LA Venture

I deeply appreciate David's approach to life and work. He founded FreeFlow to invest in startups coming out of Caltech that have the potential to improve our world.

Brian   Schwartz  is a hub of LA startup deals, a scout for Canaan Partners, the founder of SIZE advisors, SIZE capital, and an advisor to unicorn startup goPuff.

Javelin's Alex Gurevich talks with us about investing in Masterclass, Thumbtack, Mythical Games and more.  Alex also tells us why VCs should be getting performance reviews from their founders.

Eric and I work together at TenOneTen!  We talk about our partners, Lava Lab, AmplifyLA, Scopely, marketplaces and the sort of companies that thrive in LA.

Dan Abrams is a partner at Cobalt Capital. Prior to Cobalt, Dan (and the entire Cobalt team) was at CAA-affiliated Evolution Media. Cobalt leads Series B rounds, but likes to get to know founders earlier in their journey.

We had a chance to hear about Hamet's newly launched venture foundry, Share Ventures, focused on human performance.  We talk about brain health, Hamet's role at Upfront, and insights on early stage innovation.

Virginia Schmitt is a partner and CFO at B Capital.  B Capital is a leading growth-venture firm and one of the largest with an LA office, investing $10-60M in series B-D companies. Virginia shares insights from being a CFO investing out of over $1B AUM.

One of LA's most fascinating investors, DA Wallach, tells us about touring with Blink 182, making a song with with Diddy, becoming an investor with Ron Burkle, and his current life science focus at Time BioVentures.

Great connecting with Rachel  Springate  about her path into VC, raising consumer-focused Muse Fund II, her partnership with Assia, and diversity in venture.  

Really fun talking with Clinton Foy about the gaming industry, founding Immortals, living in the metaverse, and who his favorite Crosscut partner is.

Eric Manlunas joins us to explain all the different things that Wavemaker is doing--starting with $250-500k seed checks, anchoring other funds like Wavemaker 360 and Thin Line and even building companies at Wavemaker Labs with Buck Jordan.

Tom McInerney is a full-time angel investor with 120 angel investments.  He shares how he gets into rounds like Clubhouse, Tala, Segment, his view of investing during Covid, and why he spends time hanging out in Clubhouse.

Adam Lilling probably has the coolest job.  He's the founder and managing partner at Plus Capital, where he works with celebrities like Ellen and Portia who want to invest in growing companies (post-seed) that align with their values.

Today we chat with Deb Benton about her new fund, Willow, that she founded with Amanda Schutzbank.  Deb is on the board of Carbon38, TomboyX, The Leaf Group and she has all sorts of insight on how to do consumer investing well and what sort of metrics to look for.

Don Stalter and David Resnekov are colleagues at GFC (Global Founders Capital), a $1.2B fund that will invest pre-product all the way through later growth rounds and will even lead multiple rounds for a company.  Interesting, entrepreneurial approach to VC.

So interesting talking to Brendan Wallace about how he built Fifth Wall to $1.2B in 3.5 years. We talk about how the retail landscape is changing, how the work week will change and hopefully how the carbon impact of real estate will change. 

Jason Schoettler started Calibrate Ventures where he invests in advanced automation (usually Series A).   He and long-time partner Kevin Dunlap have made some really good investments (Ring, Dollar Shave Club) and some newer pretty cool looking ones (check out the Moxie video).     We talk about why he feels comfortable investing in hardware (when there's a subscription), how to be a good board mem...

Dovi Frances is the founder of Group11 VC, one of the nation's top decile performing FinTech funds. Group11 has led fintech investments into category defining companies such as Tipalti, Sunbit, TripActions and next insurance to name a few. (Series A sweet spot). Dovi is a bold thinker who isn't afraid to throw jabs at other venture capitalists for hosting too many lavish parties and yoga sessions....

Blue Bear Capital invests in technologies for the energy sector ($1-4M first check).  We talk with Ernst and Vaughn about the energy supply chain, the growth of renewables and what Ernst calls BroPEC.

One of the newest partners at Upfront, Aditi Maliwal, tells us about her path to partner, her investments in Chime, BetterUp, and her time in Google corp dev.

Ben Savage tells us about Clocktower Ventures.  They are fintech specialists who invest stage-agnostically into financial services innovation ($250k - $2.5m).   Clocktower never leads rounds and Ben suggests that VCs often dont make for the best board members anyhow.     Clocktower Ventures: https://www.clocktowerventures.com/   Pasadena VC/founder event: https://bit.ly/35e5Kxc  

Steph Janson joins to tell us about OCV, a $260M LA fund investing into companies that have $5M+ ARR.  He also shares some great stories about Israel's startup ecosystem and his time at OurCrowd.

Halogen Ventures invests ($250k - $1M) in consumer tech companies led by women (The Skimm, Carbon38). Jesse Draper shares her perspective of growing up 4th gen VC, how she learned to be fearless, and much more.

Our guest Matt Kozlov is the managing director of Techstars Space and ran Techstars Health for 3 years before that.   We chat about launching toaster sized objects into space for a couple million bucks, getting non-dilutive grant money, and of course Techstars ($120k and a great program)! 

Today's episode is with Dinesh Moorjani, managing director of LA-based Comcast Ventures.  Comcast's sweet spot is a Series A check ($3-20M) but they are flexible.  Dinesh explains how Comcast operates, tells us about the early days of Tinder, his experience of private equity, and much more.