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. We are back with Amy Saper , partner at Uncork Capital . Amy shares her journey from Silicon Valley operator at Twitter and Stripe to venture capitalist. She talks about Uncork’s strategy, including its recent $200 million seed fund and $200 million opportunity fund, and how the...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we have another version of Venture Unlocked shorts, and this time it will be focused on topics within the GP/LP world. Joining me again is Meghan Reynolds , who leads capital formation at Altimeter Capital .  This time we discuss the significant liquidity challenges in the...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we're doing another special roundtable discussion with a focus on the seed stage market. Joining us are Jenny Fielding of Everywhere Ventures , Kirby Winfield of Ascend , and Nate Williams of UNION Labs . This whole conversation was focused on seed stage investing. We...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are thrilled to bring you a conversation with David Sacks , Founder and Partner of Craft Ventures . Based in San Francisco, Craft was founded in 2017 and currently has over 3 billion in assets under management. Across the last three decades, David has been incredibly influent...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we are pleased to be joined by Adam Bain of 01 Advisors , a San Francisco-based firm with nearly $1 billion under management. Adam and his partners, including Dick Costolo, have taken a very different approach to the venture model, drawing from their experiences as ope...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We have a conversation with Mitchell Green , Founder and Managing Partner at Lead Edge Capital .  With offices in New York and Santa Barbara, the firm has over $5B in Assets under management and specializes in helping growth-stage companies scale. The firm has an interesting mod...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we have another version of Venture Unlocked shorts, and this time it will be focused on topics within the GP/LP world. Joining me for this around-the-water-cooler recurring series is Meghan Reynolds , who leads capital formation at Altimeter Capital .  Meghan recently atte...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We have a conversation with Samir Kaul from Khosla Ventures .  Founded in 2004, Khosla is one of the largest and most well-known venture capital firms in the world and led by legendary investor and entrepreneur Vinod Khosla . The firm is known for investing in companies that are...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This is our second episode of Venture Unlocked Shorts where we highlight a specific point of view of our guest. These points of view may come through a tweet, an article, or an offline conversation, and our goal is to unpack these interesting views in a short conversation.  In t...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. As we continue to grow Venture Unlocked, we are now going to release short conversations highlighting a specific point of view of our guest. These points of views may come through a tweet, an article, or conversation, and our goal is to unpack these interesting views in short fo...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are excited to bring on Brendan Wales and Kellan Carter, Co-Founders and GPs of FUSE.  Founded in 2020 with a thesis centered around the growth of the Pacific Northwest ecosystem, a geography both of our guests know well. With its just-announced close of a $250MM Fund 2, FUSE...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this special meet the expert episode, we are discussing the venture debt market with Matt Trotter , a Managing director within Stifel Bank ’s Venture division. Stifel Bank was established in St. Louis, MO in 1890 and is an independent investment bank with the mission to help...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week we are thrilled to be joined by Pejman Nozad , Co-Founder and GP of Pear VC . Founded in 2013, Pear has scaled to over $800MM in AUM with a powerful engine to help early-stage companies.  As many regular listeners of the show know, we often like to highlight managers w...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're excited to welcome Paul Kwan , Managing Director at General Catalyst (GC). Established in 2000, the firm currently has   just under $25 billion in assets under management. GC has made a significant mark in the venture capital landscape, funding dynamic technology and life...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're thrilled to have Alex Pall , general partner at Mantis VC , a seed and an early stage fund based in LA. Alex is a great example of someone who has made a significant crossover from another industry—he is one half of the award-winning duo of the Chainsmokers, a group that h...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're thrilled to bring on Brad Gerstner , Founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital .  Altimeter was first founded in 2008 during the GFC with an initial fund of only $3 Million which Brad raised from friends and family. Today the firm employs both private and public strategies. Alt...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are excited to bring you our latest episode with Mamoon Hamid , Partner at Kleiner Perkins . As many know, Kleiner Perkins, founded over 50 years ago is one of the most storied franchises in the history of venture capital, having backed companies companies such as Genentech,...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're thrilled to bring back three experienced institutional venture LPs with Chris Douvos of Ahoy Capital , Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners , and Guy Perelmuter of GRIDS Capital .  When we last convened, it was almost exactly two years ago in October of 2021. We had an ink...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this week’s show, we’re excited to have Ben Lerer and Graham Brown , Managing Partners at Lerer Hippeau . The firm was founded in New York in 2010 to back early-stage entrepreneurs. Today the firm manages $1.2B and has invested in over 400 companies including Oscar, Buzzfeed,...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We're excited to be joined by Chris Farmer , Founder and CEO of SignalFire , a firm that was founded nearly a decade ago with the goal of disrupting the way Venture Capital is done. Unlike traditional VC firms, SignalFire has been built more like a company than a traditional ass...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Today we’re excited to bring Mark Suster back on the pod. Mark is the managing partner of Upfront and also a frequent contributor of great content for the venture ecosystem through his blog, Both Sides of the Table , which I’d highly recommend you subscribe to.  Mark and Samir w...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this week’s show, we’re excited to have Hernan Kazah , Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Kaszek , one of the largest Latin American firms with nine funds under management. The firm launched in 2011 and over time they’ve made early-stage investments in companies such as Nuban...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this week’s show we’re excited to have Tomasz Tunguz , Founder of newly formed Theory Ventures . Tomasz spent nearly 15 years at Redpoint Ventures, before recently spinning out to start Theory Ventures. Earlier this year, Theory closed a $230MM fund to back early stage entrep...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On this week’s show, I’m thrilled to be joined by Sunil Nagaraj , Founder of Ubiquity Ventures . Sunil started Ubiquity in 2017 to focus on backing technical founders at the pre-seed and seed stages around a thesis he calls “nerdy and early.” Before starting Ubiquity, Sunil spen...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We’re pleased to welcome Oren Zeev, Founding Partner at Zeev Ventures.  Without a doubt, Oren is one of the titans in venture investing with nearly 30 years of experience and one of the most unique. Unlike traditional firms that have achieved scale, Oren remains a solo-GP, and h...