Beezer Clarkson from Sapphire Partners joins David on El Pack to answer your questions on how to build a venture capital fund. We bring on four GPs at VC funds to ask four different questions.
Precursor Ventures’ Charles Hudson asks what is the one strongly held belief about emerging managers that she no longer believes is true.
NextView Ventures’ Stephanie Palmeri asks how much should an established firm evolve versus stick to their guns.
Humanrace Capital’s Suraj Mehta asks what the best way to build brand presence is.
Rackhouse Venture Capital’s Kevin Novak asks if you’ve deployed your capital faster than you expected, what’s the best path forward with the remaining capital you have left?
Beezer Clarkson leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Beezer began her career in financial services over 20 years ago at Morgan Stanley in its global infrastructure group. Since, she has held various direct and indirect venture investment roles, as well as operational roles in software business development at Hewlett Packard. Prior to joining Sapphire in 2012, Beezer managed the day-to-day operations of the Draper Fisher Jurvetson Global Network, which then had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide.
In 2016, Beezer led the launch of OpenLP, an effort to help foster greater understanding in the entrepreneur-to-LP tech ecosystem. Beezer earned a bachelor’s in government from Wesleyan University, where she served on the board of trustees and currently serves as an advisor to the Wesleyan Endowment Investment Committee. She is currently serving on the board of the NVCA and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
You can find Beezer on her socials here.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/beezer232
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethclarkson/
Check out Sapphire’s latest breakdown on if venture is broken: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/venture-broken-what-2000-priced-early-stage-rounds-tell-clarkson-sjvjc/
And huge thanks to Charles, Suraj, Steph, and Kevin for joining us on the show!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also watch the episode on YouTube here.
OUTLINE:
[00:00] Intro
[01:22] Where does Beezer’s advice come from?
[04:03] Charles and Precursor Ventures
[04:47] What’s something Beezer used to believe about seed stage venture that she no longer believes in
[08:04] Why did Charles choose to bet on pre-seed companies?
[10:21] What did LPs push back on when Charles was starting Precursor?
[12:18] Definition of early stage investing today
[14:38] Steph and NextView Ventures
[18:13] When do you stick your knitting or move on from the past as an established firm?
[30:48] Is venture investing in AI fundamentally different than investing in other types of companies?
[32:52] Does competition for a deal mean you’ve already lost it?
[36:09] Suraj and Humanrace Capital
[36:54] How should emerging managers build their brand?
[38:38] The audience most emerging managers don’t focus on but should
[40:39] How much does visible brand presence matter?
[43:47] Useful or not: Media exposure in the data room
[45:40] Backstreet boys
[46:37] Kevin and Rackhouse Venture Capital
[47:28] What Kevin is best known for
[48:03] Updated fund modelling when you’re ahead on your proposed deployment period
[58:00] The typical questions Beezer gets on LPACs
[1:03:22] Is venture broken?
[1:06:41] David’s favorite Beezer moment from Season 1
SELECT LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
- Sapphire Partners
- Charles Hudson
- Precursor Ventures
- Screendoor
- The Pitch podcast
- Charles Hudson’s blog: Venture Reflections
- Uncork Capital (formerly known as SoftTech VC)
- Postmates
- Poshmark
- Vungle (acquired by Blackstone)
- Shippo
- LaunchDarkly
- Manu Kumar
- Tim Connors
- Steve Anderson
- Ron Conway
- Liquid 2
- Hustle Fund
- Josh Kopelman
- First Round Capital
- South Park Commons
- Stephanie Palmeri
- NextView Ventures
- Benchmark
- Union Square Ventures
- Sequoia
- General Catalyst
- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
- “Is Venture Broken?” by Beezer Clarkson / Sapphire Partners
- Rob Go
- NextView Ventures’ blog
- Suraj Mehta
- Humanrace Capital
- RAISE Global
- Screendoor
- Bridge Funding Global
- EMC Summit
- Substack
- Origins podcast hosted by Beezer Clarkson and Nick Chirls
- OpenLP
- Backstreet Boys
- The Sphere
- Kevin Novak
- Rackhouse Venture Capital
- Uber
- Pari-passu
- Pitchbook
- QSBS (qualified small business stock)
- S1E2: “The Art and Science of VC Metrics” with Beezer Clarkson
- Peter Walker
SELECT QUOTES FROM THIS EPISODE:
“Whatever the evolution of venture is if you’re just following someone else, the odds of you doing as well as them is just harder and that is probably a truism about life.” — Beezer Clarkson
“If you’re going to get a 2X in venture over 20 years, frankly, as an LP, there are alternatives from a pure dollars in the ground perspective. But if you’re looking at trying to capture innovation, which AI is now one of the great innovations, where are you going to capture that if not playing in venture? So is venture broken is a question of who are you.” — Beezer Clarkson
“If you’re competing for the deal, you’ve already lost it.” — Beezer Clarkson
“I think the competition is more: Did I see it with enough time to build the conviction and build the relationship relative to the other people that might be coming in?” — Stephanie Palmeri
“Recycling is incredibly important, but incredibly hard to plan for, especially as early as you’re coming in, unless you’re seeing evidence of acqui-hires today and you know you’re going to have those dollars coming in. Obviously, really hard. So I would not bank your farm on that.” — Beezer Clarkson