Consumer VC

Our guest today is Paul Martino , Managing Partner of Bullpen Capital , an early-stage, post-seed venture fund investing in technology companies that have been funded by super-angels and institutional seed funds. Some of their portfolio companies include FanDuel, Namely, Ipsy. Prior to founding Bullpen, Paul was a serial entrepreneur of companies including Ahpah Software (a computer security firm...

Anna Barber is the Managing Director of Techstars - Los Angeles. Techstars is a global seed accelerator and worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed and is currently in over 150 countries worldwide. Some of their alumni include Classpass, Pillpack, and Contently. Previously, Anna has experience as a corporate lawyer, McKinsey consultant, product executive and entrepreneur in ed tech, ret...

Mike Ghaffary is a General Partner at Canvas Ventures , one of the premier thesis-driven early-stage venture capital funds in San Francisco that invests in Fintech, Digital Health, Marketplaces, and New Enterprise. Prior to Canvas, Mike was a General Partner at Social Capital and as an angel investor, some of his investments include Strava, Skip Scooters, Pocket, Philz Coffee, Atrium, and Superhum...

Leah Solivan is General Partner at Fuel Capital , an early-stage venture fund focused on consumer, SaaS, and cloud infrastructure companies dedicated to giving outsiders the inside edge through unrelenting commitment, authenticity, and hustle. Some of their investments include Bark , Flexport , Crowd Cow . Previously, Leah was the founder and CEO of Taskrabbit , which was acquired by IKEA . You ca...

Will McClelland is the Co-founder and Partner of Elizabeth Street Ventures, an early stage investment firm focused on the digital consumer and next generation brands that improve daily life. He is also the Co-founder of Bambike, a family business that builds bamboo bicycles and operates eco-tourism activities in the Philippines. One book that impacted Will personally is The Hero with a Thousand Fa...

Mike Duboe joined Greylock Partners in 2018 and leads investments in commerce, marketplaces, and consumer more broadly. Previously, he led growth at Stitch Fix , Tilt , and others and has created, scaled, led growth teams from Series A through IPO across a span of businesses. Greylock Partners is one of the oldest venture capital firms, founded in 1965. Some of their investments include Facebook ,...

David Wu is a Partner at Maveron . Maveron is a premier consumer-focused fund that invests in seed and Series A companies that empower consumers to live on their terms. Some of Maveron’s investments include Allbirds , General Assembly , eBay , and Coursehero . David joined Maveron to help identify new investments in emerging direct-to-consumer brands – especially those in the hardware and tech cat...

Rick Heitzmann is a founder and partner of FirstMark Capital and focuses on consumer and enterprise investments. Rick has led investments in market leaders such as Pinterest , StubHub (acquired by eBay), Riot Games (acquired by Tencent ), Airbnb , Shopify and much more. Prior to founding FirstMark, Rick was an entrepreneur including being a founding member of the senior management team at First Ad...

Susan Lyne is the co-founder and Managing Partner of BBG Ventures , a fund that invests in visionary entrepreneurs building the next generation of market-defining consumer products and services. Every company in their portfolio has at least one female founder. Some of their investments include Zola , Blueland , Beautycon , and NextGenVest (acq. by CommonBond ) Susan began her career in the magazin...

Caitlin Strandberg is a Principal at Lerer Hippeau , the most active early-stage venture capital fund in New York. The firm has more than 250 active portfolio companies with investments in leading consumer and enterprise companies, including Allbirds , Casper , Guideline , and K Health . Lerer Hippeau invests across all sectors, backing founders with product vision, customer insight, and a keen in...

Ajay Kamat is a Partner at Pear , one of the premier early stage venture capital funds in Silicon Valley. Prior to Pear, Ajay founded Wedding Party , which was acquired by Instacart . Pear was founded by Mar Hershenson and Pejman Nozad , who were early investors in Dropbox , Lending Club , Zoosk , Addepar , Path and many others. Some of Pear's notable investments include DoorDash , Philz Coffee ,...

Amit Mukherjee is a Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA) , one of the premier and global venture capital firms that invests in all stages. Amit focuses on investing in consumer technology. He is a Board Observer for Casper , MasterClass , Brandless , and The Players’ Tribune , and was previously a Board Observer for Jet.com . Amit has led a number of seed stage investments for NEA, including...

Nicole Quinn is a partner and investor at Lightspeed Venture Capital, a venture capital firm that is engaged in the consumer, enterprise, technology, and cleantech markets. Some of Nicole's investments include Calm, Goop, Rothy’s, Cameo, Brandable, Girlboss, Illumix, Zola, Daily Harvest & Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs. You can follow Nicole Here on Twitter. If you would like to follow your host, Mike,...

Hayden Williams is a Partner of Investments at Brand Project , a venture capital fund that focuses on consumer investments at the early stage. Brand Project is hyper-focused on adding their operational value to founders as the team collectively has launched 100 new products and services for some of the most iconic companies. Hayden joined Brand Project this year and previously was an investor at B...

Jay is a Principal at Launch Capital, one of the pioneers of seed-stage investing firms. They often write the check to startups that they invest in. Some of their big consumer wins include Spotify and Snap. Jay has worked at Launch since 2018 and also has experience working in corporate VC and Techstars. He's written some great articles and thought-provoking Twitter updates on venture capital and...

This is an introductory episode explaining what will be covered and the goals for this podcast "The Consumer VC". For this episode, I recruited my brother Rob Gelb to interview yours truly about the podcast, the range of topics I hope to cover in the coming interview episodes in this podcast. For more information about this podcast, please check out our site or follow on Twitter .