Tank Talks By Ripple Ventures

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome Chris Harvey , principal lawyer at Harvey Esquire APC to talk “Emerging Managers Legals 101.” Chris Background: Chris Harvey has been practicing law for 12 years as a venture capital lawyer with a focus on emerging fund managers, accelerators, venture studios, GPs and other venture investors. Chris regularly represents venture capital fund managers and investors in...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our two guests from Carta , Andrew Merrick and Jeff Leathers to discuss, “How to Start and Use SPVs” Guest backgrounds: Andrew Merrick - Operations Manager at Carta focused on SPV Administration. Andrew brings over 6+ years in fund administration in Venture Capital & Hedge Funds & 4 years of banking experience.  Jeff Leathers - Product Manager at Carta for the last...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our two guests Nate Williams & Chris Kim Co-Founders and Managing Partners at UNION Labs to discuss, “Deep Tech Investing at the Early-Stage” Nate & Chris both have an incredible experience in building and scaling deep-tech startups given their mutual background at August Home where they both met back in 2015 and helped grow the company to over $75mm in sales befor...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Uri Pomerantz , Venture Partner at Jackson Square Ventures to discuss, “The Truth About Anti-Hype Investing” Uri has an incredible background as a former Mckinsey consultant, Startup Founder and Venture investor. As a founder, Uri built a startup that was acquired by a Fortune 500 company (John Hancock), and went on to launch a fintech savings app within...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Saurabh Sharma , General Partner at Jump Capital to discuss, “The Democratization of Data Analytics & Machine Learning” Saurabh has a diverse background in investing, operations & product management and leads Jump's efforts in Enterprise Software and IT Infrastructure. Prior to joining Jump, Saurabh led various roles at Groupon in product, marketing & ope...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Dr. Haley Perlus, PhD , Peak Performance Coach to discuss “How CEOs Can Handle Adversity Like a High-Performance Athlete” Since the age of 12, Dr. Perlus aspired toward a career in Sport and Exercise Psychology after competing nationally in downhill ski racing. Within one year of earning her PhD. at the age of 28, she became a professor, public speaker, a...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Samir Kaji , Senior Managing Director @  First Republic Bank , to discuss “Breaking Through the Crowd as an Emerging Manager” Samir is a well known voice in the venture capital ecosystem having started his career at Silicon Valley Bank at the beginning of the tech boom in 1999. Samir started out as an Analyst and eventually made his way up to Managing Di...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Fabrice Grinda , Founding Partner of @ FJ Labs to discuss “Investing in Marketplaces Before It’s A Marketplace” Before starting FJ Labs, Fabrice was an incredibly successful entrepreneur having launched several startups before and after the dot-com bust in early 2000. His first startup Aucland was started by Fabrice at age 23 which grew into one of the la...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Elaine Zelby , Principal & Director of Growth @  SignalFire  to discuss Product Led Growth Strategies for Startups. Before joining SignalFire, Elaine spent the early part of her career at Capriza, an enterprise software startup backed by a16z, and Charles River Ventures as one of the first employees building out many of the go-to-market strategies where...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Ade Ajao , Managing Partner @  Base10 Partners  to discuss Investing in Automation & AI tools for the real economy. Before starting Base10, Ade is best known for being the Co-Founder and CEO of the startup Tuenti, also known as the ‘Spanish Facebook” which he stared back in 2005 in college with some friends. The company eventually went on to be acquired...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Ryan Freeman , Head of Enterprise Partnerships @  DoorDash  to discuss Managing Enterprise Partnerships as a Startup. On today's Talk, we ask Ryan about his operator journey starting out in Consulting at Accenture where he worked his way into a global group focused on international expansion. Ryan explains how his experience at Accenture helped shape his...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Wes Tang-Wymer , Co-Founder & General Partner @  Rucker Park Capital . On today's Talk, we ask Wes about his investor journey starting out in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and his unconventional path towards Wall St. Next, we ask Wes about his transition to the hedge fund world where he landed a role as a long/short equities analyst at Steve Cohen...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Sandeep Bhadra , Partner @  Vertex Ventures . On today's Talk, we ask Sandeep about his operator journey starting out in engineering and product management roles at Texas Instruments. Sandeep explains the lessons he learned around building next-gen technologies and trying to sell his visions internally while navigating around the politics at such a large...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Reid Christian , General Partner @  CRV (Charles River Ventures) . On today's Talk, we ask Reid about his journey starting out on the investment banking and private equity side at RBC Capital Markets and Symmetric Capital in Boston. Next, we dig into his transition to venture capital with his role at Battery Ventures and the challenges he faced moving fr...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Lo Toney , Founding Managing Partner @  Plexo Capital . On today's Talk, we ask Lo about his operator journey starting out in product & marketing leadership roles at firms like Nike, eBay & Zynga and the lessons he learned around empathy and compassion. Next, we ask Lo about his transition to venture capital with his first job at Comcast ventures where h...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Susan Su , Head of Portfolio Growth & Marketing @  Sound Ventures . On today's Talk, we ask Susan about her operator journey starting out in leadership roles in product and marketing at companies like Google and AppSumo in San Francisco. We dig into Susan's role as a venture partner and marketer-in-residence at 500 Startups where she launched and operate...

On today's Talk, we ask Anil about his journey starting out as a research scientist at global institutions like Draper Labs & Johnson & Johnson in Boston. We dig into Anil's role as head of the “brain on a chip” project funded by DARPA and MIT to study brain diseases. Next we dig into his time as head of external innovation at L’Oreal and the challenges he faced while looking at over 200 startups...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Villi Iltchev , Partner @  Two Sigma Ventures . On today's Talk, we ask Villi about his journey into technology investing after starting his career at HP on the corporate development side and then moving over to Salesforce during the last crisis. We ask Villis' about his time as Vice President of Corp Dev at Salesforce Ventures and about some of the amaz...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Elizabeth Yin , Co-Founder & Managing Partner @  Hustle Fund . On today's Talk, we ask Elizabeth about her journey in leaving Google during the last crisis to start Launchbit, an ad-tech platform that she eventually sold to BuySellAds and how she eventually made her way onto the investment side with 500 Startups. We dig into Elizabeth's time in running t...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Darrell Heaps , Founder & CEO @  Q4 Inc . On today's Talk, we ask Darrell about his journey as an Elite Mogul Skier on the World Cup stage and his transition to Founding and Leading Q4 Inc. for the last 15 years. We discuss the bumps and bruises Darrell experienced both on the mountain and in the boardroom. We also dig into Darrell's ability to overcome...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Tony Conrad , Partner @  True Ventures On today's Talk, we ask Tony about his humble beginnings of growing up in a rural farming community in Indiana and how he made his way around the world living in places like Paris, New Delhi & Jakarta. We dig into Tony’s experiences of Co-Founding two startups that both exited to AOL and what he looks for when backi...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guestMimi Lam & Drummond Munro, Co-Founders of Superette, Canada’s Most Awarded Cannabis Startup. On today's Talk, we ask Mimi & Drum about how they originally entered the Cannabis industry before teaming up to start Superette. We dig into how they came up with the unique concept for Superette’s brand and how they differentiated themselves in the already crowde...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest Devon Wright , General Manager at Yelp! In San Francisco & former Co-Founder & CEO of Turnstyle Solutions. This talk is a special one for me personally as I owe a lot of my entrepreneurial and venture investing career to Devon. Not only was Devon the first person I wrote my initial angel check into back in 2012 to help start Turnstyle before it was even a...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  Tony van Marken , Co-Founder & Managing Partner of  First Ascent Ventures. Tony  is not only a successful businessman and venture capitalist but has an extremely accomplished mountaineering career having become the first South African to climb all Seven Summits, the highest mountains on each of the world’s seven continents. On today's Talk, we ask Tony a...

On today’s Tank Talk! We welcome our guest  John Ruffolo , Founder & former CEO of OMERS Ventures and Co-Founder & Vice Chair of the Council of Canadian Innovators. John is well known around the VC and Tech ecosystem for starting the Ontario Municipal Workers Pension Funds Venture arm in 2011. John has been instrumental in helping develop some of Canada’s biggest tech companies and was an early in...