“It’s a mathematical reality that the highest performing GPs in this part of the market often also have the highest kill rates, which means some things are incredible and other things are super wonky and you have to be cool with that. You can’t be doing a six across the board.” — Caroline Toch Docal
Caroline Toch Docal backs early stage fund managers as the lead of BCV’s Emerging Manager Program. She believes in investing in funds as early as the first close, which is a rare focus in the LP landscape. She’s a lifelong early stage enthusiast from her time at Venture for America to Techstars to Chief to Dorm Room Fund to now Bain Capital Ventures, where she runs the emerging manager program there which has seen quite the evolution since 2017.
You can find Caroline on her socials here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinetoch/
X / Twitter: https://x.com/carolinetoch
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[01:33] BCV Emerge
[02:30] The 13-year summer camp experience
[07:46] From VC to LP
[09:50] Compare/contrast early stage investing to emerging GP investing
[12:51] Behind the scenes of Caroline chose to become an LP
[14:36] Caroline’s first investment
[16:24] What is a GP-friendly diligence process?
[21:27] How Caroline pre-qualifies an investment?
[24:50] Understanding if a GP REALLY believes VC is their life’s work
[26:25] Examples of long-term language
[31:05] The 3 Acts of BCV’s Emerging Manager program
[36:44] What the hell is BGH?
[38:03] Stand up comedy
[39:20] Dogs vs cats
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Bain Capital Ventures
- BCV Labs
- Venture for America
- Techstars
- Chief
- Dorm Room Fund
- Cotogna
- Campfire Circle
- Burning Man
- Andrew Yang
- First Round Capital
- Molly Fowler
- Marc Andreessen
- Marc Andreessen on how VC is like a sushi boat
- Sarah Smith
- Sarah Smith Fund
- Mercor
- Chutes and Ladders (Snakes and Ladders)
- Monopoly
- Amit Bhatti
- Salil Deshpande
- Uncorrelated Ventures
- Zeeza Cole
- StraightioLab
- George Civeris
- Sam Taggart
- Conan Needs a Friend
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“One of the things that’s not really talked about in this part of the asset class is everything looks pretty good until you see a lot of stuff.” — Caroline Toch Docal
“Sometimes people use the referencing phase to get to know people they’d want to meet. I don’t believe that is necessarily the most GP-friendly thing to do.” — Caroline Toch Docal
“It’s a mathematical reality that the highest performing GPs in this part of the market often also have the highest kill rates, which means some things are incredible and other things are super wonky and you have to be cool with that. You can’t be doing a six across the board.” — Caroline Toch Docal
An example ‘long-term language’: “They don’t celebrate fundraising; they celebrate outcomes.” — Caroline Toch Docal
“The average anchor check for a $10-25M fund today is $4.2M. In 2017 when we started, it was less than $3M. So that’s a huge change. Related, the LP base is just concentrating. Using that same size as a benchmark, they have 25% fewer LPs than in 2020.” — Caroline Toch Docal