Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In this episode, I’m joined by three deep tech investors and friends of the show, Nate Williams, Sunil Nagaraj, and Guy Perelmuter, for a roundta...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In this episode, I sit down with Lior Susan from Eclipse to explore his journey from building companies in the physical world to founding and sca...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. Today, I sat down with Rob Go , Co-Founder and Partner at NextView , to discuss the shift in seed-stage investing and what seed funds need to con...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Mercedes Bent about her fascinating journey from a tech-driven upbringing to becoming a lead...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Alex Robinson , CEO and Co-Founder of Juniper Square . We talked about the evolution of priv...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In this episode, I sit down with Jack Altman, Managing Partner at Alt Capital. We unpack Jack’s journey from Lattice CEO to venture capitalist ....

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome back to another episode of Venture Unlocked, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of the business of venture capital. In today’s episode, we are joined by Nakul Mandan , who is the founding partner of seed-stage firm Audacious Ventures. Having known Nakul since t...

I recently joined Turner Novak on The Peel for a conversation about the current state of private markets and the realities facing fund managers and investors today. We discussed why fundraising is particularly difficult right now for both emerging and established venture funds, and examined some of the structural forces driving change across the private investing landscape. I had a lot of fun doin...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, I sat down with Logan Bartlett , Managing Director of Redpoint Ventures . We explore the evolving landscape of venture capital and startup investing and dive deep into the challenges facing unicorn companies post-2021, the transformative potential of AI, and the...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome to another episode of Venture Unlocked. In this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming Villi Iltchev , founder and managing partner of Category Ventures. Villi has had a long history in tech, both in operating roles at companies like Box and Lifelock, as well as invest...

Today, I sat down with Victor Lazarte , a Benchmark partner who transitioned from founding a billion-dollar mobile gaming company in Brazil to becoming a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley with Benchmark in 2023. Victor shared Benchmark's unique investment philosophy, which focuses on deep, meaningful partnerships with entrepreneurs, with each partner doing only 1-2 deals per year. We also spoke...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Had a great conversation recently with Tomasz Tunguz Founder and General Partner at Theory Ventures. We dug into how AI is reshaping venture capital and everyday life, from the rapid advancements in the space to what it all means for startups and the broader market. We covered e...

Follow me @SamirKaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We recently had the pleasure of hosting Zal Bilimoria , Co-Founder of Refactor Capital . Zal has had a fascinating career from building products at Microsoft, Google, Netflix, and LinkedIn to making the leap into being a VC. His story is one of relentless curiosity and a deep pa...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today I had the pleasure of speaking with Brian Ascher , a veteran venture capitalist at Venrock , a firm with a storied history dating back to 1969 as part of the Rockefeller family office. Brian, with nearly 30 years in the industry, shared his journey from product management...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, I have the pleasure of conversing with Gaurav Mathur , Partner at Pinegrove Capital Partners . Together, we dive into the evolving venture capital landscape, focusing on liquidity solutions and the rise of secondary markets. Gaurav shares insights from his exten...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today I’m excited to speak with the founding team of Chemistry , a new venture firm led by Kristina Shen , Ethan Kurzweil , and Mark Goldberg , who recently spun-out of blue chip firms Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer, and Index Ventures, respectively. The firm just announced a sig...

Follow me  @samirkaji  for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode,  Sam Heshmati  and  Vince Timoney  from  Citizens Private Bank  stop by to talk about all things venture banking and how the industry is recovering from the 2023 regional banking crisis. Sam and Vince, both of whom have extensive experience in the banking sect...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we welcome the three co-founders of Saga Ventures : Ben Braverman, Thomson Nguyen, and Max Altman. Saga Ventures is a seed-stage investment firm that recently closed its first fund of $125M. The conversation dives into their experiences in raising their first fund, bui...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we're thrilled to be joined by Glenn Solomon , managing partner at Notable Capital . Along with Granite Asia , Notable Capital was one of two groups to emerge from GGV Capital, which recently split into two groups with Notable based in Silicon Valley, New York, and coverin...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. In this episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Ben Sun , co-founder of Primary , a seed-stage fund based in New York. Ben shares his journey from investment banking to startup founder, and eventually to co-founding Primary, which has backed companies like Coupang and Jet. Ben...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week I'm excited to sit down with Lindel Eakman from Foundry . Lindel has been an investor in funds and companies since the early 2000s when he started at UTIMCO. In our conversation, Lindel talks about being one of the first investors in Union Square Ventures, his preferen...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Tom Loverro, General Partner at IVP is our guest as part of our Venture Unlocked Shorts series intended to go deep on a single topic. We revisit Tom’s Twitter post from early 2023, which spoke to the market shift that was in motion and the difficulties start-ups would face in a...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're re-joined by Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate , this time to discuss his just released new book "Pattern Breakers." Mike was first on the pod in 2021 and it was great to catch up again, this time to discuss the importance of identifying founders who are true pattern breakers....

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're joined by TX Zhuo , Co-Founder and General Partner of Fika Ventures . His tech career began in college when he started an online textbook marketplace. After working at McKinsey and as a CFO at an operating company, TX joined Innovation Endeavors. He then co-founded Karlin...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are back with another LP-focused episode with Michael Kim , Founder of Cendana Capital . Michael shares how he started Cendana around his thesis (at the time very early) of backing small, emerging managers. This led to early investments in firms such as IA ventures, Forerunne...