With a few dozen software exits under his belt (including Box, Square, Mulesoft & JFrog), nobody knows enterprise investing like Sapphire Ventures’ President + PartnerJai Das. Likewise, Floodgate co-founder + Partner Mike Maples Jr. is often credited with pioneering seed investing as we know it, with names like Twitter, Twitch and Lyft in his portfolio. Together, they join Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, and Beezer Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners, to share how they pick winners at their respective stages. What does it take to spot someone who sees the future before it’s here? How do inflection points like AI impact an investor’s thesis? And are there more opportunities in the market for VCs today? Plus, Jai and Mike discuss the one throughline from seed to growth to lead to a successful exit: the management team.
Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners
Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc
Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc
Learn more about Floodgate: https://floodgate.com
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Introduction & the Burning Question4:08-Intro to Sapphire Ventures
6:02 Intro to Floodgate7:56-Setting the Stage at Seed
10:30 Inflection Points: We're Going Through a Sea Change of Mass Cognition
13:43 What’s Happening at the Growth Stage
15:17 More Choice in the Market
16:10 Importance of Management Team
17:44 Mike’s New Book “Pattern Breakers”
23:09 The Three Things Floodgate Looks for in a Founder
25:25 Founder Future Fit & Pivots
27:56 In Enterprise Software, You Don’t Always Have to Build a New Category
29:52 AI: Over-Valued? Under-Valued?
32:50 Is There Anything Left in AI Non-Consensus?
34:37 How Sapphire Approaches GenAI Investing
37:31 The Exit Market Today
44:10 How to Approach Founder Liquidity
Origins is produced by Sapphire Ventures in partnership with Pod People.
Nothing presented herein is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Any offer or solicitation of securities by Sapphire may only be made in accordance with the current offering documents for a managed Fund in which Sapphire is an advisor. Additionally, Sapphire does not solicit or make its services available to the public; such offerings may only be provided to accredited investors and qualified purchasers defined within the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. Information provided reflects Sapphire Ventures’ views as of a particular time. Such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire Ventures shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. While Sapphire Ventures has used reasonable efforts to obtain information from reliable sources, Sapphire makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of third party information presented herein. Nothing presented herein may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular investment opportunity or strategy. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
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