Kelli Fontaine from Cendana Capital joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.
The Council’s Amber Illig asked what happens when a solo GP is incapacitated or passes away.
Oceans Ventures’ Steven Rosenblatt asked why most LPs follow the decision-making of other LPs.
NeuCo Academy’s Jonathan Ting asked what LPs think about GPs asking for help.
From investing in great fund managers to data to investor relations, Kelli Fontaine is a partner at Cendana Capital, a fund of funds who’s solely focused on the best pre-seed and seed funds with over 2 billion under management and includes the likes of Forerunner, Founder Collective, Lerer Hippeau, Uncork, Susa Ventures and more. Kelli comes from the world of data, and has been a founder, marketing expert, and an advisor to founders since 2010.
[00:00] Intro [01:26] Kelli’s new data discoveries [04:32] How did Kelli underwrite a manager with no LinkedIn? [06:19] Is too much data ever a problem? [08:18] Vintage year benchmarking [09:49] Telltale signs on GPs’ social profiles [10:57] Data Kelli wishes she could collect [15:59] Enter Amber and her new podcast [18:08] Amber’s background and The Council [19:08] How does Amber define top companies? [24:25] How can a solo GP set the firm up well in case they’re no longer there? [26:11] Kelli’s number one fear with solo GPs [28:30] Best practices for generational transfers [32:28] Solo GPs and their future plans [36:51] Enter Steven and Oceans [42:38] Would Kelli ever include AI summaries as part of the get-to-know-someone phase? [44:18] Why do LPs follow other LP’s decision-making? [48:43] What are the traits of an LP who is likely to have independent thinking? [51:16] Why don’t LPs talk directly with founders? [57:59] Enter Jonathan and NeuCo Academy [1:00:05] Is Kelli seeing more secondaries firms? [1:01:56] How often should GPs lean on LPs for help? [1:07:22] Are most LPs helpful? [1:12:21] What kinds of questions does Kelli get from her own GPs? [1:15:39] Kelli’s last piece of advice
“If that fund deployed over a year versus a manager of ours that deployed over four years, they’re going to look very different. So we do vintage-year benchmarking to see how their MOIC stacks up against how the revenue of companies stack up.” – Kelli Fontaine
“Team risk is the biggest risk in venture.” – Kelli Fontaine
“The same top ten firms are not the same that they were 15 years ago, and probably Silicon Valley. Generational transfer is very hard.” – Kelli Fontaine
“If you make the brand bigger than just you that it comes from DNA, support systems, things that you stand for that have had support to get there—so once that brand is made, the other team members embody that brand as well. That’s the way to do it. It’s really empowering other team members to own a part in that brand-building—outwardly and inwardly in decision-making.” – Kelli Fontaine
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
“19% of our GDP attracts about 55% of capital inflows, aka venture activity, and 81% is underinvested.” – Vijen Patel
We’re back with one of our crowd favorite formats, where we bring on one LP and one GP, and share why that LP invested in this GP. This time, we have Grady Buchanan, co-founder of NVNG, and Vijen Patel, founding partner of The 81 Collection.
Vijen Patel is an entrepreneur and investor. He founded The 81 Collection, a high growth equity firm in boring industries. Previously, he founded what is now known as Tide Cleaners. He bootstrapped what eventually became the largest dry cleaner in the country (1,200 locations) before selling to Procter & Gamble in 2018. Before Tide Cleaners, he worked in private equity, McKinsey & Company, and Goldman Sachs. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two kids.
Grady Buchanan is an institutional and risk-based asset allocation professional with a passion for bringing venture capital to those who have the interest. He founded NVNG in late 2019 and oversees investment strategies, the firm’s venture fund pipeline, manager sourcing, due diligence, and external events. Before launching NVNG, Grady worked with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) $3B investment portfolio, focused on private equity and venture capital initiatives, including fund diligence, investment strategy, and policy. Grady is based in Milwaukee, WI.
[00:00] Intro [02:41] The pressure of quitting a PE job for dry cleaning [05:09] Vijen’s self talk as a founder [06:50] How to overcome doubt [09:00] How Vijen learned customer success [10:35] What did Pressbox become? [12:41] The dichotomy between society’s needs and what gets funded [14:19] How did Grady go from selling pancakes to being an LP? [23:51] Why did Grady think he bombed the LP interview? [29:15] What is The 81 Collection? [32:22] How did Vijen meet Grady? [34:39] How is Vijen fluent in Spanish? [36:40] How did Grady meet Vijen? [42:21] How did Grady underwrite 81 Collection? [44:44] What about Vijen made Grady hesitate? [48:35] What’s one thing about 81 Collection that could’ve gone wrong? [50:33] The 3 things that create alpha [52:42] Why does NVNG have the coolest fund of funds’ names? [53:47] The legacy Grady plans to leave behind [56:06] The legacy Vijen plans to leave behind
“I wrote down everyone’s concerns, and I just sat on it. A lot of the founders we like to work with, the ones who we really love are the ones who take it in and listen, write it down, then take some time to synthesize everything and then they’ll act with conviction. ‘Why is this stupid? Tell me why. Let’s go deeper and deeper.’ And oftentimes these reasons are very rational and slowly over time, what if I derisk this by doing that?” – Vijen Patel
“19% of our GDP attracts about 55% of capital inflows, aka venture activity, and 81% is underinvested.” – Vijen Patel
“There’s this crazy stat we recall often: the 50 richest families on Earth, who often build in this 81, they’ve held, on average, their business for 44 years.” – Vijen Patel
“We invest in only amazing managers; we will not invest in every amazing manager.” – Grady Buchanan
“Alpha’s three things: information asymmetry, access, and, actually, taxes.” – Vijen Patel
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
1% GP commits have been a part of investing history for as long as most people can remember. But actually finds its origin as a vestigial part of IRS Revenue Procedures from 1974, more specifically Rev. Proc. 74-17, which stated “the interests of all the general partners, taken together in each material item of partnership income, gain, loss, deduction or credit is equal to at least one percent.”
And yes, technically, in 1989, Rev. Proc. 89-12 also created a lower bound of 0.2%. “In no event… may the general partners’ aggregate interest at any time in any material item be less than .2 percent.” But all of that was overturned in 2003.
Ever since then, the 1% GP commit has withstood the test of time.
But… I’ve always felt that to be a weird checkbox that LPs have for GPs. I get the element around incentive alignment. But why is incentive alignment a static number? If a college student is just starting a Fund I, still with student loans, and raising a $10M fund, $100K is a meaningful proportion of their net worth. Hell, they may not even have it. At the same time, a successful spinout who used to be a GP at a large established fund who’s received distributions already and raising $100M fund will likely have more than just $1M. And $1M alone is not a meaningful proportion of her/his net worth.
So, I think GP commits should be a function of a GP’s net worth, not the fund size.
I want to know that the GP is betting their career over on this next enterprise. I want to know that the GP is more motivated today than they were ever before. Even if they’ve already hit that career-defining success.
I’m looking for the fire under their belly. Why does this upcoming fund matter so much to them?
Personally, it’s not that I only choose to focus on Fund I’s and II’s. I’m open to the idea of other Roman numeral-ed funds, but I usually get the sense that the economics of commitment are misaligned with the intentions and motivations of the GP themselves.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Pattern Ventures’ John Felix joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.
Atria Ventures’ Chris Leiter asked about the common mistakes LPs make when underwriting solo GPs.
Garuda Ventures’ Arpan Punyani asked how quickly do most LPs get to conviction. First 10 minutes? First meeting?
Geek Ventures’ Ihar Mahaniok asked how LPs evaluate Fund IIs when the Fund I has no distributions.
John Felix is a General Partner and Head of Research at Pattern Ventures, a specialized fund of funds focused on backing the best small venture managers. Prior to Pattern, John served as the Head of Emerging Managers at Allocate where he was an early employee and helped to launch Allocate’s emerging manager platform. Prior to joining Allocate, John worked at Bowdoin College’s Office of Investments, helping to invest the $2.8 billion endowment across all asset classes, focusing on venture capital. Prior to Bowdoin, John worked at Edgehill Endowment Partners, a $2 billion boutique OCIO. At Edgehill, John was responsible for building out the firm’s venture capital portfolio, sourcing and leading all venture fund commitments. John started his career at Washington University’s Investment Management Company as a member of the small investment team responsible for managing the university’s now $13 billion endowment. John graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a BSBA in Finance and Entrepreneurship.
[00:00] Intro [02:20] What’s changed for John since our last recording? [04:08] What is Pattern Ventures? [06:22] Why is Pattern’s cutoff for funds they’re interested in at $50M? [07:32] How does John define noise? [09:34] Do non-sexy industries require larger seed funds? [11:36] How does think about overlap in the underlying startup portfolio? [15:22] Enter Chris and Atria Ventures [18:03] Should solo GPs scale past themselves? [24:14] Partnerships have more risk than solo GPs [26:10] How does John think about spinouts from large VC firms? [27:53] The psychology of being a partner at a big firm versus your own [30:38] Enter Arpan and Garuda Ventures [31:26] Geoguessr [32:52] Garuda’s podcast, Brick by Brick [34:52] How quickly do LPs know they intuitively want to invest in a GP? [38:02] The analogy to what GPs do to founders [43:50] There are many ways to make money [44:57] Quantifying intuition as an investor [49:12] Enter Ihar and Geek Ventures [49:36] How do LPs evaluate Fund IIs when Fund I has no DPI? [53:01] How do you know if a GP did what they said they were going to do? [54:47] What if the key value driver is off-thesis, but everything else is on-thesis? [56:21] Is signing 1 uncapped SAFE per fund reasonable? [57:14] What is the allowable percentage of exceptions in a fund? [1:01:32] Good vs bad exceptions [1:06:06] Reminders that we are in the good old days [1:07:31] John’s last piece of advice to new allocators [1:09:00] David’s favorite moment from John’s last episode
“In life, it’s always easy to justify ‘why now’ is not the right time. I think it’s hard to justify ‘why now’ is the right time to do something.” – John Felix
“We love investing in things that are contrarian and non-consensus, but there has to be a path to becoming consensus because something can’t remain non-consensus forever. There has to be a catalyst that the market eventually realizes this or else the company’s not going to be able to raise venture capital. It’s not going to be able to sustain it and continue to grow and survive.” – John Felix
“The type of spinouts we want to back are the people who are successful in spite of working at the big brand, not because they worked at the big brand.” – John Felix
“You need to earn the right to start your new firm to do your own thing. I don’t think enough people realize that.” – John Felix
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
“It’s not the probability; it’s the consequence. It’s not the probability when something goes wrong. It’s the consequence when it goes wrong.” – Wendy Li
Wendy Li is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Ivy Invest, a fintech investment platform bringing an endowment-style portfolio to everyday investors.
Before Ivy Invest, Wendy was Managing Director of Investments at the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, where she built the Investment Office from the ground up and managed a $4 billion portfolio. Prior to Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, Wendy was Director of Investments at UJA-Federation, investing across a broad range of asset classes. Wendy began her career in the Investment Office at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University and is a CFA charterholder.
[00:00] Intro [02:29] Wendy’s family’s history with Columbia University [07:55] The importance of understanding family history [11:09] Why Wendy chose to work at The Met [15:16] How did Wendy know in the interview that Lauren would be her mentor? [19:18] Specialist vs generalist in 2006 [22:58] Pros and cons of using AI as an LP [29:02] The 80-20 rule for how an LP thinks [29:29] The one mistake EVERY SINGLE LP makes [33:27] What is the Takahashi-Alexander model? [39:38] Who do you learn from when your LP institution is so small? [41:22] The wisdom of an open-sourced LP reading list [45:34] What is headline risk? [47:09] What does ‘uncompensated risk’ mean? [50:20] Why now for ‘endowment-in-a-box’ [55:07] Wendy’s proudest dish from her mom’s recipe book [57:09] Wendy’s last piece of advice
“Where [using AI] is a challenge and can present a challenge to somebody’s development is in the utilization of these tools where perhaps there’s not an innate understanding of why the data is important.” – Wendy Li
“The pattern of mistakes that I certainly made and I saw the others make—and I know those listening and are earlier in their investor journey—will inevitably make-… We all make it. Even knowing this is a trap that we all fall into… even though they are all going to be aware of this trap, they’re still going to make the same mistake because we all do it, but we all have to learn this one and develop our own scar tissue on this one. It’s the exciting investment manager that other really smart LPs are invested with that is a ‘hard-to-access’ manager – that has a window in which they will take your capital. And there’s this sense of urgency. Sometimes real, sometimes forced. And there’s this sense that all these really smart investors are doing this thing. And the added layer on the endowment foundation side is oftentimes that there’s an investment committee member who is super excited about the investment because—and I’ll use a real quote that someone once said to me, ‘It would be a trophy manager to have in the portfolio’—and that is invariably a mistake that we all make in our investment careers. I would say that when I have been regretful of avoidable mistakes, it has had that pattern.” – Wendy Li
“I deeply subscribe to, ‘There’s always another train leaving the station.’” – Wendy Li
“There’s a great risk in being overconfident. There’s a great risk in assuming a normal distribution of events and returns.” – Wendy Li
“It’s not the probability; it’s the consequence. It’s not the probability when something goes wrong. It’s the consequence when it goes wrong.” – Wendy Li
“In-the-moment decision-making is always harder than you might remember post-mortem.” – Wendy Li
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
“The revenue and economic models for groups are misaligned with how human nature functions.” – Samira Salman
Samira Salman is a generational force—a rare blend of financier, strategist, and connector—revered for her ability to move capital, catalyze ventures, and cultivate the kinds of high-trust relationships that shape industries and define legacies. With over $5.5 billion in closed transactions spanning multiple asset classes, she is not merely a dealmaker—she is a trusted consigliere to some of the world’s most sophisticated families, investors, and visionaries.
Samira is the Founder & CEO of Salman Solutions, a bespoke advisory firm, and the visionary behind Collaboration Circle, an invitation-only global ecosystem recognized by Fortune Magazine as the premier “by families, for families” platform—curating aligned capital, deal flow, and meaningful connection across generations of wealth. She also serves as Chief Operating Officer of a private single-family office, overseeing a portfolio that blends venture capital, direct investments, and multi-generational governance.
Educated as a mergers and acquisitions tax attorney, Samira’s early career at Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, KPMG, and Shell Oil laid the foundation for her structural brilliance and financial fluency. She holds an LL.M. in Taxation, a JD, and a BS in International Trade and Finance—with a minor in Economics. Her legal acumen, combined with a deep intuition for human behavior, gives her a unique edge in structuring elegant, effective solutions that drive growth, mitigate risk, and unlock hidden value.
Samira’s proprietary methodology for business growth and ecosystem development has positioned her as one of the most connected and trusted figures in private finance. Her work spans advisory mandates, capital formation, co-investment syndication, family office strategy, and the orchestration of transformational events for UHNW families and industry trailblazers. She is the rare operator who bridges worlds—money and meaning, structure and soul, intellect and instinct.
Her multicultural upbringing and global exposure across dozens of countries have imbued her with a refined sensibility, cultural fluency, and a fierce commitment to authenticity. Samira doesn’t just build businesses—she builds trust-based systems that endure. Her work is rooted in the principle that Relationships Under Management (RUM) are the new AUM—and she is the embodiment of that thesis.
A passionate advocate for women’s economic empowerment, arts and culture, and global impact, Samira has served as an Honorary Advisor to the United Nations for Social Impact Projects and the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development. She has held board roles with numerous arts, education, healthcare, and professional institutions including the Houston Ballet, Center for Contemporary Craft, and Fresh Arts.
[00:00] Intro [02:27] How did Samira find herself at TASIS? [04:17] How did TASIS feel when she first arrived? [07:27] From tax lawyer to family offices [09:55] How did Samira decide to quit being a lawyer? [17:12] Why did Samira want to be a tax lawyer? [19:44] Journaling [22:39] The blessing of a lawyer brain [25:19] The Oprah episode that changed it all [29:45] How did Salman Solutions start? [33:28] Samira’s first interaction with family offices [36:43] Show and tell with Samira’s journals and pens [41:27] What did Samira mean that most family offices fall short of raising their own capital? [42:54] What is the common family office hero arc into VC? [44:05] Family office trends that Samira’s seen [47:17] The starting point for families interested in VC [50:13] Advice to a friend who wants to invest in VC [53:31] Book, podcast and conference recommendations [55:42] How does one qualify for Collaboration Circle? [56:21] Content recommendations, continued [59:57] How Collaboration Circle started [1:06:59] The 3 pieces of Collaboration Circle [1:09:49] Community economic models and human nature misalignment [1:12:43] How to create safe environments [1:18:02] The Dior bag tradition [1:21:20] Reminders that we’re in the good old days
“The very first thing everybody has to do is give themselves permission to lean into what they are interested in and what does it for them and what they understand and what they have an affinity for, regardless of what everybody else says you should be doing.” – Samira Salman
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
“The revenue and economic models for groups are misaligned with how human nature functions.” – Samira Salman
“Numbers and volume are not what programs humans to feel safe and to be authentic and to create. In order for us to do our best work and be our most thoughtful, our most creative, we have to be fully dropped down into our bodies and safe in our nervous systems. And some of the environments our industry has curated are literally the exact opposite of that.” – Samira Salman
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Let me caveat that there is no right answer. The purpose of me sharing the below is not to convince you one way or another. Literally, just food-for-thought. Maybe it’ll inspire new perspectives you may not have considered before.
The below is a collection of thoughts I’ve heard from LPs in the last few weeks. Some may conflict with others listed below.
If anyone uses the word “largest” or “biggest” in their event description, the event is automatically ignored. The pursuit towards quantity maximization leads to the perception of quality minimization.
The sourcing of every select deal in the data room / pitch deck seems to triangulate around:
(a) I knew this founder for a long time
(b) I used to work with this founder
(c) The VC who’s leading this round is someone I used to work with / knew for a long time
Yes, there are others. But the majority of featured deals seems to fall in the above 3 buckets. Relationships are king. Even for hot rounds Series A and before, founders seem to be only letting in people they know.
Lots of discussion threads floating around with GPs asking their LP base if they should do a hot, exclusive deal that’s off-thesis (ie valuation and off-sector are the primary reasons). Of those who are doing these off-thesis deals, building a plan on when to sell seems to be a prescient conversation. Doesn’t happen all the time, but more than once.
A surprising number of LPs I meet (mostly US based) know what MCP is + named seed deals. AI is what everyone’s talking about even for non-VC-focused LPs. Or maybe I shouldn’t be surprised ’cause my parents who’s not in tech ask me about AI deals too.
AI sentience is a thought that is hovering around. Also large acqui-hires. LPs have started putting together a bingo card of names of who will be the next VP AI / Chief AI Officer at a Fortune 100 co.
Past DPI doesn’t matter in underwriting EMs. Early DPI also doesn’t matter. VC is a power law business where the majority of returns are generated in years 9-15. Funds are also underwritten to be 15 years. “If you’re investing in VC and want early DPI, you’re in the wrong asset class.” Note: Funnily enough, am in some group chats where there are some really heated debates on early DPI and DPI at fund term. No right answer.
Families who invest in EMs invest in outliers. Most decks look the same. Problem/market opportunity. Fund strategy. Track record. A few testimonials. Etc. If you want to stand out, your deck has to look different from every other one. Very different. Note: I know many fund of funds, endowments, pensions would prefer the exact audience. All in all, know your audience.
Your job as a GP is to find a needle in a haystack. And if that’s the JD, bring a magnet. What do you do/stand for that attracts great founders to come to you? How are you spending time fishing and farming, instead of hunting?
Don’t underestimate the value families can offer you and your portfolio. LP relationships, potential customers, G1 offering advice on how they built an enduring business, etc.
Organic wisdomis learned through experience. Synthetic wisdom is learned through “textbooks” — reading, podcasts, books, blogposts, conversations on other people’s experience, and theoretical discussions. When shit hits the fan, the one with organic wisdom reacts faster and more acutely. Those who have only gained synthetic wisdom either are slow to react or forget to react properly in stressful situations altogether. Naturally, investors often prefer to invest in people with organic wisdom.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost). Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
The entire Screendoor team joins me on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.
Kyber Knight Capital’s Linus Liang asked about why LPs choose to bet on new managers as opposed to investing in more established funds.
NOMO Ventures’ Kate Rohacz asked about what parts of venture do LPs think is most opaque.
Articulate’s Helen Min asked if every emerging manager should scale into a larger firm.
The Screendoor team is a powerhouse of experienced LPs, bringing together institutional investment experience that spans over a decade. Lisa Cawley, Layne Johnson, and Jamie Rhode have each built institutional venture programs within innovative family offices, financial institutions, and pensions. They have invested in venture capital across stages, sectors, and geographies, and in particular are known as a go-to for emerging managers.
Lisa Cawley is the Managing Director of Screendoor. Previously, Lisa worked with a private multi-billion-dollar global investment firm where she was involved in all aspects of managing the firm’s private market portfolio, including sourcing and manager due diligence, asset allocation and forecasting, and creating and implementing the firm’s investment data tools and analytics. Lisa started her career at Ernst & Young, where she served on private equity, venture capital, and public CPG clients. Lisa earned an MBA and an MSF from Loyola University Maryland, and she obtained a BBA in Accounting with a double minor in Information Systems and Spanish from Loyola University Maryland. She is a CFA Charterholder and holds a CPA.
Layne Johnson is a Partner at Screendoor. Previously, she led the Venture & Growth Equity manager selection effort at the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (“TRS”). At TRS, Layne was responsible for setting the venture capital strategy, including portfolio construction, new manager sourcing and diligence, and increasing exposure to emerging venture managers. She had previously been at Goldman Sachs, since 2012, in the External Investing Group (“XIG”), based out of the New York and San Francisco offices. At GS, Layne initially worked on the hedge fund manager selection team and then moved over to the private side of the business to focus on technology and venture manager selection and secondaries. She also helped lead the Launch with GS Program, including sourcing, investing in, and building portfolios of diverse managers. Layne holds a BA in History from Yale University and currently serves on the St. David’s Foundation Investment Committee.
Jamie Rhode is a Partner at Screendoor. She previously spent 8 years at Verdis Investment Management, an institutional single family office that manages capital for generations 7 through 10. At Verdis, Jamie focused on venture capital, private equity, and hedge fund investment sourcing and diligence. Using a data-driven approach, she helped revamp the asset allocation strategy and rebuild these portfolios. Specifically, through Verdis’s first institutional venture fund program, Jamie played an integral role in shifting the portfolio’s exposure from multi-stage to emerging managers and early-stage VC. Prior to Verdis, she spent four years at Bloomberg, where she held roles in both equity research and credit analysis. There, she created, managed and leveraged an extensive library of statutory, financial and market data for buy and sell-side clients who use Bloomberg to make investment decisions. A licensed Chartered Financial Analyst, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Finance and Marketing from Drexel University’s College of Business Administration.
[00:00] Intro [05:58] Enter Linus and Kyber Knight Capital [10:06] Why take the risk of betting on an emerging manager? [18:40] The types of pushback Linus got when he was fundraising [19:47] The incentives of an LP when investing in VC [21:49] How do GPs ask LPs how they’re compensated? [24:47] Enter Kate and NOMO Ventures [28:31] What part of venture is most opaque? [38:18] The things venture LPs look at beyond the metrics [43:47] “Bad” advice from LPs [46:27] Enter Helen [46:48] Helen’s new podcast, Great Chat [49:34] What is Articulate? [52:43] Should emerging funds scale? [1:00:47] How often do GPs say they want to scale [1:03:03] Layne’s advice for GPs [1:03:39] Jamie’s advice for LPs [1:04:55] Lisa’s advice for LPs and GPs [1:07:35] David’s favorite moment from Jamie’s episode [1:09:53] David’s favorite moment from Lisa’s episode
“My original intention was never to target emerging managers. My intention was actually to target funds that were the first institutional check into a startup because I was looking for a way to compound capital at an extremely high rate. And that just led me to backing emerging managers because finding a fund that was willing to invest at the pre-seed/seed consistently over a very long term either meant by the time they had a track record that underwritable with DPI, I couldn’t get in or they were an established manager that was slowly creeping up into bigger and bigger fund size so they were closer to Series A and Series B. What I ended up realizing is to go access that part of the market, I had to do emerging managers.” – Jamie Rhode
“A lot of what we do in underwriting is backward-looking, but really in VC, you want to be forward-looking. So it’s really important to be taking in those datapoints, but if you’re making a majority of your decision on those backward-looking datapoints, I would argue that you’re probably missing the mark when it comes to emerging managers. You actually want to be asking how do I know this firm–this team–is still going to have an edge in, inevitably, what would be a new market environment. There are going to be new competitive forces. There are going to be new technologies–new innovation. New at every level.” – Lisa Cawley
“I’m a firm believer that if you are waiting to see the proof smack you in the face, you’re actually not participating in the proof. You’re not getting that performance. You’re not getting those returns. You’re sitting and you’re waiting. And by the way, everyone else is doing the same thing, so you’re competing against them. Just because someone can identify that’s a great brand at that point, it doesn’t mean just because you have capital, you can get access.” – Lisa Cawley
“Don’t get swayed by capital.” – Jamie Rhode
“You can’t be all things to all people.” – Lisa Cawley
“Scaling is not synonymous with increasing fund size. To me, scaling means you’re increasing in sophistication. You’re increasing in focus. And that’s really a sign of maturity and fund size is a byproduct of that.” – Lisa Cawley
“GP-market fit is so crucial and you want to make sure you’re setting yourself up for success by being able to shine in what you’re best at and what your background and experiences set you up for as well.” – Layne Johnson
“Speed to fundraise does not always equate to a strong investor.” – Lisa Cawley
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
You know that feeling when you enjoy something so much, you have to do it again. That’s exactly what happened with my buddy Ben Ehrlich. There’s a line I really like by the amazing Penn and Teller. “Magic is just spending more time on a trick that anyone would ever expect to be worth it.”
Ben is exactly that. He’s a magician with how he thinks about underwriting, arguably, the riskiest class of emerging managers. This piece originated opportunistically from another series of intellectual sparring matches between the two of us. Both learning the lens of how the other thinks. It was pure joy to be able to put this piece together, just like our last. Selfishly, hopefully, two of many more.
You can find the same blogpost under his blog, which I highly recommend also checking out.
Venture is a game of outliers. We invest in outlier managers, who invest in outlier companies, capitalizing on outlier opportunities.
Angel investments have excelled at catching and generating outlier outcomes. However, in recent years, angel checks are not just a critical piece of the capital stack for startups, they are also a way where amazing people can learn and grow into spectacular investors. In the past 20 years, angel activity has gone from a niche subsection, to a robust industry with angel groups all over the world, and the emergence of platforms to facilitate their growth.
As LPs, we see this every day. A common story that we diligence is the angel turned institutional VC. This process is what allows aspiring GPs who come from all walks of life, with often quite esoteric track records, to raise funds and prove they can be exceptional venture capitalists. These people are often the outliers at the fund level. The non-obvious investors who are taking their angel investing experience and turning it into elite cornerstones of the venture ecosystem. For example:
Arthur Rock, having done a few years of angel investments, goes to raise his first $5M fund that returns $90M in 1968. Then goes on to invest $2.5M for 50% of the company two guys with no business plan started. By the way, that became Intel.
Each of these angels-turned-investors returned their earliest believers many times over. And these are far from the only examples.
So, as an allocator, it is logical to want to pattern match to the angel investor turned GP as a way to assess how good a manager might be in building their firm. However, with more venture firms than there have ever been, and more ways to access angel-investing, differentiating signal from noise has never been harder. The hardest being where the track record is too young, too limited, and there’s not enough to go on. So it begs the question: How the hell do you underwrite an angel track record that’s still in its infancy?
The simple answer is you don’t. At least not completely. You look for other clues. Telltale signs.
So, our hope with this piece is to share what we each look for – most of which is beyond the numbers. The beauty of this piece is that even while writing it, Ben and David have learned from each other Socratically on how to better underwrite managers. This is one that can be pretty controversial, and we don’t agree on everything. So, let us know what you think….
Understanding the returns
Every pitch deck we look at has a track record slide. Usually this is some amalgamation of previous funds (if they have any), advisor relationships, and angel investing track record. Angel investing track record is usually the largest number in terms of TVPI or IRR. However it also has the least clear implications, so we need to be careful in understanding what it means. Here are the steps we take in understanding the track record.
Step 1: Filtering the Track Record
First, we get aggressive with filtering the track record the GP shows you. Not the select investments track record on the deck, but the entire track record including advisor shares, SPVs, funds, and any other equity stake. We do this as angel track records are usually the result of opportunistic or inbound access over a long period of time. The companies in their angel portfolio don’t necessarily relate to their thesis or plan for their fund. So cutting the data by asset type and starting with thesis vs off thesis investments is a helpful starting point.
Next, it’s helpful to understand the timeframe. Funds have fixed lifespans1, and strict deployment time periods, which we call vintages. In order to understand the performance, we break down the time periods of their investments including entry date, exit date, values relative to median at that time, and average hold period. Naturally, also, we do note entry valuation, entry round, exit valuation, and ideally if they have it price per share. Having the afore-mentioned will help you filter returns, especially if a GP is pitching you a pre-seed/seed fund, but the bulk of their returns come from one company they got into at the Series B.
Lastly, it’s helpful to group investments into quartiles. Without sounding like a broken record, it’s important to remember that venture is fundamentally outlier-driven. Grouping the investments, understanding them at the company specific level vs aggregate is critical to the next phase, which is understanding the drivers of the track record.
Also, it’s important to note that some vintages will perform better than others. And as an LP, it’s important to consider vintage diversification (since no one can time the market) and what the public market equivalent is. For a number of vintages, even top-quartile venture underperforms the QQQ, SPY, and NASDAQ. A longer discussion for another post. Cash, or a low-cost index is just as valid of a position as a venture fund.
Step 2: Understanding the Drivers
Once you have broken down the data, we want to understand the real drivers behind the returns from the track record. We tend to start by asking these questions:
Are there other outliers in the off-thesis investments?
What are the most successful on-thesis investments?
Has any money actually been delivered, or is it entirely paper markups?
For the on-thesis investments that returned less than 10X the check size, what did this individual learn? How will that impact how this GP makes decisions going forward?
How much of a GP’s track record is attributed to luck?
And simply, do the founders in the GP’s supposed track record even know that the GP exists?4
With respect to the second-to-last question, if their on-thesis track record has more than 10 investments, we take out the top performer and the bottom performer, is their MOIC still interesting enough? While there is no consistency of returns in venture, it gives a good sense of how much luck impacts the GP’s portfolio.
The last question is extremely prescient, since the goal of a GP trying to build an institution – a platform – is that they need the surface area for serendipity to stick to compound. Yesterday’s source of deal flow needs to be worse than today’s. And today’s should be eclipsed by tomorrow’s. As LPs, we want the GPs to be intimately involved in the success of their outliers not because attribution of value add matters, but because great companies bring together great teams. Great teams aggregate and spawn other ambitious people. Ambitious people will often leave to start new ventures. And we want the GP to be the first call. More on that in the next section.
Step 3: Transferability to a Fund
Lastly, the analysis will need to shift from purely quantitative to qualitative guided by the quantitative. We are moving from the realm of backward-looking data, into forward projection. The main question here is how do all the data points we have point to the success of the fund and the differences in running a fund versus an angel portfolio such as:
Fixed deployment periods
Weighted portfolio risks
Correlation risk between underlying portfolio companies
Information rights and regulatory requirements
Angel check size vs fund’s target check size
One heuristic that we use is that of finding the “hyper learner.” The idea is basically, how fast is this person growing, learning and adding it into their decision-making around investing. Do they have real time feedback loops that influence their process, and can they take those feedback loops to the next level with their fund? Essentially, understanding that what matters with emerging VCs is the slope, not y-intercept, so can you see how their decisions will get better?
While everyone learns differently, some of the useful thought experiments to go through include:
What is the GP’s information diet? Where are they consuming information through channels not well-documented or read by their peers?
How are they consuming and synthesizing information in ways others are not?
How does each iteration of their pitch deck vary between themselves?5
Do you learn something new every conversation you have with the GP?
Overall, this is more a bet on the person learning how to be a great fund manager, and can’t all drive from just pure angel investing track record.
The details the numbers can’t tell you:
“We spend all our time talking about attributes because we can easily measure them. ‘Therefore, this is all that matters.’ And that’s a lie. It’s important but it’s partial truth.” — Jony Ive
Angel track records can point to how serious the potential GP is about the business of investing. At the same time, there are factors outside of raw numbers that also offer perspective to how fund-ready a GP is. Looking through the details, it is important to ask in the lead-up to making the decision to run a fund, how have they spent their time meaningfully? For example:
What advisory roles have they taken? What impact did they deliver in each? For those companies and firms, who else was in the running? And why did they ultimately go with this individual?
Have they taken independent board seats? Why? What was the relationship of the founder and board member prior to the official role?
If they’re a venture partner or advisor to another VC firm, what is their role in that firm? When do they get a call from the GPs or partners of that firm?
Is the angel/advisor part of non-redundant, unique networks?
Does the angel/advisor have a unique knowledge arbitrage that founders want access to?
Does the GP’s skillset match the strategy they’re proposing?
Money isn’t the only valuable asset. Time, effort, experience, and network are others. Especially if an angel has little capital to deploy (i.e. tied up in company stock, younger in their career, saving up for a life-impacting major purchase like a house), the others are leading indicators to how a network may compound for the angel-turned-GP over time.
Anti-portfolio
Lastly, one of the hardest parts of understanding angel investing track record is the anti-portfolio as popularized by BVP. As picking is such an important aspect of a GP’s job, understanding how the person has previously made investment decisions based on the opportunities they are pursuing and what they missed out on is critical.
The stopwatch really starts counting when the angel decides that she wants to be a full-time investor one day. The truth is no third party will really know when that ticker starts, outside of the GP’s own words. And maybe her immediate friends and family. While helpful to reference check, it’s her words against her own.
Instead, we find their first angel check or their first advisory role as a proxy for that data point. The outcome of that check isn’t important. The rationale behind that check also matters less than the memos of the more recent checks. Nevertheless, it is helpful to understand how much the GP has grown.
But what’s more helpful is to come up with a list of anti-portfolio companies. Companies within the investor’s thesis that rose to prominence during the time when that individual started to deploy. And within good reason, that individual may have come across during their time angel investing or advising. In particular, if the angel has not been able to be in the pre-seed. More often than not, folks investing in that round are friends and family. If they are in the seed round, the questions that pop up are:
Did she not see it?
Did she not pick it?
Or, did she not win it?
For the latter two questions, how much has she changed the way she invests based on those decisions? And are those adjustments to decision-making scalable to a firm? In other words, how much will that scar tissue impact how she trains other team members to identify great companies?
Contradictions
One of the most important truths in venture is that to deliver exceptional returns, you have to be non-consensus and right. This ultimately derives from someone being contradictory, with purpose throughout their life.
There is beauty in the resume and the LinkedIn profile. But it often only offers a snapshot into a person’s career, much less their life. So we usually spend the first meeting only on the GP’s life. Where did she grow up? How did she choose her extracurriculars? Why the college she chose? Why the career? Why the different career inflection points?
We look for contradictions. What does this GP end up choosing that the normal, rational person would not? And why?
More importantly, is there any part of their past the GP does not want us to know? Why? How will that piece of hidden knowledge affect how she makes decisions going forward?
Naturally, to have such a dialogue, the LP, who more often than not are in a position of power in that exchange, needs to create a safe, non-judgmental space. Failure to do so will prevent candid discussions.
In Closing
It is extremely easy to over-intellectualize this exercise. There are always going to be more unknowns to you, as an LP, than there are knowns. Your goal isn’t to uncover everything. Your time may be better spent investing in other asset classes, if that’s the case. Your goal, at least with respect to underwriting emerging managers, is to find the minimum number of risks you can stomach before having the conviction to make an investment decision.
And if you’re not sure where to start with evaluating risks, the last piece (Ben’s blog, cross-posted on this blog) we wrote together on the many risks of investing in emerging managers may be a good starting point.
We are choosing to ignore evergreen funds for the purpose of this article, but we know they exist. ↩︎
Beware of GPs who count SAFEs as mark ups. While we do believe most aren’t doing so with deception in mind, many GPs are just not experienced enough in venture to know that only priced rounds count as marks. ↩︎
Separately, is the GP holding 2020-early 2022 marks at the last round valuation (LRV)? Most companies that raised during that time are not worth anything near their peak. Are they also discounting any revenue multiples north of 10-20X? How a GP thinks here will help you differentiate between who’s an investor and who’s a fund manager. ↩︎
This may seem callous, but we have come across the instance multiple times where an aspiring GP over states (or in one case, lied) their position on the cap table. Founder reference checks are a must! ↩︎
David sometimes asks GPs to send every version of their current fund’s pitch deck to him, as an indicator on how the GP’s thinking has evolved over time. Even better if they’re on a Fund II+ because you can see earlier funds’ pitches. Shoutout to Eric Friedman who first inspired David to do this. ↩︎
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
Ahoy Capital’s founder, Chris Douvos, joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on three GPs at VC funds to ask three different questions.
Pachamama Ventures’ Karen Sheffield asked about how GPs should think about when and how to sell secondaries.
Mangusta Capital’s Kevin Jiang asked about how GPs should think about staying top of mind with LPs between fundraises.
Stellar Ventures’ David Anderman asked Chris about GPs who start to specialize in different stages of investment compared to their previous funds.
Chris Douvos founded Ahoy Capital in 2018 to build an intentionally right-sized firm that could pursue investment excellence while prizing a spirit of partnership with all of its constituencies. A pioneering investor in the micro-VC movement, Chris has been a fixture in venture capital for nearly two decades. Prior to Ahoy Capital, Chris spearheaded investment efforts at Venture Investment Associates, and The Investment Fund for Foundations. He learned the craft of illiquid investing at Princeton University’s endowment. Chris earned his B.A. with Distinction from Yale College in 1994 and an M.B.A. from Yale School of Management in 2001.
[00:00] Intro [01:03] The facade of tough times [05:03] The last time Chris hugged someone [06:53] The art (and science?) of a good hug [08:32] How does Chris start his quarterly letters? [10:35] Quotes, writing, and AI [15:13] Venture is dead. Why? [17:33] But… why is venture still exciting? [21:13] Enter Karen Sheffield [21:48] The never-to-be-aired episode with Chris and Beezer [22:55] Karen and Pachamama Ventures [24:19] The third iteration of climate tech vocabulary [26:55] How should GPs think about secondaries? [33:53] Where can GPs go to learn more about when to sell? [36:53] Are secondary transactions actually happening or is it bluff? [38:44] “Entrepreneurship is like a gas, hottest when compressed” [42:26] Enter Kevin Jiang and Mangusta Capital [44:21] The significance of the mongoose [46:36] How do LPs like to stay updated on a GP’s progress? [59:35] How does a GP show an LP they’re in it for the long run? [1:03:57] David’s Anderman part of the Superclusters story [1:05:41] David Anderman’s gripe about the name Boom [1:06:31] Enter David Anderman and Stellar Ventures [1:10:21] What do LPs think of GPs expanding their thesis for later-stage rounds? [1:21:43] Why not invest all of your private portfolio in buyout funds [1:25:48] Good answers to why didn’t things work out [1:28:13] Chris’ one last piece of advice [1:35:18] My favorite clip from Chris’ first episode on Superclusters
“Every letter seems to say portfolios have ‘limited exposure to tariffs.’ The reality is we’re seeing potentially the breakdown of the entire post-war Bretton Woods system. And that’s going to have radical impacts on everything across the entire economy. So to say ‘we have limited exposure to tariffs’ is one thing, but what they really are saying is ‘we don’t understand the exposure we have to the broader economy as a whole.’” – Chris Douvos
“Everybody is always trying to put the best spin on quarterly results. I love how every single letter I get starts: ‘We are pleased to share our quarterly letter.’ I write my own quarterly letters. Sometimes I’m not pleased to share them. All of my funds – I love them like my children – equally but differently. There’s one that’s keeping me up a lot at night. Man, I’m not pleased to share anything about that fund, but I have to.” – Chris Douvos
“There’s ups and downs. We live in a business of failure. Ted Williams once said, ‘Baseball is the only human endeavor where being successful three times out of ten can get you to the Hall of Fame.’ If you think about venture, it’s such a power law business that if you were successful three times out of ten, you’d be a radical hero.” – Chris Douvos
“Tim Berners-Lee’s outset of the internet talked about the change from the static web to the social web to the semantic web. Each iteration of the web has three layers: the compute layer, an interaction layer, and a data layer.” – Chris Douvos
“Venture doesn’t know the train that’s headed down the tracks to hit it. Every investor I talk to—and I talk mostly to endowments and foundations—is thinking about how to shorten the duration of their portfolio. People have too many long-dated way-out-of-the-money options, and quite frankly, they haven’t, at least in recent memory, been appropriately compensated for taking those long-term bets.” – Chris Douvos
“Entrepreneurship is like a gas. It’s the hottest when it’s compressed.” – Chris Douvos
On communication with LPs, “come with curiosity, not sales.” – Chris Douvos
“Process drives repeatability.” – Andy Weissman
“The worst time to figure out who you’re going to marry is when you’re buying flowers and setting the menu. Most funds that are raising now, especially if it’s to institutional investors—we’re getting to know you for Fund n plus one.” – Chris Douvos
On frequent GP/LP checkins… “Too many calls I get on, it’s a re-hash of what the strategy is. Assume if I’m taking the call, I actually spent five minutes reminding myself of who you are and what you do.” – Chris Douvos
“One thing I hate is when I meet with someone, they tell me about A, B, and C. And then the next time I meet with them, it’s companies D, E, and F. ‘What happened to A, B, and C?’ So I’ve told people, ‘Hey, we’re having serious conversations. Help me understand the arc.’ As LPs, we get snapshots in time, but what I want is enough snapshots of the whole scene to create a movie of you, like one of those picturebooks that you can flip. I want to see the evolution. I want to know about the hypotheses that didn’t work.” – Chris Douvos
“We invest in funds as LPs that last twice as long as the average American marriage.” – Chris Douvos
“The typical vest in Silicon Valley is four years. He says, ‘Think about how long you want to work. Think about how old you are now and divide that period by four. That’s the number of shots on goal you’re going to have to create intergenerational wealth.’ When you actually do that, it’s actually not very many shots. ‘So I want to know, is this the opportunity that you want to spend the next four years on building that option value?’” – Chris Douvos, quoting Stewart Alsop
When underwriting passion… “So you start with the null hypothesis that this person is a dilettante or tourist. What you try to do when you try to understand their behavioral footprint is you try to understand their passion. Some people are builders for the sake of building and get their psychic income from the communities they build while building.” – Chris Douvos
“There’s pre-spreadsheet and post-spreadsheet investing. For me, it’s a very different risk-adjusted return footprint because once you are post-spreadsheet—you talk about B and C rounds, companies have product-market fit, they’re moving to traction—that’s very different and analyzable. In my personal opinion, that’s ‘super beta venture.’ Like it’s just public market super beta. Whereas pre-spreadsheet is Adam and God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with their fingers almost touching. You can feel the electricity. […] That’s pure alpha. I think the purest alpha left in the investing markets. But alpha can have a negative sign in front of it. That’s the game we play.” – Chris Douvos
“Strategy is an integrated set of choices that inform timely action.” – Michael Porter
“I’m not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus. He either lives in your heart or he doesn’t.” – Don Draper in Mad Men
“If there are 4000 people investing and people are generally on a 2-year cycle, that means in any given year, there are 2000 funds. And the top quartile fund is 500th. I don’t want to invest in the 50th best fund, much less the 500th. But that’s tyranny of the relativists. Why do we care if our portfolio is top quartile if we’re not keeping up with the opportunity cost of equity capital of the public markets?” – Chris Douvos
“In venture, the top three funds matter. Probably the top three funds will be Sequoia, Kleiner, and whoever gets lucky or whoever is in the right industry when that industry gets hot.” – Michael Moritz in 2002
Stay up to date with the weekly cup of cognitive adventures inside venture capital and startups, as well as cataloging the history of tomorrow through the bookmarks of yesterday!
The views expressed on this blogpost are for informational purposes only. None of the views expressed herein constitute legal, investment, business, or tax advice. Any allusions or references to funds or companies are for illustrative purposes only, and should not be relied upon as investment recommendations. Consult a professional investment advisor prior to making any investment decisions.
