Venturing in VC: Recent Episodes
Inside.com
Join Inside.com's Landon Campbell as he interviews the most influential venture capitalists about their routines, journeys, and lessons. Exciting guests each week.
Shila Nieves Burney is the founder and solo GP at Zane Venture Fund, which is a seed fund that invests in underrepresented founders with the goal of closing the funding gap and generating high returns for investors. Shila has spent a 20+ year professional career working closely with leading organizations and exceptional talents to create solutions that address disparities through investment in human capital.
Tyler Tringas is the General Partner and Founder of Calm Company Fund. He invests at every stage in software and software-enabled businesses. They’re not a typical VC though. They are not in the business of putting founders on a “unicorn-or-bust” trajectory. They don’t endorse blitz-scaling or growth at all costs.
Named by Forbes as "one of the most successful angel investors", Pejman has over 15 years of experience investing in early-stage high-tech start-ups. He's invested in over 100 startups and has seeded several multi-billion dollar companies such as Dropbox, Lending Club, Gusto (Zenpayroll), Doordash, Guardant Health, and Branchmetrics.
Ryan Holmes is a Canadian computer programmer and internet entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and CEO of Hootsuite, a social media management tool for businesses with more than 18 million users. Holmes began developing Hootsuite in 2008 through his agency, Invoke Media.
Nik Talreja is the Co-Founder and CEO of SydeCar. Sydecar is an onramp to VC. They are a deal execution platform for venture investors built by industry veterans, including alumni from Carta, AngelList, Juniper Square, Cooley, and Crunchbase. He's also the co-founder of 18 Ventures: a fund that invests in founders and companies with a significant nexus to Israel.
Kyle Samani is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Multicoin Capital, which is a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies reshaping trillion-dollar markets. They manage a hedge fund and a venture fund, investing across both public and private markets.
Alison Stillman is a Founding General Partner at Serena Ventures, overseeing portfolio management and sourcing new investments. In addition to growing the reach and impact of the fund, Alison is the person founders turn to when they need pointed advice, detailed feedback, and tough love. Alison holds a BS from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is a CFA charterholder.
Katelin Holloway is the Founding Partner at 776 Ventures which is a VC firm built by builders for builders. Earlier this year, Seven Seven Six announced a second fund of $510 million, bringing their total assets under management to about $750 million with a total of thirty-eight portfolio companies. We spoke about Katelin's past experiences at Pixar, Reddit, and Initialized Capital, along with her views on building the best culture at startups.
Jay Kapoor is the Co-Founder of VSC Ventures. VSC Ventures is built on the core thesis that it has become easier than ever before to start a startup, but harder than ever before for that company to break out or get noticed.
Their award-winning comms firm has represented over 550 startups incl. 3 IPOs, 16 unicorns, and 50+ exits. Storytelling is their superpower. They invest at Seed & Series A and go to work for you!
Eurie Kim is a Partner of Forerunner Ventures, which is a venture firm that focuses on understanding the mindset of the modern consumer. They’re a San Francisco-based team of veterans and visionaries from multiple disciplines. They’ve supported trailblazing brands like Dollar Shave Club, Chime, Hims & Hers, The Farmer's Dog, Away and dozens more. In 2022, Forerunner announced a $1 Billion fund VI, bringing total AUM to $2.3B.
Elizabeth Yin is a GP and Co-Founder of Hustle FunD, which is a VC fund that invests in pre-seed software startups. They prioritize founders' speed of execution above all else. Per their name, they also make a fast decision after speaking with a company.
David Thacker is a GP at Greylock Partners, which is a leading Silicon Valley VC firm that has backed market-defining companies such as Airbnb, LinkedIn, Facebook, Coinbase, Roblox, Discord, Okta, and Workday. He leads investments (seed/early/growth) and partners with portfolio companies to help them with product strategy, growth, team-building, and monetization.
Alda Leu Dennis is a General Partner at Initialized Capital, which is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on the seed stage. Initialized has 6 investing partners and over $3.2B of AUM and six-core funds since its founding in 2012. Notable investments include Coinbase and Instacart. Alda brings over a decade of investing and legal experience to both Initialized and our portfolio companies. Prior to joining Initialized, she was a managing partner at 137 Ventures where she led investments in Planet Labs, Wish, Coupang, CourseHero, and Work Market (acquired by ADP).
Mike Vernal is a Partner at Sequoia Capital: one of the oldest and most respected VC funds in the Valley. Prior to venture, he spent 8 years at Facebook as VP of Product & Engineering leading multiple teams, and also spent 4 years at Microsoft as a PM.
Jeff Fluhr is the Co-founder and General Partner at Craft Ventures, a $2B fund that follows the motto: “founders backing founders.” Similar to his Craft co-founders, Jeff has been a successful tech entrepreneur and investor for two decades. After entering the annual business plan competition at Stanford Business School, Jeff dropped out to build StubHub, now a multi-billion dollar division of eBay.
Over the last four years at Craft and prior to that as angel investors, the team has backed over 30 unicorn companies at an early stage. Craft’s main focus is on two areas where they bring unique value: SaaS and Marketplaces
Roy Bahat is the head of Bloomberg Beta - an early-stage venture firm backed by Bloomberg LP that invests in startups creating the future of work. It was the first venture fund to focus on investing in the future of work and in artificial intelligence.
Marlon Nichols (@marloncnichols) is the Managing Partner at MaC Venture Capital - a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in visionary founders building the future that the world wants to see. He's also a Kauffman Fellow who also serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to MaC Venture Capital, Marlon was the founder of Cross Culture Ventures and served as Investment Director at Intel Capital. Marlon has an extensive background in technology, private equity, media, and entertainment.
Janine Sickmeyer (@myfriendjanine) is the Co-founder and General Partner at Overlooked Ventures, a $50M venture fund investing in early-stage companies with one or more historically ignored founder(s). Janine is an experienced entrepreneur: founding a legal SaaS app, NextChapter for 6 years until it was acquired in September 2019 (while having four kids!). She understands the challenges women entrepreneurs face and how to overcome them and because of that, she has dedicated the past few years to investing and mentoring overlooked founders, making nine total investments in companies with mostly Black, Latinx, and women founders.
David Cowan (@davidcowan) is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. He’s been in VC since 1992 and is known as one of the world’s leading investors across cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, consumer, and space technology. David was the first venture investor in tech’s most beloved video game streaming platform, Twitch, which was later acquired by Amazon. Today, he serves on several non-profit boards including the Center for Inquiry and the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is the co-writer of the Silicon Valley mockumentary series “Bubbleproof,” and in his spare time, he sings with an acappella group.
Episode 3 features Wiz Abdulla (@WizLikeWizard), the Co-Founder and Chief Astronaut at Spacecadet Ventures. His firm is known as the marketing VC, fueling a better future with a mix of money + marketing expertise. Overall his fund helps companies build stories through marketing that can help them boost growth and exit value. Spacecadet recently announced a $10M new fund that plans on investing in innovative and futuristic technology that will change the world.
We spoke with Marshall Sandman (@marshallsandman), the Managing Director of Animal Capital - a $15M fund that sources and executes deals with the members of the popular social media group Sway House: a collective of several influential creators like Josh Richards, Griffin Johnson, Bryce Hall, and Noah Beck. Portfolio companies include MusicBreakr, Lolli, Fireside, and more. We spoke about the influence of TikTok, GenZ investing, and tips on relationship building.
We were joined by Turner Novak (@TurnerNovak), the Founder of Banana Capital. Turner is widely known as the 'funniest VC on the internet.' He's built a large online brand with over 100,000 followers on Twitter. People follow Turner for his hilarious memes and authentic insights into the VC industry. Turner launched his first fund in April 2021. The fund, Banana Capital Fund I, is a $10m fund that backs companies like Lolli, Jokr, and Flox. A few of his LPs include Andrew Chen, Sequoia, along with some popular meme pages like Liquidity, Ramp Capital, and VC Starter Kit.
In this new series, we share discussions with top leading investment professionals to discuss:
- How they started in the VC world.
- What industries they find most interesting.
- Advice for people that are starting to invest more heavily.
Stay tuned for the first guest announcement soon!!
Register to attend, today!