Joanna Rupp, Managing Director of Private Equity at the University of Chicago, sits down with Nick & Beezer to shine a light on the often opaque world of endowments, including what separates an endowment from a foundation, how they consider small funds v. big funds and the fallout from an avalanche of capital being thrown at VCs. Then (announcement!) Joanna and Beezer evaluate Nick’s new venture fund - the key pieces of diligence, what he needs to prove in the next few years for another investment, how to build a relationship with his LPs, and more. Learn more about Sapphire Partners: htt ..read more

Nick and Beezer sit down with Frank Rotman, a founding partner and CIO at QED Investors to talk about his early days as the chief credit officer of Capital One, the fundamental flaw in the way founders and investors have been funding startups, the purpose associates serve and how those associates can better their skills, and how VCs can avoid being left in the exhaust of larger firms. Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners/ Learn more about Notation Capital: https://notation.vc/ Visit QED Investors’ website: https://www.qedinvestors.com/ Read Frank R ..read more

In the first Origins episode of the year, ⁠Nick Chirls⁠ (Notation Capital) and ⁠Beezer Clarkson⁠ (Sapphire Partners) host Scott Kupor, a Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. In his role as managing partner, Scott invests in growth-stage companies building in the bio and healthcare industries, manages the firm’s investor relations team, and is responsible for the firm’s growth initiatives.  Scott was the first employee at Andreessen Horowitz and managed the firm’s growth from $300 million in AUM to more than $30 billion. Prior to joining the firm, Scott worked as vice president and gen ..read more

In the last Origins episode of the year, Nick Chirls (Notation Capital) and Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners) host David Clark, Investment Director at VenCap International plc. With nearly four decades of experience in investing, David has backed some of the most established VC funds across the US, Europe, China and India and shares historical figures on where to find performance in venture. David recently uncovered 30 years of data from 400+ funds with 15,000+ underlying portfolio companies and found that 50% of VC investments don’t actually return capital. So how does an LP unlock performa ..read more

In this episode of Origins, Nicholas Chirls (Notation) and Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners) host Ed Sim, founder of Boldstart and Seyonne Kang, Partner at StepStone. Ed is the founder of boldstart ventures, a day-one partner and true believer for developer first, enterprise infra, & SaaS founders. He is currently a board member/observer of Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer (sold to Meta), BigID, Protect AI, Env0, among many others. Seyonne is a member of the private equity team, focusing on venture capital and growth equity investments. Prior to StepStone, she was a partner with Greenspring A ..read more

Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners and Nick Chirls of Notation host Adam Valkin, Managing Director of General Catalyst at their NYC office. Adam Valkin is a Managing Director at General Catalyst. Adam leads the firm's global early-stage practice and co-led its international expansion. He has been at GC for over ten years after joining the firm from Accel London. He has a uniquely global perspective on venture and entrepreneurship and has experience as both an operator and investor.  In this episode, we cover a variety of topics, including how founders and VCs can navigate difficult ..read more

Melissa Lucas currently serves as the CIO for the investment vehicles of two extended families. She has decades of experience handling the unique investment needs of extended families, and investing across asset classes from venture capital to credit to equities. Prior to her work for families, she spent nearly a decade working at several subsidiaries of The Capital Group – first, as an investment analyst of, and later, as an investor in, the healthcare and chemical industries. In this episode we dive into topics such as where venture fits into her portfolios, the current state of the market a ..read more

Origins is a podcast about the VC and LP ecosystem, co-hosted by Nick Chirls of Notation and Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners. We're joined by our guest Beth Ferreira, a Partner at FirstMark focused on seed and Series A investing in a broad range of consumer companies, including next-generation commerce, consumer tech, and mobile startups. Prior to FirstMark, Beth was the Managing Partner of WME Ventures, was Chief Operating Officer at Fab and ran operations in the early days of Etsy. In this episode, we do a deep dive on the current state of the series A market, including what founders ne ..read more

Origins is a podcast about the VC and LP ecosystem, co-hosted by Nick Chirls of Notation and Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners. In this episode, we are joined by Atul Rustgi, managing partner of Accolade Partners, a top-performing venture capital, growth equity, and blockchain fund of funds. Prior to joining Accolade in 2007, Atul worked at McKinsey & Co., a leading strategy consulting firm, where he advised senior management on issues of strategy, organization, technology and operations. Before McKinsey, Atul worked at the Robin Hood Foundation, a venture philanthropy that funds a ..read more

Origins is a podcast about the VC and LP ecosystem, co-hosted by Nick Chirls of Notation and Beezer Clarkson of Sapphire Partners. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Lan Xuezhao, founder and managing partner of Basis Set Ventures, an AI-focused seed firm based in SF. Lan is among the earliest investors in companies such as Scale AI, Quince, Path Robotics, Workstream, and Ergeon. She built and led the Corporate Development Strategy team at Dropbox during its most acquisitive time. She studied the human brain for her Ph.D and received an M.A. in Statistics, both from the University of Michiga ..read more