The Rise by Nucleus

Lucas Swisher is the Co-Lead of Growth at Coatue and the number one Growth investor in the Nucleus 100. On this episode we open on the Nucleus 100, why we built it, and why Lucas landed at the top of Growth. Then he traces the path. Oklahoma to Insight to Kleiner to Coatue OpenAI. Anthropic. Rippling. Deel. OpenEvidence. Glean. Cyera. Scale. Figma. We get into how Coatue wins. The public-private e...

Ashley Mayer is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Coalition, an early stage venture firm powered by active operators. Coalition invests at the Pre-Seed and Seed and is obsessed with connecting founders in their portfolio and beyond with world class operating talent. In this episode, Ashley shares her path from Box during IPO prep, to shaping narrative at Social Capital, to helping build Glossier...

Michael Gilroy is the Founding Partner at Marathon. In this episode, we unpack Michael’s path from Canaan to Coatue and the decision to launch Marathon alongside Gokul Rajaram. We dive deep into the Rule of 200, Michael’s framework for evaluating fintech companies, how he thinks about global fintech expansion, what it takes to build a four-pillar investment team, where he sees Marathon a decade fr...

Jonathan Lehr is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Work-Bench, the NYC early-stage enterprise firm managing $375M across four funds with investments in companies such as Socure, Spring Health, and Cockroach Labs. In this conversation, we walk through the origin story of Work-Bench, how the team planted a flag in New York’s enterprise ecosystem, the role of community in their model, and the exp...

Turner Novak is the founder and solo GP of Banana Capital and the host of The Peel Pod, with guests spanning from Benchmark’s Eric Vishria and Cendana’s Mike Kim to Weekend Fund’s Ryan Hoover and Sweetgreen’s founder and CEO, Jonathan Neman. From his beginnings in Winnipeg to building Banana Capital out of Ann Arbor, Turner has become one of the most recognizable and trusted voices in venture, kno...

At Also Capital, Mike Annunziata partners with founders solving the hardest problems in space, energy, and advanced manufacturing. His portfolio includes Radiant Nuclear, Northwood Space, and Varda Space Industries where he serves on the board. We talk about the mindset behind conviction investing, the role of trust in early partnerships, and and what it means to be the first call for frontier bui...

Craig Shapiro is the Founder & Managing Partner at Collaborative Fund. Founded in 2010, Collab Fund focuses on early-stage investments that intersect profit and positive social impact, particularly in the areas of food, climate, health, and finance. Investments include Sweetgreen, Beyond Meat, Reddit, Lyft, & more. In this conversation, we discuss Collab's successful portfolio, their $...

The Rise kicks off with the launch of the Nucleus100, the new benchmark for early-stage performance. Leading the list is Keith Rabois, a rare investor who led early in Ramp and Faire and built a career backing generational founders. From PayPal and Square to Founders Fund and Khosla, Keith has set the standard for outlier investing. We cover how he built that record, what drives conviction, and hi...

Amanda “Robby” Robson is the Founder and Managing Partner of Modern Technical Fund, a $22M debut seed fund backing deeply technical founders in infrastructure, security, and software. In this episode, Robby shares her journey from banking to Norwest and Cowboy Ventures to launching MTF, her disciplined approach to early-stage investing, lessons from building high-impact founder communities, and ho...

Aydin Senkut is the Founder and Managing Partner of Felicis Ventures and shares the story behind building it into one of the most admired firms in venture, with 19 IPOs, 27 unicorn exits, 31 active unicorns, and 245 portfolio companies. He explains how Felicis operates in founder mode, moves with conviction and speed, and builds deep alignment with the founders it backs. Aydin reflects on why rein...