Superclusters - The Emerging LP Podcast

Kelli Fontaine from Cendana Capital joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions. The Council's Amber Illig asked what happens when a solo GP is incapacitated or passes away. Oceans Ventures' Steven Rosenblatt asked why most LPs follow the decision-making of other LPs. NeuCo Academ...

“19% of our GDP attracts about 55% of capital inflows, aka venture activity, and 81% is underinvested.” – Vijen Patel Vijen Patel is an entrepreneur and investor. He founded The 81 Collection, a high growth equity firm in boring industries. Previously, he founded what is now known as Tide Cleaners. He bootstrapped what eventually became the largest dry cleaner in the country (1,200 locations) befo...

Pattern Ventures' John Felix joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions. Atria Ventures' Chris Leiter asked about the common mistakes LPs make when underwriting solo GPs. Garuda Ventures' Arpan Punyani asked how quickly do most LPs get to conviction. First 10 minutes? First m...

“It’s not the probability; it’s the consequence. It’s not the probability when something goes wrong. It’s the consequence when it goes wrong.” – Wendy Li Wendy Li is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Ivy Invest, a fintech investment platform bringing an endowment-style portfolio to everyday investors. Before Ivy Invest, Wendy was Managing Director of Investments at the Mother Cabrini...

“The very first thing everybody has to do is give themselves permission to lean into what they are interested in and what does it for them and what they understand and what they have an affinity for, regardless of what everybody else says you should be doing.” – Samira Salman Samira Salman is a generational force—a rare blend of financier, strategist, and connector—revered for her ability to move...

The entire Screendoor team joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions. Kyber Knight Capital's Linus Liang asked about why LPs choose to bet on new managers as opposed to investing in more established funds. NOMO Ventures' Kate Rohacz asked about what parts of venture do LPs think...

Ahoy Capital's founder, Chris Douvos, joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions. Pachamama Ventures' Karen Sheffield asked about how GPs should think about when and how to sell secondaries. Mangusta Capital's Kevin Jiang asked about how GPs should think about staying top of mind with LP...

“All these sorts of things that are quite frankly boring, monotonous, tedious, unglamorous, or not sexy, they are the sorts of things that can make or break whether a fund is good or not. Because you can be a great investor, but if the experience of the LP is awful, it doesn’t matter how good the fund is. "Ultimately, somebody’s got to deal with you. They’ve probably got people to report to themse...

“Buying junk at a discount is still junk.” – Abe Finkelstein Abe Finkelstein, Managing Partner at Vintage, has been leading fund, secondary, and growth stage investments focused on fintech, gaming, and SMB software, among others, leading growth stage and secondary investments for Vintage in companies like Monday.com, Minute Media, Payoneer, MoonActive and Honeybook. Prior to joining Vintage in 200...

“The more you can create that context in the family owner's manual, the more important it is and the more it is NOT the ‘in-case-of-emergency’ file. Because the in-case-of-emergency file is going to say I’m an LP in Fund VII from so-and-so and my withdrawal rights are such and such. Or here’s the document. You go figure out what my withdrawal rights are, if I have any.” The owner's manual...

“This is one of the big issues of a bunch of data work on venture is insights from some periods don’t mean anything or are not translatable to present time. It’s really frustrating. So we go back to people, reputations, and experience.” – Narayan Chowdhury Ritujoy Narayan Chowdhury is the co-founder and Managing Director at Franklin Park, where he focuses on private equity investment opportunities...

“The bigger you get, the more established you get, the more underwriting emphasis goes into how this team operates as a structure rather than is there a star?” – Matt Curtolo Matt Curtolo, CAIA is a seasoned private markets investor and allocator with over two decades of experience at leading financial institutions. Throughout his career, he has been directly responsible for allocating more than $...

“Networks are more persistent than performance.” – Albert Azout Albert Azout is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Level VC, a technology investment firm built on software and data science and invests in both entrepreneurs and venture capital managers, including the likes of Air Street Capital, Emergent Ventures and Work-Bench, just to name a few. Prior to Level, Albert has been a serial found...

"What I hear from LPs is that the market is important. And of course, the market IS important. And I think that that’s true. But if you truly believe in venture as a purist, then all of it is irrelevant because at any point in time, someone will come and have this unique insight. And the timing is against them. The world is against them. They’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and yet,...

“Some of the best investments, as we look back in history, were never obvious at the moment the investments were made. You may not have to be contrarian, but you have to have a variant perception than the rest of the market. Maybe you saw the team differently. You saw the space growing differently. That, to us, inherently, is a single decision maker-type thought process at the earliest stage, when...

“Most [references] will not give a negative reference about someone, but you will have to understand and listen between the lines. What is a good or a bad reference? They might say, ‘I really like him as a person. He’s really nice.’ But this is a person that’s worked together with you in a team, and you’re not saying he’s great with founders or finding the best deals. Maybe he’s not that good.” –...

“A lot of family office principals, unless they’ve worked in finance – they should not be solely making the decision on which RIA to hire.” – Scott Saslow Scott Saslow is the founder, CEO, and family office principal for ONE WORLD. He's also the founder and CEO of The Institute of Executive Development, as well as the author of Building a Sustainable Family Office: An Insider's Guide to What Works...

“When investing in funds, you are investing in a blind pool of human potential.” – Adam Marchick Over the past twenty years, Adam Marchick has had unique experiences as a founder, general partner (GP), and limited partner (LP). Most recently, Adam managed the venture capital portfolio at Emory’s endowment, a $2 billion portfolio within the $10 billion endowment. Prior to Emory, Adam spent ten year...

“The first layer is setting up your own strategy. The second layer is portfolio construction. How do you do your portfolio construction based on the strategy you set out to do? And then manager selection comes last. Within the portfolio construction target, how do you pick managers that fit that ‘mandate?’” – Jay Rongjie Wang Jay Rongjie Wang is the founding Chief Investment Officer of Primitiva G...

“Executional excellence can get you to being great at something – let’s call that top quartile – but it really is passion that distinguishes the best from great – top decile.” – Charlotte Zhang As the director of investments, Charlotte Zhang oversees the selection of external investment managers, conducts portfolio research, and helps to institutionalize processes, tools, and resources. Experience...

“VC is more about the ground game than the air game.” – Nakul Mandan “Entrepreneurs think it’s going to be like the Michael Keaton version, and the good ones, they actually have to work through the Christopher Nolan version of Batman.” – Ben Choi Nakul Mandan is the founder of Audacious Ventures. Audacious is a seed stage venture firm managing ~$250M. Audacious' foundational belief is that ultimat...

“Innovation everywhere, but especially in the land of pensions, endowments, and foundations, is a function of courage and crisis.” – Ashby Monk Dr. Ashby Monk is currently a Senior Research Engineer, School of Engineering at Stanford University and holds the position of Executive Director of the Stanford Research Initiative on Long-Term Investing. Ashby has more than 20 years of experience studyin...

“Markets have a mind of their own.” – David York David York's thirty plus years of industry knowledge and networks uniquely equip him to be a liaison and international ambassador not only for Top Tier’s brand, but also the broader venture community. In 2000, David joined Phil Paul to lead the fund of funds team at Paul Capital, which spun out in 2011 to form Top Tier. David has been active in the...

“GPs and LPs are both equally busy, but different kinds of busy where on any given day, we’ll probably have the same amount of calls and all these things going on, but [LPs are] going to know [they’re] busy three months ahead of time and a GP won’t.” – Dan Stolar Dan Stolar is a Principal at Colibri Equity Ventures, a single family office based in NYC and San Diego. Dan leads the venture capital s...

“The line that sits for me is you got to pick well, you got to coach well, and then you got to finance well – and the financing includes the exit.” – Jeff Rinvelt Jeff Rinvelt is a partner at Renaissance Venture Capital an innovative venture capital fund of funds. Jeff’s diverse background in venture capital and technology and his experience working in various start-up ventures uniquely position h...