LA Venture

Will Coffield is a co-founder and General Partner at Riot Ventures, a hard tech fund that invests at seed and Series B. In this episode Will shares: The technological renaissance taking place at the US Dept. of Defense.  What caused the United States' lead in defense tech to narrow What is at stake in the ongoing defense technological race between the US and China

Galen Shaffer is a Senior Vice President at Eos Venture Partners, a Series A fund, investing in the future of insurance. In this episode Galen shares: - Why cyber insurance is a $30B opportunity for startups. - What the first wave of D2C insurance startups got wrong. - Why novel data is often not impactful data.

Carl Fritjofsson is a Partner at Creandum, one of Europe's leading VC firms.   In this episode Carl shares: Why nearly every software category can be reimagined with a generative AI-first approach Why Q4 2023 and Q1 2024 could be "pretty bloody" and a "moment of truth" for startups Creandum's approach to winning competitive Series A deals Why VC poses career risk for associates early in their care...

Aaron Samuels tells us about investing in intersectional founders, he explains what identity saliency is to Minnie and he shares how he and Brian Hollins were able to parlay their scout investing into $66M Collide Fund I.

Dan Wenhold co-leads Fifth Wall's real estate technology fund.  He tells us how Fifth Wall has massively grown their AUM by bringing in LPs from the real estate industry who want access to innovation in PropTech.  He also tells us how Fifth Wall has stayed innovative and leaned into creative deal structures that are outside the typical VC playbook.

Founder of Notation Capital Nick Chirls : * Likes to invest in companies that are too early * Prefers when it's hard to explain what the company is doing * Does not think now is a good time to invest in AI * And generally sounds nothing like a VC  

In this episode with Ann Lai from Bullpen we talk about: * The metrics that matter for fundraising * How Bullpen invests in overlooked businesses  * And how Ann bounced back from her experience with Justin Caldbeck at Binary Capital

Howard Morgan is the Chairman and General Partner at B Capital and previously the co-founder of First Round Capital. Howard shares his perspective on building successful seed funds (he's an LP in 80), what is exciting him today in tech and how he has chosen such great partners throughout his life.  

Another great Southern California Series A fund and another great investor moving from the Bay Area to LA.   Toba partner Patrick Mathieson tells us why he moved from the Bay Area to LA to pursue his thesis around companies building platforms for SMB.   Patrick has invested in Boulevard, PatientPop, FloQast, Luxury Presence and now Candid (a TenOneTen co-invest).  

David   Zhang  is a partner at TCV, a ~21B AUM growth fund that has invested in companies like Brex, Airbnb, Klarna, and Nubank. David  leans in on FinTech investing and tells us about some of his theses on the unbundling (and bundling) of financial services. David  comes from a hedge fund background and also shares why he prefers the alignment of private market investing over the more Darwinian n...

Don't let the joy get sucked out of investing. Investor Emilio Diez Barroso reminds us to remain focused on the joys of creativity and creating value.     Emilio invests from his own family office and as a partner at Bold Capital, a Series A fund with a focus on frontier tech, biotech and innovations that have the potential to transform humanity.

When Taylor Adams advises family offices on setting up venture programs he recommends investing into fund of funds for coverage, emerging managers for access and direct investments for alpha.     In addition to his family office work, Taylor is the co-founder of Rise Together Ventures, a fund enabling for-profit entrepreneurs to realize their full for-profit and philanthropic vision.  

"It would be delightful if all the brightest brains in the world focused their energies on solving climate problems."   Gaby Darbyshire gained deep operational expertise as a founder of Gawker Media before starting climate tech focused Dangerous Ventures.  There is a lot to learn from Gaby in many dimensions.

The next version of the internet will feel a lot more like a game. Jason Yeh and partner Brian Cho helped Riot Games scale League of Legends to a massive global scale.  They take a lot of lessons from gaming as they invest from $90M Patron Fund I into what they call the "spectrum of play".

Andrew Kahn from Crush Ventures invests in music, interactive media, the creator economy, and more. Crush Ventures is the venture arm of Crush Music, a global talent management firm whose roster includes Miley Cyrus, Sia, Green Day, Panic! at the Disco, Weezer, among many others.

"Good paperwork makes good friendships".  Deron Quon, co-founder of Menus.com, Datassential, and Collective Solution shares thoughts on scaling and navigating a sale to private equity.   Now an active angel investor and founder of Hoopla.com, Deron also talks about the importance of investing back into the LA ecosystem.

Roy Rubin dropped out of UCLA to start Magento, a massive eCommerce platform that scaled to over $100B in transactions annually.   Roy is now writing $500k to $1M checks out of his fund, R-Squared Ventures.   The story of his success and lessons learned is inspiring and worth a listen!

There are so many great founders and VCs moving to LA! Vinay Singh is a Managing Director at Anthemis where he leads seed and Series A investments out of their early stage fund.  Vinay tells us that Anthemis is a global investment platform focused on the digital transformation of financial services, investing across all stages of growth.

What are the best ways for a startup to partner with a big corporation?   Beth Kearns from Touchdown Ventures tells about different partnership models, best practices and pitfalls to avoid.   This interview includes information from third party sources believed to be reliable; however, we make no representations as to its accuracy or completeness. References to strategies are for illustrative purp...

Word on the street is that more deals have structure.  Kareem tells us about structured equity--when it makes sense and who it's right for. Arrowroot is an 8+ year old growth equity firm in LA and Miami on Fund V ($500MM+ invested globally across 28 port cos.) that specializes in structured equity for venture-backed enterprise software companies.

Talking with Jeffrey made me wonder if I need to get a celebrity for our venture fund.  Jeffrey had the opportunity to work with Alex and Drew of the Chainsmokers to set up Mantis VC and it sounds like an amazing team. Jeffrey explains the value that the Chainsmokers are able to bring and how entrepreneurs and funds can best work with celebrity.

Fred is the Chief Innovation and Partnerships officer at Caltech where he oversees the Tech Transfer office and recently set up two new funds : The Caltech Fund and the Wilson and Hill fund. Fred gives us a behind-the-scenes look at how Caltech labs are run and how his team thinks about the translational potential of scientific work.

Why is a Series B pitch so much different than pitching a Series A company?  How do growth stage investors think about multiples today?   Mike Fernandez talks about what he is seeing in growth rounds today and the sort of support that is needed for later stage companies.

This is a great explanation of PLG from the guy who coined the term.  Blake Bartlett tells us about the different eras of business software and the problems it was built to solve--from solving a CIO's problems, to solving a business problem, to solving an end user problem. Blake explains how to get started with PLG, how the funnel changes going from a sales-led motion to a product-led motion, how...

I learned so much about working with celebrities from  Jackie  Fast at Sandbox Studios : * Celebrities are not doing this for impact.  It is for the money * George Clooney's $1B payday from Casamigos caught everyone's attention * It's not only about choosing the right celebrity, it's also about having the right team around them * Celebrities are so eager to work with startups, they are resorting t...