolio companies with the right team29:40    What venture outcomes need to be today31:42 Renegade’s focus on the “supercritical stage”. What does it mean and why this was a thesis. 34:20    Can investment thesis act as a moat?38:37    Successfully fundraising during COVID by finding your believers + investors who understand the long-term nature of venture42:32    Building lasting relationships with your LPsMentioned In This Episode:* Renegade PartnersI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Renata and Roseanne. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

As the Emerging Manager world continues to grow, so does the importance of providing these managers with key education, resources, and community. Enter Oper8r, founded by Welly Sculley and Winter Mead, which is looking to become the “Y-Combinator for venture fund managers”.Prior to launching Oper8r in 2020, Winter worked as a fund-of-funds manager at both Sapphire Capital and Hall Capital Partners, While Welly most recently worked at venture backed fintech Ripple. Oper8r selects seasoned mentors to advise the cohorts and provides them with the knowledge, networks, and tools necessary for launching (or growing) a venture firm. They completed their first cohort in the fall (to which I had the pleasure of speaking at).Listen in to hear their observations and tips for emerging funding managers!Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni.Aumni has helped well over 100 venture firms of all sizes unlock the truth of their portfolio holding. Using a combination of a team of expert lawyers and AI, Aumni’s platform extracts the key granular level detail contained in deal documents to give managers absolute visibility into their portfolio holdings.As a manager using Aumni, you’ll be able to make portfolio management decisions quickly, accurately, and with more confidence.In this episode we discuss the following topics:02:07    What inspired creating “a YC for fund managers”03:33    How the program works05:30  The profile of emerging managers Oper8r is looking to attract12:05    The criteria for successful first-time fund managers16:42    How different types of LPs evaluate emerging managers24:43    Ways to jump start a first fundraise. 31:47    Should you start with focusing on an anchor investor?34:25    What’s Minimal Viable Fund size and what percentage you can first close on41:42    Viable tactics for getting to a first close43:43  LP communication and courtship processMentioned in this episode:* Oper8r* Y CombinatorI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Welly and Winter. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

On today’s show we have Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of Sapphire Partners, the LP arm of Sapphire Ventures. Not only does Beezer have tremendous depth and insight into the world of VC, but she catalyzed the #OpenLP movement, which looks to bring transparency within the LP world. She’s someone I’ve known for nearly a decade and one of the smartest minds in the LP world. Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network.Additionally, she is a judge for 100&Change, a MacArthur Foundation competition that provides funding to solve critical challenges of our time. In 2014, she was named to the Forty Over 40 list of women to watch.Today's Venture Unlocked is brought to you by Aumni. Aumni has helped well over 100 venture firms of all sizes unlock the truth of their portfolio holding. Using a combination of a team of expert lawyers and AI, Aumni’s platform extracts the key granular level detail contained in deal documents to give managers absolute visibility into their portfolio holdings. As a manager using Aumni, you’ll be able to make portfolio management decisions quickly, accurately, and with more confidence. In this episode we discuss the following topics:01:51    Beezer’s journey into VC03:50    Launch of Sapphire Partners as a fund for predominantly Series A funds05:46    What’s changed (or not changed) in Venture over the last 15 years?06:56    What “value-add” means in today’s marketplace11:27    How she evaluates managers and performance. 14:40    Does past performance really act as an indicator for future fund success?17:25    Her thought process in bringing on a new manager (or not following on an existing manager)21:22    How to get Sapphire’s attention to invest24:41    What is Minimum Viable Fund size and when to do a first close27:33    Giving away economics to get early LP’s; the pros and cons33:29    What is the diversity audit and OpenLP35:35  Diversity in emerging manager firms vs. established. 39:03    Best career advice she heard as an LP. 40:45    Her biggest missed fund opportunity42:15    The best advice for GPs pitching her for the first timeMentioned in this episode:Sapphire PartnersI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Beezer. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

This episode was particularly a fun one to record in that we moved a bit away from our traditional interview format to more of a water-cooler format with Mac Conwell of RareBreed Ventures and Roy Bahat of Bloomberg Beta for a wide-ranging chat about the state of emerging venture capital. As many may now, Mac is using the seldom used 506C provision of Reg D to publicly solicit capital for his new fund (RareBreed VC). While many rolling fund managers use the 506C provision, Mac is not conducting his raise on the AngelList platform. Previously to starting RareBreed, Mac was an investor at the Maryland Technology Development Corporation’s Minority Business Pre-seed Fund, a partnership between TEDCO and Harbor Bank Community Development Corporation to address the needs of minority entrepreneurs in Maryland, who often lack access to Friends and Family rounds. He also has operating experience from his time as co-founder and CEO at Redberry Mobile and of Given. Roy Bahat is the head of Bloomberg Beta, which invests in the main category of the future of work and has a portfolio that includes Slack, Kaggle (acq. By Google), and MasterClass. They occasionally also invest directly into emerging managers to help drive financial performance. Prior to his life as a VC, Bahat founded start-ups, served as a corporate executive at News Corp., and worked in government in the office of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. In this episode we discuss the following topics:01:18    The unique structure of RareBreed Ventures03:09    How a Twitter following and new venture software made it possible for Rarebreed to launch a 506(c) structured fund07:00    Roy’s view on investing 16:18    Raising a fund versus raising capital for a company. Is it different?18:45    How the fundraising process helped Mac find his own unique brand. 22:01    Using LP feedback to your advantage23:32    Searching not selling when looking for LPs25:25    Is LP capital really scarce? 26:48    Questions LPs often ask to first time managers29:22    What makes an exceptional GP33:45    Giving up economics to early investors36:40    Is the notion of a GP commit outdated when assessing GP-LP alignment? 42:08    What post-COVID VC will look likeMentioned in this episode:* RareBreed.vc* Bloomberg Beta* Charles Hudson Interview* Elizabeth Yin interview* How LPs should really think about GP commits in Emerging ManagersI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Mac and Roy. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

We have a special treat of an episode this week with one of the top first generation seed investors in Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate. After leading two successful startups, Mike started Floodgate (formerly Maples Investment) in 2006, and has since invested on companies such as Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, and Okta. As is always the case when I speak to Mike, he provided many nuggets of investing, firm building, and went deep into his early days of Floodgate. In this episode we discuss the following topics:04:54    How Mike raised his first fund from Austin Ventures07:27    Explaining seed investing to LPs in the early days13:58    Why he decided to bring on Ann Miura-Ko as a partner early on 20:25    His view on what a “Thunder Lizard” is23:45    Defining the mental models Floodgate uses for Seed Investing24:40 Why great entrepreneurs are like time-travelers 31:18   How thinking about “Thunder Lizards” helps inform his portfolio construction. 37:38   How he’s changed his portfolio construction over time. 48:00   The lessons he learned from missing out on companies such as AirBnB. 52:15   Who Mike admires most in the VC worldMentioned in this episode:* Floodgate* Austin VenturesI’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Mike Maples, Jr. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

Remember to subscribe here on substack, Spotify, or Itunes to get notified as soon as new pods are released. Also follow me @samirkaji on Twitter to get my ongoing thoughts on venture. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked. This week we have Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner at Summit Peak Investments. Apurva and his partner Patrick O’Connor founded Summit Peak in 2018 to invest both in emerging venture funds, and alongside them through direct co-investing. As you’ll hear on the interview, they are very comfortable and excited about backing solo-GP funds. Summit Peak has backed such solo emerging managers such as Josh Buckley, Raymond Tonsing, and Lachy Groom while making direct investments in Airtable, Virta Health, and Sourcegraph. Prior to starting Summit Peak, Apurva and Patrick led venture investments for the Cook’s Children Health System. In this episode we discuss the following topics: 03:36    Why Summit Peak was created to investing in funds05:52    What it’s like trying to raise a fund of funds. 07:04    Why they though investing in next-gen managers was the right approach. 09:01    The big risk they took at the start of their fund.10:29    The framework they use to evaluate GPs to invest in.14:07    Why they believe network can be a killer competitive edge. 16:41    What they view as the intangible factors GPs must have and how try and measure it. 19:20    How they think about founder reference calls. 22:42    The importance of speed in their diligence process.24:34    How a podcast interview and LinkedIn led to one of their best deals.29:08   Thoughts on the solo GP model.34:07    What is an LPAC, and what does it do?37:54    The pace of new emerging managers entering the market.44:02    His biggest piece of advice for newer managers. Mentioned in this episode:Cook’s ChildrenI’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Apurva Mehta. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

We’re excited to release our newest episode with another great guest, Jaclyn Freeman Hester, Partner at the Foundry Group. Founded in 2007 by Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre, and Seth Levine The Foundry Group has $2.4B under management and has invested in startups such as FitBit, SendGrid, Beeswax, and Notion. Several years ago the firm, led by Jaclyn and Lindel Eakman, started investing in interesting emerging manager firms, and have acted as LP’s in firms such as Forerunner, K9 Ventures, Founder Collective, IA Ventures, Homebrew, and Ludlow. Jaclyn got her MBA/JD from the University of Colorado and practiced corporate law advising startups and private equity firms as well as buyers and sellers in M&A transactions. She also worked closely with her husband and his family on their SaaS startup, FareHarbor, from the earliest stages through acquisition.In this episode we discuss the following topics:04:59   The catalyst for Foundry starting to invest in Emerging Managers 08:54    Her view on emerging manager trends and opportunities11:42    What she looks for when evaluating new managers 20:59    Do competitive moats in venture exist?24:51    What type of characteristics she’s sees a critical for successful VC’s and teams31:06    How they evaluate managers that are going from proof of concept to raising the first institutional fund. 35:37    Common mistakes emerging managers make pitching38:45    The best questions that GPs have asked her41:08    Jaclyn’s biggest career mistake43:26    Her best advice to new managersMentioned in this episode:* Foundry Group* TechStars* MuckerI’d love to know what you took away from my conversation with Jaclyn Freeman Hester. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

Happy New Year! I’m thrilled to announce that Avidan Ross is our first guest of 2021 Avidan is the Founder and managing partner of Root Ventures and one of the most thoughtful newer seed stage managers in the market. Like many that have appeared on the show, Avidan took a non-traditional path into venture. After graduating from Columbia, Avidan spent time in various engineering roles before becoming CTO at CIM Group, L.P., a private equity firm currently with $30B under management. After nearly 7 years at CIM, Avidan moved on to become a host a Food Network pilot and also co-write a book on the best coffee in the U.S. In 2013 Avidan founded Root Ventures. Today, he and his partners Chrissy Meyer, Kane Hseih, and Lee Edwards each bring strong engineering backgrounds and a passion for taking a very hands-on roles with their portfolio companies which incline toward very technical in nature. In this episode we discuss the following topics:00:35    Avidan’s journey into venture capital04:15   Getting comfortable with investing in early-stage deep tech companies out of a small fund09:01   What is the most important thing they look to bring to founders11:38    Portfolio construction and why they reserve more than most seed funds16:44    Portfolio sizing18:54    His thoughts on generalist funds vs. specialists21:32    How they think about value-add. 25:54    The hiring model Root uses 30:06    The difference fundraising Fund I and Fund II, and building relationships with LP’s. 39:46    Avidan’s biggest career mistake.41:02    His biggest investing miss.42:30    The people in the industry he’s inspired by. Mentioned in this episode:* Root VenturesI’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Avidan Ross. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

As we wrap up what’s been perhaps the most interesting and difficult year in modern history, the holidays still remain a time to to spend with family and reflect on the things we all still do have. I’m incredibly grateful for what I do have, and am looking forward to brighter days ahead for all of us as we move to 2021. On our final episode of the year, I’m thrilled to share my conversation with Marlon Nichols, Managing General Partner at MaC Ventures. After graduating from Northeastern University, Marlon spend several years in various consultant and operational roles before joining Intel Capital in 2011.After five years at Intel, Marlon co-founded Cross Culture Ventures along with Troy Carter, a successful media manager that managed the careers of artists such as Lady Gaga and John Legend, and made investments in startups such as Uber and Spotify.  Given the shared vision of Marlon and Troy, Cross Culture Ventures made a name for themselves with their cultural investing thesis that focused on companies centered in the convergence of global popular culture and technology.In 2019, Cross Culture merged with M Ventures to create MaC Ventures, one of the few venture partnership “mergers” we’ve seen, where he and the team invest in “ technology companies that create infectious products that benefit from shifts in cultural trends and behaviors in an increasingly diverse global marketplace”. In this episode, Marlon and I discuss the following topics:00:54 - Marlon’s winding journey into venture05:23 - The opportunity he saw to invest in diversity07:40 - How he prepared to launch Cross Culture 8:07 - His unique point of view and value proposition in the venture industry10:12 - What led to Marlon’s decision to merge Cross Culture with M Ventures16:29 - How did his LPs react to the merger of the firms? 17:52 - What are the primary things he sees LPs care about the most?23:02 - The MaC view toward adding values to portfolio founders. 28:11 - How to drive value to LP’s outside of just returns. 30:05 - Why firms struggle to invest in diversity37:20- Marlon’s biggest career mistake in ventureMentioned in this episode:* Mac Ventures* The tangible benefits of diversity in venture* Study on women in leadership rolesI’d love to know what you took away from my conversations with Marlon Nichols. 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 Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

Deena Shakir, General Partner at Lux Capital, discusses her background as the daughter of Iraqi immigrants, Lux's behavior traits, portfolio management as a team sport, establishing company culture, and the significance of data on diversity in venture.