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 Stephanie Palmeri and Melody Koh, Partners at NextView Ventures. Nextview was founded in 2010 and recently raised $200MM for their new set of funds. Located in SF, NY, and Boston, the firm invests all across the US and has invested in over 170 companies at the seed-stage since its founding, including Devoted Health, Thread up, and Attentive. We had a great...

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 joined by Scott Kupor, Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Scott was the first employee of the firm alongside Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. He has been instrumental in the firm’s growth to now having north of $35B in AUM. Scott also authored a Wall Street Journal bestselling book called Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It,...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week on the show we’re joined by Meghan Reynolds, partner and head of capital formation at Altimeter. Founded by Brad Gerstner in 2008, Altimeter has backed companies such as Snowflake, Unity, Gusto, and Modern Treasury. Prior to joining Altimer, Meghan worked in a variety of investor relations roles including TPG, Goldman Sachs, and JAZZ Ventures partners. She’s also...

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 fortunate to be joined by Hunter Walk and Satya Patel, founders of Homebrew, a seed-stage firm founded over a decade ago that’s backed companies such as Chime, AngelList, and Gusto. Just over a year ago, Homebrew announced that it was moving away from a seed-focused traditional LP-backed fund to an open-ended evergreen structure that is funded from...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. I started Venture Unlocked to bring more transparency to firm building by bringing on guests whose unique insights and experts could help venture fund managers, limited partners, and founders with their journeys. This week, we have a special guest in Anubhav Srivastava, Founder and CEO of Tactyc, who saw the pain point managers were having in portfolio construction. Prior...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week on the show we’re joined by Dana Settle, Co-Founder of Greycroft. Founded in 2006, Greycroft began with a mission to invest in areas outside of Silicon Valley and specifically in NY and LA. The firm currently has over $2B in Assets Under Management, over 60 employees, and has invested in companies such as Bumble, Scopely, Plated, and Maker Studios among many...

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 joined by Shuly Galili, Founding Partner of UpWest, an early-stage firm founded in 2012 with her partner Gil Ben-Artzy to invest in seed-stage founders from Israel that are seeking to expand into the US market. UpWest has 4 funds under management and has invested in nearly 100 companies at the early stage that today have a collective market cap of over...

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 re-joined by friend of the pod Ryan Hoover who is the Managing Partner of Weekend Fund and Jordan Gonen, Co-Founder and CEO of Compound, a fintech platform that provides wealth management and advisory services to founders and employees of startups.  This was a special episode covering the growing intersection of the private wealth sector and venture capital...

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 joined by Eddy Chan, founding partner of Intudo Ventures, which employs a hyper-local strategy by backing entrepreneurs in Indonesia. With over $230M in AUM, the firm has become one of the largest Indonesia-only based firms. Eddy and I had a fun conversation on the reasons why hyper-local strategies can work, what these regions need to scale, and some of...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are officially 100 episodes in! For our 100th episode, we are joined by the founders of Better Tomorrow Ventures, also known as BTV, Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot. BTV is based in San Francisco and was founded in 2019. BTV focuses on early investing in FinTech companies, and has $300M+ in AUM. Jake and Sheel initially met at 500 startups, where Sheel worked. They are...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. We are joined by Jonathan Abrams, Co-Founder and General Partner at 8-Bit Capital. Jonathan previously was an angel investor and entrepreneur founding both Nuzzel and Friendster, the latter of which he helped grow to over 100MM users and where he met his current partner at 8-Bit, Kent Lindstrom.  Jonathan also co-founded Founders Den with Zack Bogue of DCVC in 2011, which...

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 joined by Gautam Gupta, who is the co-lead of TCV’s new expansion stage strategy called TCV Velocity. TCV was founded over 25 years ago with over $15B invested in over 350 companies. Prior to launching TCV Velocity, Gautam spent time as an investor at General Catalyst and M13, and in between those shops he was Founder and CEO of Naturebox.  Gautam brought...

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 joined by Patrick Chun, Founder and Managing Partner of Juxtapose. Based out of New York, Juxtapose can best be described as a creation-oriented investment firm that leverages expertise to launch and invest in companies. The firm currently has over $500M in AUM across its funds.  I had so much fun recording this episode as Patrick was able to offer great...

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 joined by Andrew McCormack, one of the founding partners at Fintech-focused Valar, which was founded in 2010 and has raised north of $2B. Before starting Valar, Andrew worked closely with Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital, Thiel Capital, and Paypal. Aumni is an investment analytics company dedicated to improving private capital markets. Aumni’s technology...

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 joined by Joanna Drake, co-founder of Magnify Ventures, which just completed an oversubscribed $52MM Fund I. Prior to Magnify, Joanna invested through her firm Core Ventures Group, and as part of the Broadway Angels group.  Joanna is also the co-founder of RAISE Global, the leading emerging manager summit whose mission is to accelerate the next generation...

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 excited to have Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, which since its founding in 2005 has become of the most successful early-stage funds in the world, having invested in companies such as Shopify, Canva, Opendoor, Guild, Flexport, Notion, and Plaid,  The Felicis portfolio has 45 Unicorns since it started in 2006 and Aydin is a 9-time Forbes Midas list...

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 joined by Josh Berman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of private lending firm Quid, an active funding platform that provides liquidity to shareholders of top private companies. Quid has raised $420M across two funds. Josh has been in technology for over two decades, co-founding MySpace in 2003, after which he went on to start BeachMint before moving to 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 are joined by Eric Tarczynski, Founder and Managing Partner of Contrary, a firm backed by founders of Tesla, Reddit, Facebook, Airbnb, and many more iconic companies. The firm acts as a full stack platform to identify and support entrepreneurs often before they are starting a company. Contrary has raised nearly $100MM across funds. In our discussion Eric and I...

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 joined by Rabia Iqbal and Jehan Chu of Nural Capital, which is a crypto-focused hybrid firm that invests in both crypto funds and companies. Before starting Nural, Rabia spent time at Coatue and Mubadala, while Jehan is also a partner at blockchain-focused Kenetic Capital and has been one of the early pioneers within the crypto space. Given the dynamic...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. This week brings us Mark Mullen, Co-Founding partner of LA-based seed firm Bonfire Ventures. Bonfire is based in Santa Monica and manages three Venture Capital funds with over $400MM in AUM. Mark spent 20 years as an I-banker before focusing on startup investing in 2012 with Double M capital. Mark has also been an active LP, investing in over 20 managers over 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 are joined by Ravi Viswanathan, Founder and Managing Partner of NewView Capital, a growth and secondaries focused fund founded in 2018 with over $2.2 billion under management. NVC invests in technology companies through both direct investments and curated portfolio acquisitions, pairing funding with significant operational support. Focusing primarily on...

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 are excited to be joined by Gaurav Jain, Co-Founder of Afore Capital, one of the largest pre-seed funds in the US with nearly $300MM in AUM across 3 funds. Afore says that no investment is "too early,” and very often investing in companies that are pre-product. We had a great conversation covering pre-seed investing, whether the current market...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. On today’s show, we have Shawn Merani, Founder and Managing Partner at seed-stage focused Parade Ventures which recently closed a $40MM+ oversubscribed Fund II. In this episode, we talk about the basics of LP relationship building, founder support during tough times, and his view on larger VC’s invested in seed. About Shawn Merani: Shawn Merani is the Founder and...

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 episode, we were thrilled to b joined by Jordan Nof, co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners. Jordan co-founded the firm in 2015 along with Bradley Tusk to help founders build companies in areas that require regulatory navigation and expertise. The firm recently closed a $140MM Fund III, and it has previously invested in companies including...

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. I’m excited to bring my conversation with Wesley Chan, founder and managing partner of his new fund FPV Ventures, which recently closed an oversubscribed $450M Fund 1. Wes brings a very unique lens to investing as he closely worked with the founders of Google (where founded Google Voice and Google Analytics), and went on to co-found GV before he joined Felicis Ventures....