Origins: Inside Venture Capital

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David Frankel, Founder Collective Jul 18, 2017

Show notes

David Frankel is a managing partner and co-founder of Founder Collective, which launched in 2011 with a simple mission: To be the most aligned fund for founders at the seed stage. In the years since, they've become one of the most respected and highest performing venture firms in the industry. Before starting Founder Collective, David spent most of his life as an entrepreneur, co-founding Internet Solutions, the first ISP in Africa, at the ripe old age of 23. When Internet Solutions was acquired by Dimension Data, he served as a key executive and on the board through its successful listing on the London Stock Exchange and up until it was ultimately acquired by NTT Japan for $3.2B.

Aaron Gershenberg, SVB Capital Jun 06, 2017

Show notes

Aaron Gershenberg is a founder of Silicon Valley Bank’s fund of funds and direct investment group, SVB Capital. Aaron joined SVB in 1999 and has been part of the venture capital industry since 1996. Under his leadership, the group has over $3.3 billion under management across fund of funds, direct funds and separate accounts. In this episode, we sit down with Aaron and discuss SVB Capital's beginnings, surviving through the dot com, and how they differentiate their fund of funds practice by being part of the broader SVB bank and ecosystem. Because of SVB's vital role in the technology industry and as a public company itself, Aaron has a particularly unique perspective in evaluating and working with VC managers, and as a pioneer and thought leader in the LP ecosystem for almost the past two decades.

Bradley Tusk, Tusk Ventures Apr 25, 2017

Show notes

Bradley Tusk started Tusk Ventures to help startups work with governments at scale. To date, this unique venture capital firm has worked with companies like Uber, Fanduel, Handy, Eaze, and others to help them navigate regulatory challenges. Tusk Ventures grew out of Tusk Strategies, which Bradley started in 2010 to help major institutions run multi-jurisdictional campaigns to shape their public reputation, overcome regulatory hurdles, and proactively engage governments to solve problems and seize opportunities. Previously, Bradley served as the campaign manager for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s successful re-election bid in 2009, and before that he served as the Deputy Governor of the State of Illinois from 2003-2006.

Winter Mead, Sapphire Ventures Mar 28, 2017

Show notes

Winter Mead is a Vice President at Sapphire Ventures, where he focuses on Sapphire's fund investments in the United States and internationally. Before joining Sapphire Ventures in 2014, he worked at Hall Capital Partners. Prior to Hall, Winter founded Mead and Mead, an international food distribution and logistics business, and also spent a number of years working for several early-stage technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Eva Ho, Fika Ventures Mar 14, 2017

Show notes

Eva Ho is a General Partner and co-founder of Fika Ventures, a new $40M seed fund based in LA. She's also an EIR of the City of Los Angeles and a board member of the California Community Foundation. She was previously a co-founder of Susa Ventures, and before that an operator and early employee at Factual and Applied Semantics, and a co-founder of Navigating Cancer.

Graham Pingree, Cendana Capital Feb 21, 2017

Show notes

Graham Pingree is a limited partner at Cendana Capital, where he works with Michael Kim and invests in micro-VC funds. We discuss Graham's background working both at startups as well as firms such as Horsley Bridge and Cambridge Associates, and backing and working with funds such as Forerunner, Founder Collective, and IA Ventures.

Hunter Walk, Homebrew Jan 31, 2017

Show notes

We talk with investor Hunter Walk, founding partner at Homebrew, about his experiences building product as one of the first hires at Second Life and then at YouTube after the Google acquisition. We also dig into what it took to get Homebrew off the ground in 2013 with his partner Satya Patel.

Lindel Eakman, Foundry Group Next Jan 18, 2017

Show notes

For over a decade, Lindel Eakman managed the private investment program for the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), one of the largest endowments in the world. After 13 years at UTIMCO, Lindel left and joined Foundry Group to lead investments in other early-stage VC funds through FG's new fund, Foundry Group Next . We talk about his work at UTIMCO, where he backed iconic firms like USV, Foundry Group, Spark Capital, and True Ventures, and his decision to move to Boulder to work with Foundry Group.

Jonathan Abrams, Nuzzel Jan 04, 2017

Show notes

Jonathan Abrams, founder and CEO of Nuzzel, is a busy man. Jonathan previously founded Friendster and Hotlinks, is an active angel in companies like AngelList and Docker, co-founded Founders Den in San Francisco, and is an LP in some great VC funds. We discuss Jonathan’s move to Silicon Valley in the late nineties to work for Netscape as an engineer, starting his first companies, and discovering the layer of capital and people behind the venture community.

Thomas Lenehan, Rockefeller University Dec 06, 2016

Show notes

Thomas Lenehan is Deputy CIO at Rockefeller University, helping to manage their $2B endowment. We discuss how managing an endowment compares to his previous LP roles and committing long-term to the private markets and venture, through good and bad cycles.

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Origins: Inside Venture Capital

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