The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
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Most venture capital firms are stress-testing the technology and hard-hitting questions about what "tomorrow" may look like. Here's their real-time take.
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
4M ago
"I firmly believe that for-profit technology companies stand the best chance of solving many of the world’s toughest problems and venture lets me be a part of that process."
Amy is a Partner at Costanoa Ventures where she focuses primarily on fintech. In addition to deepening the firm’s fintech portfolio in the US, Amy has driven the firm’s expansion into emerging markets, specifically into Latin America and Africa. Her primary focus is on seed and series A stage B2B fintech companies, which encompass everything from fintech infrastructure to payments to application-layer tools. She has led m ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
5M ago
Ben Lerer is a Managing Partner at Lerer Hippeau. He is the Co-Founder and former CEO of Thrillist, which was acquired by Vox Media in 2022. He chairs the Board of Directors for Urban Upbound and is an Associate Member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS).
Lerer holds a BS from the University of Pennsylvania ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
7M ago
Wen-Wen is a Partner at Gradient Ventures.
Previously, Wen-Wen was the CEO & Co-founder of NexTravel (YCW15), a leading corporate travel solution that serviced thousands of customers like Lyft, Twilio, and Stripe. She grew the business to over $100M in annual sales before exiting to Travelperk in 2020. Prior to this, Wen-Wen worked with a number of startups in leadership roles. She started her career in tech at LinkedIn. She received her BA from UC Berkeley in Economics and her MBA from USC Marshall School of Business ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
9M ago
Kate Goodall (she/her) is the Co-Founder and CEO of Halcyon, an incubator for early-stage impact ventures. Since launching in 2014, Goodall has added an early-stage venture fund (of which she is co-managing director), an angel investing network, microloan fund, and a range of intensive programs, continually seeking to serve increasing numbers of entrepreneurs globally in more ways in order to solve the pressing social and environmental problems of our time.
In 2016, Goodall helped establish WE Capital, a consortium of leading businesswomen investing in and supporting women and women-led compan ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
10M ago
Daniel Acheampong, Founder, Visible Hands VC
Daniel was most recently an Entrepreneur in Resident at MIT designX, where he co-founded a marketplace platform. He was an associate at Summit Partners, where he helped manage the firm’s due diligence process to raise investment funds. Previously, he was a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs, where he supported senior management in supervising the New England Private Wealth Management business. He received a dual Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School and Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School. He received his Bachelor ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
1y ago
About Ajay:
Ajay Relan is an investor, entrepreneur, and community builder. Prior to Slauson & Co., Ajay was a founding Partner at Queensbridge Venture Partners. With a keen focus on brand building and storytelling, Ajay's passion lies in identifying trends and engineering culturally aligned brands.
A lifelong Angeleno, Ajay has established a business portfolio grounded in community. His most recent collaboration, Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen, has become a staple, facilitating productivity and collaboration in diverse neighborhoods across Los Angeles.
In 2012, Ajay founded #HashtagLunchbag, a ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
1y ago
About Samara:
Samara Mejia Hernandez is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Chingona Ventures, a Venture Fund that focuses on rapidly changing sectors and founders with experiences that uniquely position them to build startups in underserved growth markets.
The fund has $60MM in AUM and has made over 40 investments across technology sectors in Financial, Food, Future of Learning, and Health/Wellness. Before this, she was an investor at MATH Venture Partners, started her career at Goldman Sachs, and she is on the advisory boards for Coolwater, Camino Financial, and VentureFWD ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
1y ago
Key takeaways:
--Your limit to opportunities is your own mindset.
--Founders should build their network consistently over time. It will help you understand the fundraising journey, and bring you honest feedback about how long the journey will take.
--Early stage investors are "founder evaluators" more so than "business evaluators". Help them believe you have the network, skills, grit, intelligence and flexibility it takes to get you to the Series B and beyond.
Mac Concell - Rarebreed Ventures
Mckeever E. (Mac) Conwell, 2nd, is a Baltimore native and attended Morgan State University, maj ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
1y ago
Elisa Miller-Out, Managing Partner
Elisa Miller-Out is Chloe Capital’s Co-Founder and Managing Partner. She is an experienced serial tech entrepreneur, having founded and led seven companies over 20+ years. She is an experienced investor, having invested in 45 companies, in addition to executing 10 M&A transactions. Elisa is also an active board director and community builder. As an Innovation Advisor at NYSERDA, she helps advise on an $800 Million portfolio of entrepreneurship and investment programs for climate tech startups. She also serves as a mentor and Entrepreneur in Residence with ..read more
The Road Untraveled: VC Perspectives with Brian Hollins
1y ago
Eric is the founder and GP of Contrary. Contrary's portfolio includes hyper-growth companies like Anduril, Ramp, and Zepto.
Key Takeaways:
Identify the brightest people in the world first, then build infrastructure to support them for their entire life
Identify LPs who believe in you emotionally before they believe in your model (not people in wealth preservation mode)
Price compression has not fully met seed stage, but it is likely coming and will likely land south of 20mm post at the seed stage
If you are starting a c company u need to have an edge and clarity of thought around why yo ..read more