May 5, 2025 • 57 mins
Joel Palathinkal sits down with Ananya Vasagiri to discuss her journey into venture capital, beginning with her early exposure and experiences at UChicago. Ananya shares insights on skillsets vital for success in the field, drawing from her roles at Adams Street Partners and Schematic Ventures. The conversation covers the importance of emotional intelligence and niche focus in LP interactions, alongside strategies for diligence processes. Ananya offers advice for LPs and emerging fund managers, emphasizing the role of personal background in investment decisions. They explore trends in deep tech, industrial tech, and supply chain modernization, addressing user engagement, data privacy, and cybersecurity. The episode concludes with remarks on future plans.
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(00:00):
Yeah.
(00:00):
Absolutely.
I think maybe just the best place to start isjust, like, starting to have, like, a
familiarity with kind of what venture even is,like, the typical process.
And, well, some of that you can definitely getby, like, being in the job as well.
I think resources like Sutton Capital, the JohnGinnon blog, like a lot of the the people post
on kind of Twitter or LinkedIn as well in termsof their processes are really helpful.
(00:22):
And there's a ton of articles, medium posts,everything that you can read online of what it
actually means to be a VC, what kind of the dayto day looks like.
So I think for folks interested in the space,that's probably a great place to start.
And then just starting to figure out whereexactly your specialty lies and then using that
to kind of narrow down what your search lookslike.
There hundreds, maybe thousands of of kind ofventure funds that exist out there.
(00:45):
So figuring out if you wanna be an early stageversus later stage, a sector focused investor
versus a generalist, having a better sort oflike personal framing of what that looks like,
I think is really helpful.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(01:09):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
I think we're good to go.
(01:30):
I'm here with Ananya Vasagiri.
I've gotten to know her for the last month orso because we're doing some community building
together.
So, we're for those of you that that areinstitutional LPs, Ananya and I along with you
know, Emerging Venture Capital Association.
I think we should talk about that too.
Along with some great corporate sponsors,Citizens Bank, Revere and a bunch of other
(01:55):
friends.
We're doing a private LP community event inNapa.
So I think for those of you tuning in who areallocating and obviously coming out to the
RAISE conference will be doing this event outthere.
So I think there's a lot of great things totalk about in terms of community building.
We've learned a lot in terms of coordinatingevents.
(02:19):
But anyways, let's start with your career, youreducation Ananya, let's talk about what you
studied, your journey and now you're atSchematic Ventures, which is doing some really
interesting stuff we talked about, types ofdeals that we could look at together.
So we'd love to start from the beginning, learnabout your background, your career and
(02:42):
everything around that.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
First of all, thank you so much for having meon today.
I really enjoyed speaking with you as well.
And when I was first kind of exploring ventureand how to kind of break into the industry,
actually went to the Sun Capital website, likelooked through a lot of the resources and job
postings and everything that you guys had on aswell.
And it was really helpful for me to kind oflearn more about the space.
(03:04):
And I'm so grateful to now be on on the otherside of it and excited to go speak with with
you and and especially given all the great workyou're doing in this space.
So thank you.
No.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's crazy how it becomes fullcircle.
I mean, I've seen people that have startedtheir career and they're just kind of getting
started or they're pivoting from anotherindustry and then later on they kind of go on
(03:25):
to this big institutional investment firm andthen I'm like begging for them to come on and
and teach us.
So I think that's amazing as well.
Really humbled to know that you looked at someof our resources and hopefully who's helpful.
Let's go deep and appreciate theacknowledgement.
(03:45):
But yeah, we'd love to learn a little moreabout where you grew up, where did you go to
school, what did you think you wanted to study?
I mentioned this in multiple episodes, but I'mfrom Florida.
I didn't even know what venture capital orprivate equity was when I was starting out.
And it was only really when I kind of startedtalking to more people as they were growing
their career that I knew more about it.
(04:07):
Yeah,
absolutely.
I actually grew up in East Bay suburb ofoutside of San Francisco.
And so I think growing up in the Bay Areaprobably were exposed to startups, venture
capitals, entrepreneurship at a relatively kindof early stage.
So even through school, I remember in in middleschool I watched a lot of like the the TV shows
(04:31):
related to the topics before paying the profit.
I applied for an internship on the profit inlike sixth or seventh grade.
Obviously I was not near qualified enough toget it.
But I think like those experiences and seeingthe opportunities to take really cool
businesses and work with them to help them kindof continue to grow and scale was pretty
formative from an early stage.
I maybe didn't know that kind of exact terms ofwhat exactly venture capital looked like, but
(04:54):
who I wanted to be in space.
So I went to UChicago for my undergrad, majoredin economics and psychology, worked with a lot
of different startups and kind ofentrepreneurship centers on campus like the
Polsky Center.
Absolutely love that experience and being ableto work with both the entrepreneurship center
and a lot of their incubation programs, as wellas the startups that they were working with at
(05:15):
the time was a really interesting experience.
And I saw the potential for venture capital andsort of private capital to be so transformative
for these well.
So, I knew that's a space I wanted to go inlonger term.
Didn't know exactly kind of what stage sectorfocus and everything that that I wanted to kind
of specialize in.
So, I had a couple internships in in differentcategories and spaces, did industrials,
(05:38):
investment banking for a summer at Goldman,worked at a healthcare private equity firm,
Mystria Group in Chicago, and had theopportunity to work with the growth stage
industrial tech firm, Activate Capital in SanFrancisco as well.
So really formative experiences, but I knew Iwanted to kind of focus on the category longer
term, but wasn't totally sure where.
And I had the opportunity to work at AdamsStreet Partners right out of school and their
(05:59):
primary funds team.
So it was an incredible learning experiencefrom sort of a 10,000 foot like bird's eye
level view of the private markets ecosystem.
We invested across whole range of sectors,strategies, geographies, and it's a great
learning experience.
And so wanted to be more on kind of impactfocus as well.
So join the team at Schematic here just overtwo years ago now and have moved back to San
(06:24):
Francisco and been out here ever since.
So, you know, that's really helpful and that'san amazing background.
What are some of the things that you learned asyou were kind of recruiting?
You know, it's kind of like, you know, acollege student applying to roles.
What advice would you give to somebody that'skind of trying to break into the industry and,
you know, essentially nail the interview?
(06:45):
Because these roles are super competitive andit's very difficult to obviously be the best
candidate, especially in, like, San Franciscoor New York.
There's so much talent.
There's so many people coming out of these topschools.
There's so many people that are hustling andnetworking.
So what do you think some of the tools andmaybe frameworks and interview skills were to
(07:09):
kind of help you get to where you need to be?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think maybe just the best place to start isjust like starting to have like a familiarity
with kind of what venture even is like thetypical process.
And well, some of that you can definitely getby like being in the job as well.
I think resources like Sutton Capital, the JohnGinnon blog, like a lot of the post on kind of
(07:30):
Twitter or LinkedIn as well in terms of theirprocesses are really helpful.
And there's a ton of articles, medium posts,everything that you can read online of what it
actually means to be a VC, what kind of the dayto day looks like.
So I think for folks interested in the space,that's probably a great place to start.
And then just starting to figure out whereexactly your specialty lies and then using that
to kind of narrow down what your search lookslike.
(07:52):
There are hundreds, maybe thousands of kind ofventure funds that exist out there.
So figuring out if you want to be an earlystage versus later stage, a sector focused
investor versus a generalist, having a bettersort of like personal framing of what that
looks like, I think is really helpful.
And then one narrowing down your search andthen two, can be a lot more targeted in your
networking efforts and kind of outreach effortstoo, if you're responding to a senior investors
(08:17):
blog post or thought piece or something tostart like building those relationships early
on.
So I think figuring out like where you wannaplay and then use that as a way to kind of
channel your efforts is probably prettyhelpful.
No, that's definitely helpful.
What would you say some of the soft skills areand then maybe the hard skills that you need to
make sure that you nail down as you'reinterviewing?
(08:40):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I feel like the soft skills part are probablysimilar to any job that requires external
facing aspects.
So being friendly, open, I think curious andsort of willing to learn is one of the biggest
requirements, especially given that we'respeaking with people who are so, so smart and
experienced in their categories.
And I'm really grateful to be able to have theopportunity to learn with people or from people
(09:05):
who are twenty, thirty plus years into theircareer, specialized in these different topics,
especially in the industrial and deep techsectors that we look at, they have so much
domain knowledge.
So just being open and interested in learningwhat they're working on, being able to over
time, hopefully at least ask somewhatintelligent questions to better understand
their business and everything.
So that's probably on the soft skills guide,just being kind of open and friendly and
(09:30):
interested.
And then on the hard skill side, I think thatreally depends on, again, kind of where in the
venture ecosystem you want to focus on.
If it's on the early stage side, then technicalexpertise might be more helpful as your
diligence in kind of companies in like thehealthcare or deep tech sectors, for example,
versus if you're later stage, then probably alot more financial modeling skills and Excel
(09:51):
kind of related analysis is much more helpfulat that point too.
Yeah.
No.
That's great.
And then tell me what kinda got you excitedabout working at schematics.
So you were kinda looks like that was kindayour next role.
And before that, can you tell can you breakdown a little more about your previous was it
(10:11):
at you said it was at Adams Streets?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So maybe tell us a little more about that firmand and some of your responsibilities there,
kind of the sectors you're looking at, andthen, you know, I know the next step was kinda
to go to schematics.
So, you know, it seems like you have a reallygreat concentration on deep tech.
So we both have that shared interest there.
(10:33):
So maybe we can double click on that a littlebit.
Yeah.
And then I got a lot of other questions to gothrough.
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
So maybe starting with the experience at AdamStreet.
So I was on the fund to funds team.
So we focused on investing in both venturecapital and private equity funds.
I was based out of the Chicago office.
It was a function that in kind of the areathere, I spent a lot more time focused on kind
(10:56):
of middle market, large cap, generally kind ofprivate equity funds, spend a lot of time in
industrial and Yeah.
Specifically categories too.
And
we've got the opportunity to work on some ofthe new sub funds that they were starting
around kind of impact and kind of newertechnologies as well.
So that was really interesting.
At the junior level, I joined kind of right outof college.
A lot of my work was on the diligence piece ofthat.
(11:17):
So running a lot of the different models andanalysis on kind of past portfolio performance
records of these different funds, doing a lotof industry research to understand what are the
new kind of regulation or trends happening inthese categories and how are these managers
adjusting or kind of focusing their diligenceefforts or investment thesis as a function of
these new trends that are happening in thespace or more so on the diligence and kind of
(11:40):
portfolio management, not as much on thesourcing side for new management.
That's kind of the focus there.
The team there was incredible.
I've learned so much from all of them and wasreally grateful for that experience.
And then I joined Spatic in 2022 because I wasreally interested in kind of having more of an
impact directly with the companies as well andwanted to be working one on one with kind of
(12:04):
companies that were focused on the industrialkind of supply chain kind of climate related
categories as well.
So that's kind of a quick high level overview.
We focus on early stage kind of verticalsoftware and applications specifically for like
the industrial category.
So everything from supply chain, manufacturing,robotics and energy, as well as kind of I spend
a lot of time on the data infrastructuredeveloper tooling for engineers and
(12:29):
practitioners in these categories as well.
So even in seed stage investments these spaces.
So yeah, the team has been wonderful.
I've learned so much from the GPs and partnersand other associates here as well.
So really enjoyed that experience and beingable to work across the entire landscape of the
deal from bringing it in, like reaching outthrough LinkedIn or kind of cold email,
(12:50):
managing the diligence process, then hopefullyworking with the company post investment as
well.
So that's been really fun.
That's amazing.
And then on the deep tech side, well, actuallybefore I go into that, what are some of the
learnings that you learned as a allocator, as afund to fund investor?
I'm pretty positive that's super complimentaryto now your role at EVCA, really building that
(13:14):
LP community.
But what are some of the things that you thinkis important for LPs to think about as they're
looking at managers?
Maybe what are the KPIs or soft skills thatthey look at for managers?
Because there's so many managers and so manygreat managers.
Right?
But there's only a certain amount of checksthat you can write for a certain size.
(13:37):
So tell me a little more about that experienceof sourcing, picking, winning fund managers.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I'm curious to hear your perspective onthis as well, especially given the kind of fund
incubator program that you guys run as well.
Yeah.
But at least from my experience, one of thethings that I was really pleasantly surprised
about was that the diligence process and kindof to your earlier question around kind of the
(13:58):
soft and hard skills of, kind of research andand requirements for this role.
Or actually, there's more overlap than I wouldhave expected for fund investing versus really
early stage direct investing.
For a lot of the companies that we speak with,it's sometimes as early as kind of team and
idea.
So you're really trying to understand theperson looking at their past performance if
they've worked in the space before, have areally good kind of industry knowledge and
(14:21):
perspective, and to what extent can we do sortof market research and references to confirm
that this is an actual need kind of in thisspace as well.
And similarly on the fund investing side, youcan see the past portfolio and performance kind
of track record of those fund managers andadapting to changes and new entrants in this
category, but you have no idea what's going togo into that specific portfolio.
(14:44):
So it's a lot of both like qualitative andquantitative analysis on the people and kind of
the platform and the product itself.
So I've really enjoyed kind of seeing how muchmore overlap than I maybe would have expected.
But curious to hear your thoughts on the otherside of that as well.
Yeah, mean, think definitely niche focusedareas are helpful for LPs because some LPs just
(15:09):
want to kind of see that there's a granularinsight into a certain strategy.
And a lot of times what I've learned is thoseindicators indicate that there's kind of a
repeatable model.
For example, there is one fund, I won't mentiontheir name, but they have a concentrated
portfolio and they specifically focus on deeptech and infrastructure.
And their first fund did pretty well and theyactually had a pretty good amount of capital
(15:35):
set aside for follow on investing for reserves.
So they pretty much did the same exactstrategy, but they proportionally increased the
size of the fund.
So I think that niche shows that you kind ofhave this unique place in the market versus
like these generalist funds that are investingin everything.
So I think that definitely helps.
(15:56):
Then I think definitely the platform approach.
I mean, there's a lot of managers, not all ofthe managers that are on Twitter, but like
someone like Nicole Wachoff, right?
I mean, she has built a huge audience, butshe's also an amazing investor and she's kind
of repeated her same strategy.
I think she's on like fund three now.
Yeah.
I believe and there's kind of a repeatablemodel around that.
(16:19):
So I think that's kind of what I have seen.
And then there's just so many managers and ourcohorts that have so many different sector
focus areas.
Their story is a big thing too.
How did they come about to focusing on thissector based on their career background?
Because that also tells you if they're gonna bekind of the leader in that market because maybe
(16:39):
their unique access to network or unique accessto knowledge to be able to really just
outperform in that space.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's a really interesting point.
And maybe this goes back to kind of my psychbackground, but I always think it's so
interesting to kind of with these managers orkind of startup founders will understand the
why behind the decisions, for a fund, if youchoose to have a more concentrated portfolio
(16:59):
versus, kind of smaller, kind of morediversified sector focus versus generalist.
Why why is that your strategy?
Like they're pros and cons for each but howdoes that tie into kind of your background and
and your experience as well.
So yeah that's a it's a great point.
I think yeah Nicole just raised her her thirdfriend and again for Neil just started as an
associate there.
So super excited for them as well.
(17:19):
Well, you know, let's talk a little more about,like, emotional intelligence.
I think this is kind of a fun topic.
So, like, what are some maybe mistakes thatyou've seen from and not even mistakes, but
just kinda maybe bad ways to interact with LPsjust so fund managers can think about that.
Mean, think one of the basic things I heardthis from an LP a while ago is like, look,
(17:42):
sometimes like LPs might just be in town andlike LPs might actually reach out and like
those LPs, they may just come out and just say,hey.
You know, I'm in town.
If you wanna grab coffee and that's kind of areally fortunate thing.
If an LP wants to come out and and grab coffee.
But there's been some managers that have beenvery shortsighted.
They're like, oh, you know, like, I'm notraising right now or maybe that person didn't
(18:05):
write a check immediately, so maybe their theirego got hit by it.
So they don't wanna, like, take the meeting.
And I feel like the best time to fundraise isessentially when the best time to fundraise is
essentially when you're not raising.
Right?
So if you're not raising or you're not inmarket, that's a great way to kinda continue
that relationship because it might take, like,eighteen months to eventually, you know, be the
(18:28):
timing that's right for the the LP as well.
You know?
So I don't know if you have any other exampleslike that where, like, maybe a manager just
came in too strong or was too aggressive.
I've had managers come to me a few times andlike they kind of were like, Oh, I guess you
don't have liquidity right now so that's whyyou're not investing.
(18:49):
I'm like, No, that's not the reason.
I just don't have an interest to invest in yoursector right now.
But I think sometimes people take it to heartand then they accuse you of something.
I don't know if you've had weird personalitieslike that.
Yeah.
But we'd love to hear any other examples.
Yeah.
Well, that's a unfortunate experience that youhave to go through, but I think one of the
(19:13):
things venture kind of a lot of these theseindustries that we spend time in is like the
really long term nature of these relationships.
And while it might not work out for a specificdiligence process, today, you never know what's
gonna happen in the next kind of couple monthsor even couple of years if they maybe move to a
different firm or something changes in terms oftheir own kind of liquidity status or anything
like that.
(19:33):
So I think one of the things that just likehaving that kind of mindset that everything
doesn't necessarily need to be immediately kindof transactional in that sense of, oh, I'm only
gonna speak with you or get coffee, whatever.
If you can write me
a check.
And then I'm sorry.
It's like a $2,000,000 2 million dollar cup ofcoffee.
So I think just like having that, like,framework that everyone is just like trying to
(19:54):
do a good job at work and and maintain thosepersonal relationships as well.
And if you're only speaking with someonebecause of their check check writing
capabilities or not speaking with them becauseof their supposed lack of, then that's probably
not a great way to kind of go into that.
And if these are people if they do invest,these are people you are gonna be working with
over the next kind of Mhmm.
(20:14):
Seven to to ten years probably over the courseof kind of a fun life cycle.
And these wanna be people you know really welland can work with.
And if you're only speaking with them on thispurely transactional basis, that is probably
gonna make it a little bit harder to kind ofmaintain that over
that
long period of time.
And I think there's so many parallels.
So I always joke around about this.
I mean, in a lot of the, I've joked around withthis with other guests too, but it's like,
(20:37):
there's so many parallels, right?
So if you're a founder and you're trying toraise money, it's the same exact If you're
doing enterprise sales, same thing.
You might have to, it might be like a six monthsales cycle.
And then, you know, the funniest thing is likeeven if you're dating, right?
I mean, you can't like, so no one's going tomarry you on the, I mean, usually, most people
won't marry you on like the first date, right?
(20:57):
They.
Yeah.
They want to get to know you maybe maybe youknow, have a relationship with you and then and
then maybe, you know, become more, you know,serious but I think there's just like
psychologically, there's so many differentparallels to that when you think about
psychology, just kind of like the, you know,the the law of attraction, right?
I mean, and I think and I think a lot of LPstoo like not to say that they have FOMO, they
(21:20):
want to know, I've heard this from LPs, want toknow who you're co investing with.
That's kind of a signal of your network, youraccess.
And a lot of times they also want to know, andI think this is a good signal, who your LPs are
because your LPs could be, you know, like,they're you know, it could be like the the the
family office of, a very, very successfulfounder or there could be a really large
(21:43):
endowment.
And, like, that kinda is a really interestingsignal.
Doesn't need to be a transactional signal, butit just be some type of interesting thing to
pay attention to saying, hey, you know what?
Some other people are paying attention to thisfirm.
So maybe there's something special about them,specifically the person, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And if you are kind of a manager raising a newfounder, even if you're kind of a startup
(22:07):
founder or CEO, there's typically like a coupleof different types of diligence processes that
investors, whether fund or direct investorswill do.
If it's a fund investment, for example, they'llprobably speak to existing LPs or other LPs
kind of considering investments, other GPs toyour point that you probably co invest with, or
are likely to slash have done in the past andfounders that you've worked with in the past,
(22:28):
too.
And so I think if you're only kinda maintainingthose on a purely transactional basis, it's
hard to get, like, really genuine relationshipswith all three of those different kinda
categories.
And so to what extent can you show that you arebeing kind of a prudent manager of capital for
LPs, also being a collaborative investor withother GPs or partners that you work with and
actually kind of hoping, hopefully kind ofadding value or kind of engaging effectively
(22:53):
with your startup companies as well.
So, yeah, I think having that kind of mindsetand framing is really.
Yeah.
I know.
That's helpful.
And then, you know, what and did you enjoy kindof, you know, diligence and did they also have
a direct strategy as well?
Yeah.
Adams Street has a a direct as well, more onthe growth side.
(23:13):
Yeah.
So more on the growth side.
So but it sounds like you mainly focused onmanager selection.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Any other, you know, any other learnings forlike LPs to kinda develop their skills?
And then maybe just any more advice that youhave for emerging fund managers?
Yeah, absolutely.
On the LP side, so I also lead the EVCA kind ofLP community as well, which you touched on
(23:38):
earlier.
And so I think part of the reason for that is Iwas working at Adams Street kind of during
COVID like we were working really remote.
And so while the team was really effective inbuilding up internal community and culture, I
wasn't able to engage with that many other kindof junior folks on the fund investing side
outside of Adam Street.
(23:58):
And so coming over to the direct kind ofventure side, I saw all these different
communities and and ecosystems that exist tokind of support more more junior folks.
EBC is one of the the kind of leading kind ofnonprofits in that space for kind of community
and and collaboration on that side.
And I was like, this would have been so so niceand such a great kind of support ecosystem to
have while I was at Adams Street.
(24:20):
So that's kind of our goal is for both kind ofpre partner and more more senior investors as
well.
Kind of provide access to these curated eventslike the NAPO and we're doing in a couple of
weeks, both kind of virtual and in person aswell to be able to provide kind of networking
opportunities with kind of your peers and maybeeven more senior folks as well to understand
what does the career path and fund investinglook like versus sourcing a metric for that?
(24:43):
Is it diligence to manage your relationships?
How do you actually kind of navigate thatjourney?
And then just like meeting other folks in thisspace too, and the processes for endowments
versus institutions versus multifamily officescan be very, very different.
And even within each of those categories, theyall have their own kind of strategies, kind of
deployment focus areas and everything.
So that's kind of the goal of our community aswell to be able to provide those resources and
(25:07):
network for folks on the LP side that arelooking to kind of build and grow in the space
as well.
So, yeah, for anyone that's interested in thatwould love to chat and happy to share more
about our resources and event invites andeverything and looking forward to hopefully co
hosting another event with you in the future aswell.
Yeah.
No.
Definitely.
And then, you know, for managers, I I just sawa question here like Yeah.
(25:27):
What are your thoughts on emerging managers ontheir first fund?
So what should fund managers think about asthey're preparing to go in in market?
It says, especially if they're pivoting into adifferent sector.
Okay?
So maybe you're I don't know, like you work infinance and you wanna launch a cyber fund or
something.
I don't know.
Maybe that's kind of the example of Ishkar.
Feel free to clarify.
(25:49):
Like but I I'd say, like, yeah, any any advicefor people that are maybe thinking about fund
one or now kind of in market for fund one, whatadvice as a former allocator and now connected
to a lot of other allocators, any any Yeah,
absolutely.
(26:09):
So one of the things that the GP at CMI andJulian mentioned when I was first kinda getting
started, he was providing feedback on justkinda how to think about framing the job was he
provided a great framework in terms of what arethe core kind of metrics or requirements for
this role.
Find, pick, win, kind of the the mainrequirements, and then, hopefully, kind of
build as well kind of post that.
(26:30):
So the first kind of bucket of that is justlike finding really interesting companies.
So if you are looking at real estate, forexample, what are your sources for finding
these proprietary deals?
Are you on the most common newsletters orwebsites?
Or do you have diversified networks to be ableto get access into some of these maybe more
(26:51):
unique opportunities that aren't kind ofpublicly listed somewhere?
And then two is kind of the diligence process.
So do you have the right network and resourcesor even just kind of experience to be able to
understand those categories mentionedcybersecurity, for example, it's a very
technical space.
So to what extent can you understand thecompetitive landscape?
Why is this company better than others?
(27:12):
What else exists in the market?
And why would customers pick them versus anyoneelse?
And then third part is kind of winning the dealtoo.
So you've done all your diligence.
You're really excited about this company, butif it's a great company, they might have a ton
of other investors lined up willing to kind ofgive them capital.
So how do you kind of most effectivelycommunicate why you win or are you kind of
deserve to be at least kind of part of thatround over over another investor.
(27:35):
So those are kind of the three kind of mainrequirements for being able to to get the deal,
then hopefully kind of post close or postinvestment depending on your investment
strategy.
Are you able to kind of work with a portfoliocompany to provide them access to maybe
customers or partners that they're looking tospeak with?
Can you help them with access to serviceproviders, help them with future fundraising or
legal support or whatever else kind of yourspecial sauces in terms of probably ties into
(27:59):
your strategy around kind of why you won thedeal as well, but the broader categories that
might be helpful to think about as you areemerging fund manager and thinking about
speaking with LPs or potential investors inyour fund.
How do you explain why you went in in buckets?
Yeah.
No.
That's helpful.
And then so hopefully that was helpful for thequestions in the audience.
(28:20):
But, yeah, I think to your point, like, I mean,no matter what so I mean and I and I did this
in my career.
You know, I was working in aerospace and then Ikind of pivoted into SaaS.
And I think if you can just, you don't need tobe a genius or like super intellectual.
Think if you just jump in and kind of absorbcontent and I think you can accelerate that by
(28:44):
having other smart people around you so thatand to be honest, that's the secret for me with
this podcast.
I spend an hour with a person every week, so Ireally just absorb all of their knowledge,
which I'm very grateful to do with you andAnya.
But like, yeah, I think just kind ofsurrounding yourself with those people.
If you want to get into real estate, hang outwith a bunch of successful real estate
(29:06):
investors, read all of the content that couldbe helpful.
And then I think just being part of thecommunity and then actually just doing it.
Think learning by doing maybe doing your firstdeal.
I'm curious if there's anything kind of givenyour experience starting in this space too.
Is there anything that maybe kind of lookingback now that you would have done differently
(29:27):
or kind of what your advice would have been nowis kind of a retrospective?
Yeah.
I mean, I think for me, I try look.
I mean, we're here on this planet for a shortamount of time.
So I try not to, focus too much on regret andthe past.
And I think for me, I'm very grateful thateverything just kind of connected somehow.
(29:49):
When I was in New York in my 20s, had a lot offriends that were working on Wall Street and
banking and I was like, wow, that seems likesuch a sexy job.
I want to go to B School and work ninety hourworkweeks.
I even took a GMAT class and I was like, oh,I'm gonna like study really hard and get into
(30:11):
like an Ivy League school and do B school andthen like get into banking and do PE.
And that was a weird time in my life.
I really didn't know kind of what I wanted todo.
And then I ended up like working in tech andthen did grad school.
But I think it all connects because my thesisin deep tech definitely got strengthened from
(30:35):
working in deep tech for some time.
And then especially with fintech and SaaScompanies, I understood some of the way the
businesses work because I was in the weeds likepushing out software releases.
So I think that definitely helped me understandand lean into my background where I think
earlier too, it wasn't as trendy to be anengineer and have a heavy tech background and
(31:02):
then get into finance.
It was traditionally people that just kind oflike went the investment banking route and then
they were just purely financed.
But I think over time, a lot of founders havebecome really amazing investors.
Then on the deep tech side, you see a lot ofpeople that have like a PhD and have a science
background or they've worked for like a bigpharma company.
(31:23):
And I think that's more prevalent on the WestCoast.
I see a lot of VCs, I would say, used to beengineers or product managers.
I think one piece of like being a productmanager is like you have to really figure out
like if it's worth building something and youknow, part of that is kind of like a light
(31:44):
market sizing exercise, right?
Yeah.
I think for you as an investor, it's like, oh,is it worth me investing in this space because
there's so many other types of companies thatare maybe doing the same thing.
You have to kind of like prioritize your likein product, you're prioritizing your backlog
and like finance or investing, you'reprioritizing your capital, right?
You only have like a certain amount of slots tolike write a check.
(32:05):
So you have to kind of like really make sureit's going to hit and like make an impact.
But I'd say, yeah, I think you just got to leaninto who you are.
The comment here, if you're a doctor looking atreal estate, hey, what if you built an entire
medical facility and you have tenants that areliving there and getting services?
(32:25):
So I think there's a lot of cool synergies andways to lean into who you are as a person and
then develop your brand as an investor just byleaning into all that.
And a lot of us are just, we're all insecure.
We all have insecurities.
We're worried about what other people think orjudgment.
But I think if you just lean into it and justkind of embrace it.
(32:48):
I mean, that's kind of what's worked for me.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's such an interesting point,especially kind of given your background in
terms of like working in the industry and thennow being on like the other side of like having
that experience to be able to kind of get allthose investments in those categories too is
like especially in in kind of venture or atleast kind of early later stage.
There's not like one kind of traditional careerpath.
(33:08):
You don't necessarily need to do investmentbanking or to to to get a banking fee and then
get your MBA sort of thing.
You you both have art history backgrounds orMhmm.
Worked on the product side more operationallyas well or kinda worked on their own company
too and are now able to leverage those on theflip side.
I really believe if you really want to dosomething and it's truly burning inside of you,
(33:32):
I think you'll make it happen.
I think if anybody really wants to start a fundand they have the right mentorship, they have
the right frameworks and they're in the rightrooms with the right people and there's ways to
get in those rooms by building relationships.
But if you're able to do that, then you willlaunch fund.
Same thing, like a lot of the people thatprobably broke into VC that came from like a or
(33:55):
private equity that came from like atraditional non finance background.
They probably just knew that they wanted to getin and just kind of had that burning desire and
that they made it happen somehow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I truly believe that.
And then, you know, so let's talk a little bitmore.
You know, we we started talking about EVCA.
So let's talk a little more about thatorganization.
(34:18):
So it's really interesting.
It's a nonprofit.
And you guys had like a I think you guys had asummit over the summer.
It looked like a lot of fun.
I I think I saw like a swimming pool there, butit looked like a really cool like, you know,
get together with a lot of them.
Like, is it only emerging managers or can youhave like fun twos and fun threes as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I don't think there was a swimming pool orif there was an issue, I missed it.
(34:40):
No, it was a great summit.
So high level context, UTC is a nonprofitorganization, currently has about a little over
1,300 members, I think, as of the last count.
More initially focused on kind of pre partnerinvestors.
And it was initially started with the focus oninvestors on the direct side as well.
So across every kind of stage sector and nowgrowing geographically as well to provide as I
(35:05):
mentioned kind of community networks as you'respeaking with other folks in terms of kind of
understanding different investment thesis,categories or trends in the space, or even just
kind of sharing deals with our portfoliocompanies raising and someone else is a good
fit for the next round or things like that.
So that's been been really helpful.
And now we're working on kind of building upthe equivalent on the LP side as well.
(35:26):
So we wanna be mindful of kind of managing timeand resources.
So for LPs that are joining, we don't wannanecessarily have their inbox be inundated with
kind of 1,300 emails from different managerswho are thinking about maybe kind of launching
their own fund or pitching their own fund
as well.
But having it being a really focused group thathopefully adds value to them in terms of
(35:47):
similar opportunities around kind ofnetworking, career building and development as
well, but kind of much more focused on thatecosystem as well.
So yeah, the summit was more focused on thedirect side as well, but hopefully a lot of
these smaller kind of curated dinners andevents will be helpful build out the LP
ecosystem around this as well.
Yeah, I think definitely like doing smallerkind of curated events.
(36:09):
Think the benefit of that and I think there's alot of things we can talk about events.
So I think you know, when you have, like, 20high quality people, all those people can talk
to each other and, you know, you have enoughtime even if it's, like, three hours long or a
longer dinner.
Everyone has enough time to have, like, ameaningful conversation with each person versus
(36:32):
like I think if you're like, you know, at a 300or, you know, 500 person event, there's like a
sea of people and everyone's kinda like reallyjust trying to shake everybody's hand.
Yeah.
And I don't think you get the depth that couldgo much farther than just kind of like, you
know, trying to get somebody's business card orget their email and then.
Yeah.
You know, you meet them and you ping them yourdeck or something.
(36:54):
Yeah.
You know, that that definitely, in my opinion,I think it travels further if you just kinda
have, like, you know, like, I think you'redoing a dinner in a couple of weeks.
So I think just kinda doing a more intimate,you know, way for people to engage, I think,
definitely helps.
I know you've done some really cool events forthe LP community in New York as well.
I think it was at a at a car club.
(37:14):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I think also if you can do somethingexperiential, that gets people excited to go
there.
If you just do it at like, you know, an nothingwrong with, Italian restaurants, but if you
just do it at, like, you know, an Italianrestaurant, you know, I think it's still great,
but some people might not some people might notmove their plans around to attend.
(37:39):
If they have something else and it's kind oflike, you know, I I would say also, especially
in San Francisco, what I learned is just, youknow, people have longer commutes.
I mean, people do have commutes in New York aswell, but people I feel will, stay in the city
if it's like an exciting event and then theycan always take the train back where I and and,
(38:01):
you know, you'll know better than me, but Ifeel like sometimes in San Francisco, if you
have to drive, you know, it's kind of like, youknow, it's a long drive maybe to kinda, you
know, stick around longer and then you get homeeven later.
Where I think in New York, you know, people arepeople who are in transit probably are taking
the the bus or taking probably like the the thelong, you know, the LIRR or Metro North.
(38:24):
So, they're kind of, hey, you know, it's it'snot as burdensome to kind of drive.
I mean, there are people that still driveprobably as well.
You know, they probably park in the city and goback.
But that's just kinda something I've noticedjust from doing one or two events in SF.
But I don't if you've had if you had someinsights in terms of, like, community building
and, like, SF versus New York.
(38:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the exciting things about likebeing in both these cities and some of the
other kind of growing tech hubs and communitiesacross the country is that there is so much
excitement around kind of venture kind ofprivate investments kind of events.
So whether that's happy hours, dinners,summits, lot of the tech week, climate week
that just happened in New York previously.
(39:05):
So I think that's one of the really excitingkind of aspects of this, but on the flip side,
because there is so much interest there, a tonof different events and things happening too.
So how do you kind of make your kind of eventor experience kind of stand out within that?
I think experiential events are a great way ofdoing it.
At Schematic for example, we've done a lot ofvery industry focused events.
So we do supply chain and manufacturing kind ofstartup showcases or happy hours or kind of
(39:31):
summits, fireside chats and panels, veryspecifically focused on kind of key topics.
So while there are a ton of really interestinglike AI hackathons or kind of more broad more
broad sort of venture founder kind of meetups,I think having these, like, industry focused,
activities with with a very kinda clear purposeattracts people who maybe are interested in
kind of a more kinda curated experience to yourpoint.
(39:53):
So I'm currently planning a robotics summit forlater this year as well.
And we did a robotics kind of hackathon lastyear as well too.
So there's been really great kind of feedbackand reception around that too around why would
people spend a few hours, extra hours out ofout of their day to go to your event versus
going home or or spending more time at work orwith family or anything else too.
(40:15):
Sure.
No, absolutely.
And then, know, I know we have about fifteenminutes left.
I'd love to kind of learn a little more aboutsome of your observations and like your sector
focus, you know, so I think definitely like,you know, the deep tech side, industrial tech,
you know, what are some of the trends thatyou're seeing and what are some of the things
that you maybe see in the future happening,within those, areas of focus that you're
(40:39):
looking at?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I'm really curious about your perspective,on this as well since you come from kind of
these, from from this industry.
So you've used I'm sure, like, seen thetransition of the adoption of a lot of these
new technologies that that have been coming upas well.
But I just simply have been spending a lot moretime as I kinda mentioned earlier on, the data
kind of developer tooling and, like,infrastructure applications for companies in
(41:02):
this category.
So for example, specifically within supplychain, one of the biggest trends we've seen
over the last kind of year, year and a half orso has been the adoption of a lot of the larger
kind of data platforms like Snowflake andDatabricks.
I recently had a conversation with seniorleader at Databricks who focuses on kind of
manufacturing, automotive and kind of energy goto market strategies.
And he echoed that sentiment around increasinginterest and adoption of kind of some of these
(41:28):
tools for companies in the industrial category.
There's so much data that exists today, but alot of it is unstructured in terms of kind of
email or even just kind of physical kind of penand paper communication around coordinating
logistics or deliveries or purchase orders, forexample, in the procurement side, robotics,
kind of sensor data coming off of machinery orkind of warehouse automation solutions.
(41:49):
So there's so much information, but how can youactually leverage that in a more effective
manner for companies building in category?
So that's an area that I'm really excitedabout, especially being out here in San
Francisco, there's so much happening in likethe data and dev tooling space too.
So I'm really excited about kind of hopefullyproviding access to some of these kind of
industrial spaces that we spend more time inthat maybe isn't kind of the first kind of go
(42:12):
to market focus for a lot of these morehorizontal companies, but it's a really
interesting kind of vertical application aswell.
So curious from your kind of industrybackground as well, how you've kind of seen the
shift and adoption of some of these newer tech.
So I would say I think you're completely on themarket.
I mean, I think a lot of these logisticscompanies, I mean, there's a lot of opportunity
(42:34):
to modernize them.
And a lot of them are on like legacy enterprisetools that have been the market leader.
And those enterprise tools and softwareplatforms have really expensive yearly
contracts.
So I think there's a disruption to not onlyprovide maybe a more cost effective solution,
(42:55):
but I think the real cool thing is to have likesome secret sauce on top of their own data.
So like if they have some type of supply chaincompany and like the standard company that
they're working with right now, their softwareSaaS platform to kind of manage the supply
chain, maybe gives them like order informationand purchase and delivery date information.
(43:20):
I think having more secret sauce in terms ofprediction and then also maybe giving insight
in terms of like, hey, you know what you'redoing?
You're doing like 30% better than you did thistime last year.
I think that could help.
And then I think also pushing more content topeople to help them have better behaviors in
the workplace, I think definitely helps aswell.
(43:41):
So I think just automation, cleaning data,prediction to help people do the job better,
but also, like, personalizing it based on,like, their specific settings.
Right?
So if you have, like, a certain setting thatthat you're, you know, configuring for your
infrastructure, you know, having some type of,you know, insights on top of that so you can
(44:07):
just do better at what you're doing.
I don't know.
Like, I don't know if you kind of agree withthat, but I think that's those are just, like,
some of the few things I've been learning,especially on the SaaS side.
That's super interesting.
We'd love to kinda talk through what as youmentioned, kind of the different settings or
applications for this, especially in kind ofthe categories that that we're both looking at.
There's a ton of variation in terms of whenthese technologies are most effectively used.
(44:30):
For example, if it's someone kind of maybehigher up in the CC, they're sitting at their
desk on a laptop and then kind of going througha lot of this data.
So they maybe prefer sort of a web interfaceversus someone on the factory floor might maybe
have access to something on their phone or theyhave like on on-site kind of hardware too.
So what does that kind of form factor look likein terms of engaging with some of these
(44:51):
different tools?
But kinda curious what you've seen on that aswell.
Yeah.
Mean, there was a company I saw a little whileback, I mean, where there was kind of like a
device that people would wear to detect ifthey're actually completing their task
effectively and also in a safe and compliantway.
And if they were not doing it in the proper wayin the factory, then there'd be a notification
(45:13):
that would get sent out to their manager.
And then the manager, their form factor wouldbe a screen because they would have to go there
and kind of like And they also use it forplanning shifts and stuff, right?
For getting deliveries out.
But on top of that, it's like, hey, thisperson, you know, your score is this because,
you know, you had this many mistakes happen orsomething like that.
(45:36):
So, I think also like helping people havevisibility in terms of, you know, possible
accidents or mistakes that could happen in thefactory because then if somebody gets injured,
you know, there's a whole you know, insuranceclaim like a workman's comp claim that could
come about.
So, I think trying to obviously mitigate, youknow, workman's comp, you know, insurance
claims and then, also, you know, just havebetter processes in the workplace, I think
(46:02):
definitely helps too.
I've seen in terms of it.
And then I think like there's a whole uniquedata set that you could probably sell to some
specific entity that has an interest in thatdata as well that was never there before.
So I think there's also a ripe industry forcreating new data sets that is created by the
(46:23):
activities of what people do because people maywant to consume that, especially when you think
about underwriting insurance policies.
Right?
They want to have a lot of data tostatistically calculate and ingest based on
what's coming into them.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great point and to your point earlierabout kind of the the tracking, I think there's
justifiably a lot of questions and concernsmaybe about increasing sort of automation and
(46:46):
kind of monitoring within kind of thesefacilities as well.
But I think there's so much opportunity forimproving like the facility kind of worker
experience as well in terms of better safetystandards and better data to make sure that
people are operating in kind of safeenvironments and are comfortable and aren't
maybe kind of at risk for any injury or kind ofissues as a function of too.
(47:08):
So I think there's a lot of opportunity to kindof improve the experience hopefully with some
of these categories as well.
And then super interesting on kind of the dataaspect as well too.
So one of the things that we've seen is aroundkind of data privacy and security for these
companies as well.
A lot of time it is very proprietaryinformation.
So while there's definitely a premium to be hadfor selling that information as well, but
(47:30):
there's a lot of even just kind of internalapplications and tools that you can use to
continue to improve sort of operationsinternally and whether there's cybersecurity
requirements for government applications, forexample, if we're selling into UD or kind of
any other kind of government entities aroundNIST frameworks or onboarding on FedRAMP or
(47:51):
things like that as well.
So kind of applications and and use cases theretoo.
Yeah.
And I mean, one one of the companies I investedin a while back was using Fido technology
that's been around for a long time.
Yeah.
But, like, you know, there's new encryptionbecause, I mean, the two factor is not as
secure.
Yeah.
So there's new technologies out there thatintegrate in with a piece of hardware.
(48:14):
That way you can't really replicate it withsoftware.
Right?
So it has to kind of ping some type of chip orsome type of hardware to authenticate that that
person did actually do a two factor versus justkind of the SMS, right, which has caused a lot
of people to get hacked.
I actually know someone that got hacked viaWhatsApp and just through two factor, you know,
(48:36):
I think someone, I don't know, like, they gavehim the two factor password, but, you know,
sometimes you get triggered.
I mean, there was one time where, I got anemail and it looked like it was a, like a
university email.
I was like, oh, reset your university accountand it looked just like the university.
And it's like, oh, if you wanna, you know, ifyou wanna reset your access, type in your
(48:59):
student ID or something like that.
And then, like, by luck, I looked at, like, theemail handle and it was, like, at, like, a hot
mail or something like
that.
Okay.
But, you know, there's a lot of, like, I thinkspoofing with email.
You know, people are getting really good.
Like, another scam that you should definitelybe careful of.
I've seen this a few times.
It's like you getting invited to like sign aDropbox like a like a
(49:25):
Like a DocuSign.
Yeah.
There's a few of them.
Just be really careful because it's like, hey,click this to like see your document and it
says, like, signature required.
So, like, oh, what is this?
Am I am I getting sent a contract?
And then, you know, you just gotta really lookat like the URL and like the email because
Yeah.
It's just if it's not official, you just neverknow.
But like some of them are really, really goodand it was Yeah.
(49:47):
So this one actually made you go into Dropboxand then, you know, to open the file.
It was kinda like a screenshot and it almostlooked like you were gonna like open the file.
And then again, same thing.
Was like, this is really efficient.
I like looked at the URL and then the URL wassome weird URL.
So then I definitely knew it was fake.
(50:08):
So I think definitely people are getting betterand better at it.
So I think there's probably a huge market forlike helping people detect that better natively
from their computer or something or even justlike the mail providers.
I think helping them detect that as well sotheir you know, users don't get impacted as
well.
(50:28):
You know?
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
And I think that there's a really interestingkind of category companies popping up both in
sort of like obviously, for a lot of these,like, deep tech industry categories managing,
like, physical safety and infrastructure foragainst kind of bad actor threats, also like
software supply chain kind of security categoryas well.
(50:48):
So to your point, whether it's through emailsor through other documentation or even if it's
an email from a person that you know, but howcan you, kinda make sure that it's actually
being sent from them and they weren't hacked oryou're you're not sending the wrong wire
information or or something like that as well.
Yeah.
Well, this is amazing, Ananya.
I really appreciate all your time and excitedto hang out in the next, you know, couple
(51:13):
weeks, and, and I'll see you in New York too.
Yeah.
No.
This is such a fun conversation.
Really enjoyed hearing your perspective on someof these, kinda categories as well.
Looking forward to to catching up in personvery soon.
Thanks so much.
Likewise.
Thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
Likewise.
Have a good one.
Alright.
Bye.
Yeah.
(00:00):
Absolutely.
I think maybe just the best place to start isjust, like, starting to have, like, a
familiarity with kind of what venture even is,like, the typical process.
And, well, some of that you can definitely getby, like, being in the job as well.
I think resources like Sutton Capital, the JohnGinnon blog, like a lot of the the people post
on kind of Twitter or LinkedIn as well in termsof their processes are really helpful.
(00:22):
And there's a ton of articles, medium posts,everything that you can read online of what it
actually means to be a VC, what kind of the dayto day looks like.
So I think for folks interested in the space,that's probably a great place to start.
And then just starting to figure out whereexactly your specialty lies and then using that
to kind of narrow down what your search lookslike.
There hundreds, maybe thousands of of kind ofventure funds that exist out there.
(00:45):
So figuring out if you wanna be an early stageversus later stage, a sector focused investor
versus a generalist, having a better sort oflike personal framing of what that looks like,
I think is really helpful.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
(01:09):
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
I think we're good to go.
(01:30):
I'm here with Ananya Vasagiri.
I've gotten to know her for the last month orso because we're doing some community building
together.
So, we're for those of you that that areinstitutional LPs, Ananya and I along with you
know, Emerging Venture Capital Association.
I think we should talk about that too.
Along with some great corporate sponsors,Citizens Bank, Revere and a bunch of other
(01:55):
friends.
We're doing a private LP community event inNapa.
So I think for those of you tuning in who areallocating and obviously coming out to the
RAISE conference will be doing this event outthere.
So I think there's a lot of great things totalk about in terms of community building.
We've learned a lot in terms of coordinatingevents.
(02:19):
But anyways, let's start with your career, youreducation Ananya, let's talk about what you
studied, your journey and now you're atSchematic Ventures, which is doing some really
interesting stuff we talked about, types ofdeals that we could look at together.
So we'd love to start from the beginning, learnabout your background, your career and
(02:42):
everything around that.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
First of all, thank you so much for having meon today.
I really enjoyed speaking with you as well.
And when I was first kind of exploring ventureand how to kind of break into the industry,
actually went to the Sun Capital website, likelooked through a lot of the resources and job
postings and everything that you guys had on aswell.
And it was really helpful for me to kind oflearn more about the space.
(03:04):
And I'm so grateful to now be on on the otherside of it and excited to go speak with with
you and and especially given all the great workyou're doing in this space.
So thank you.
No.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I mean, it's it's crazy how it becomes fullcircle.
I mean, I've seen people that have startedtheir career and they're just kind of getting
started or they're pivoting from anotherindustry and then later on they kind of go on
(03:25):
to this big institutional investment firm andthen I'm like begging for them to come on and
and teach us.
So I think that's amazing as well.
Really humbled to know that you looked at someof our resources and hopefully who's helpful.
Let's go deep and appreciate theacknowledgement.
(03:45):
But yeah, we'd love to learn a little moreabout where you grew up, where did you go to
school, what did you think you wanted to study?
I mentioned this in multiple episodes, but I'mfrom Florida.
I didn't even know what venture capital orprivate equity was when I was starting out.
And it was only really when I kind of startedtalking to more people as they were growing
their career that I knew more about it.
(04:07):
Yeah,
absolutely.
I actually grew up in East Bay suburb ofoutside of San Francisco.
And so I think growing up in the Bay Areaprobably were exposed to startups, venture
capitals, entrepreneurship at a relatively kindof early stage.
So even through school, I remember in in middleschool I watched a lot of like the the TV shows
(04:31):
related to the topics before paying the profit.
I applied for an internship on the profit inlike sixth or seventh grade.
Obviously I was not near qualified enough toget it.
But I think like those experiences and seeingthe opportunities to take really cool
businesses and work with them to help them kindof continue to grow and scale was pretty
formative from an early stage.
I maybe didn't know that kind of exact terms ofwhat exactly venture capital looked like, but
(04:54):
who I wanted to be in space.
So I went to UChicago for my undergrad, majoredin economics and psychology, worked with a lot
of different startups and kind ofentrepreneurship centers on campus like the
Polsky Center.
Absolutely love that experience and being ableto work with both the entrepreneurship center
and a lot of their incubation programs, as wellas the startups that they were working with at
(05:15):
the time was a really interesting experience.
And I saw the potential for venture capital andsort of private capital to be so transformative
for these well.
So, I knew that's a space I wanted to go inlonger term.
Didn't know exactly kind of what stage sectorfocus and everything that that I wanted to kind
of specialize in.
So, I had a couple internships in in differentcategories and spaces, did industrials,
(05:38):
investment banking for a summer at Goldman,worked at a healthcare private equity firm,
Mystria Group in Chicago, and had theopportunity to work with the growth stage
industrial tech firm, Activate Capital in SanFrancisco as well.
So really formative experiences, but I knew Iwanted to kind of focus on the category longer
term, but wasn't totally sure where.
And I had the opportunity to work at AdamsStreet Partners right out of school and their
(05:59):
primary funds team.
So it was an incredible learning experiencefrom sort of a 10,000 foot like bird's eye
level view of the private markets ecosystem.
We invested across whole range of sectors,strategies, geographies, and it's a great
learning experience.
And so wanted to be more on kind of impactfocus as well.
So join the team at Schematic here just overtwo years ago now and have moved back to San
(06:24):
Francisco and been out here ever since.
So, you know, that's really helpful and that'san amazing background.
What are some of the things that you learned asyou were kind of recruiting?
You know, it's kind of like, you know, acollege student applying to roles.
What advice would you give to somebody that'skind of trying to break into the industry and,
you know, essentially nail the interview?
(06:45):
Because these roles are super competitive andit's very difficult to obviously be the best
candidate, especially in, like, San Franciscoor New York.
There's so much talent.
There's so many people coming out of these topschools.
There's so many people that are hustling andnetworking.
So what do you think some of the tools andmaybe frameworks and interview skills were to
(07:09):
kind of help you get to where you need to be?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
I think maybe just the best place to start isjust like starting to have like a familiarity
with kind of what venture even is like thetypical process.
And well, some of that you can definitely getby like being in the job as well.
I think resources like Sutton Capital, the JohnGinnon blog, like a lot of the post on kind of
(07:30):
Twitter or LinkedIn as well in terms of theirprocesses are really helpful.
And there's a ton of articles, medium posts,everything that you can read online of what it
actually means to be a VC, what kind of the dayto day looks like.
So I think for folks interested in the space,that's probably a great place to start.
And then just starting to figure out whereexactly your specialty lies and then using that
to kind of narrow down what your search lookslike.
(07:52):
There are hundreds, maybe thousands of kind ofventure funds that exist out there.
So figuring out if you want to be an earlystage versus later stage, a sector focused
investor versus a generalist, having a bettersort of like personal framing of what that
looks like, I think is really helpful.
And then one narrowing down your search andthen two, can be a lot more targeted in your
networking efforts and kind of outreach effortstoo, if you're responding to a senior investors
(08:17):
blog post or thought piece or something tostart like building those relationships early
on.
So I think figuring out like where you wannaplay and then use that as a way to kind of
channel your efforts is probably prettyhelpful.
No, that's definitely helpful.
What would you say some of the soft skills areand then maybe the hard skills that you need to
make sure that you nail down as you'reinterviewing?
(08:40):
Yeah, that's a good question.
I feel like the soft skills part are probablysimilar to any job that requires external
facing aspects.
So being friendly, open, I think curious andsort of willing to learn is one of the biggest
requirements, especially given that we'respeaking with people who are so, so smart and
experienced in their categories.
And I'm really grateful to be able to have theopportunity to learn with people or from people
(09:05):
who are twenty, thirty plus years into theircareer, specialized in these different topics,
especially in the industrial and deep techsectors that we look at, they have so much
domain knowledge.
So just being open and interested in learningwhat they're working on, being able to over
time, hopefully at least ask somewhatintelligent questions to better understand
their business and everything.
So that's probably on the soft skills guide,just being kind of open and friendly and
(09:30):
interested.
And then on the hard skill side, I think thatreally depends on, again, kind of where in the
venture ecosystem you want to focus on.
If it's on the early stage side, then technicalexpertise might be more helpful as your
diligence in kind of companies in like thehealthcare or deep tech sectors, for example,
versus if you're later stage, then probably alot more financial modeling skills and Excel
(09:51):
kind of related analysis is much more helpfulat that point too.
Yeah.
No.
That's great.
And then tell me what kinda got you excitedabout working at schematics.
So you were kinda looks like that was kindayour next role.
And before that, can you tell can you breakdown a little more about your previous was it
(10:11):
at you said it was at Adams Streets?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So maybe tell us a little more about that firmand and some of your responsibilities there,
kind of the sectors you're looking at, andthen, you know, I know the next step was kinda
to go to schematics.
So, you know, it seems like you have a reallygreat concentration on deep tech.
So we both have that shared interest there.
(10:33):
So maybe we can double click on that a littlebit.
Yeah.
And then I got a lot of other questions to gothrough.
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
So maybe starting with the experience at AdamStreet.
So I was on the fund to funds team.
So we focused on investing in both venturecapital and private equity funds.
I was based out of the Chicago office.
It was a function that in kind of the areathere, I spent a lot more time focused on kind
(10:56):
of middle market, large cap, generally kind ofprivate equity funds, spend a lot of time in
industrial and Yeah.
Specifically categories too.
And
we've got the opportunity to work on some ofthe new sub funds that they were starting
around kind of impact and kind of newertechnologies as well.
So that was really interesting.
At the junior level, I joined kind of right outof college.
A lot of my work was on the diligence piece ofthat.
(11:17):
So running a lot of the different models andanalysis on kind of past portfolio performance
records of these different funds, doing a lotof industry research to understand what are the
new kind of regulation or trends happening inthese categories and how are these managers
adjusting or kind of focusing their diligenceefforts or investment thesis as a function of
these new trends that are happening in thespace or more so on the diligence and kind of
(11:40):
portfolio management, not as much on thesourcing side for new management.
That's kind of the focus there.
The team there was incredible.
I've learned so much from all of them and wasreally grateful for that experience.
And then I joined Spatic in 2022 because I wasreally interested in kind of having more of an
impact directly with the companies as well andwanted to be working one on one with kind of
(12:04):
companies that were focused on the industrialkind of supply chain kind of climate related
categories as well.
So that's kind of a quick high level overview.
We focus on early stage kind of verticalsoftware and applications specifically for like
the industrial category.
So everything from supply chain, manufacturing,robotics and energy, as well as kind of I spend
a lot of time on the data infrastructuredeveloper tooling for engineers and
(12:29):
practitioners in these categories as well.
So even in seed stage investments these spaces.
So yeah, the team has been wonderful.
I've learned so much from the GPs and partnersand other associates here as well.
So really enjoyed that experience and beingable to work across the entire landscape of the
deal from bringing it in, like reaching outthrough LinkedIn or kind of cold email,
(12:50):
managing the diligence process, then hopefullyworking with the company post investment as
well.
So that's been really fun.
That's amazing.
And then on the deep tech side, well, actuallybefore I go into that, what are some of the
learnings that you learned as a allocator, as afund to fund investor?
I'm pretty positive that's super complimentaryto now your role at EVCA, really building that
(13:14):
LP community.
But what are some of the things that you thinkis important for LPs to think about as they're
looking at managers?
Maybe what are the KPIs or soft skills thatthey look at for managers?
Because there's so many managers and so manygreat managers.
Right?
But there's only a certain amount of checksthat you can write for a certain size.
(13:37):
So tell me a little more about that experienceof sourcing, picking, winning fund managers.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I'm curious to hear your perspective onthis as well, especially given the kind of fund
incubator program that you guys run as well.
Yeah.
But at least from my experience, one of thethings that I was really pleasantly surprised
about was that the diligence process and kindof to your earlier question around kind of the
(13:58):
soft and hard skills of, kind of research andand requirements for this role.
Or actually, there's more overlap than I wouldhave expected for fund investing versus really
early stage direct investing.
For a lot of the companies that we speak with,it's sometimes as early as kind of team and
idea.
So you're really trying to understand theperson looking at their past performance if
they've worked in the space before, have areally good kind of industry knowledge and
(14:21):
perspective, and to what extent can we do sortof market research and references to confirm
that this is an actual need kind of in thisspace as well.
And similarly on the fund investing side, youcan see the past portfolio and performance kind
of track record of those fund managers andadapting to changes and new entrants in this
category, but you have no idea what's going togo into that specific portfolio.
(14:44):
So it's a lot of both like qualitative andquantitative analysis on the people and kind of
the platform and the product itself.
So I've really enjoyed kind of seeing how muchmore overlap than I maybe would have expected.
But curious to hear your thoughts on the otherside of that as well.
Yeah, mean, think definitely niche focusedareas are helpful for LPs because some LPs just
(15:09):
want to kind of see that there's a granularinsight into a certain strategy.
And a lot of times what I've learned is thoseindicators indicate that there's kind of a
repeatable model.
For example, there is one fund, I won't mentiontheir name, but they have a concentrated
portfolio and they specifically focus on deeptech and infrastructure.
And their first fund did pretty well and theyactually had a pretty good amount of capital
(15:35):
set aside for follow on investing for reserves.
So they pretty much did the same exactstrategy, but they proportionally increased the
size of the fund.
So I think that niche shows that you kind ofhave this unique place in the market versus
like these generalist funds that are investingin everything.
So I think that definitely helps.
(15:56):
Then I think definitely the platform approach.
I mean, there's a lot of managers, not all ofthe managers that are on Twitter, but like
someone like Nicole Wachoff, right?
I mean, she has built a huge audience, butshe's also an amazing investor and she's kind
of repeated her same strategy.
I think she's on like fund three now.
Yeah.
I believe and there's kind of a repeatablemodel around that.
(16:19):
So I think that's kind of what I have seen.
And then there's just so many managers and ourcohorts that have so many different sector
focus areas.
Their story is a big thing too.
How did they come about to focusing on thissector based on their career background?
Because that also tells you if they're gonna bekind of the leader in that market because maybe
(16:39):
their unique access to network or unique accessto knowledge to be able to really just
outperform in that space.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's a really interesting point.
And maybe this goes back to kind of my psychbackground, but I always think it's so
interesting to kind of with these managers orkind of startup founders will understand the
why behind the decisions, for a fund, if youchoose to have a more concentrated portfolio
(16:59):
versus, kind of smaller, kind of morediversified sector focus versus generalist.
Why why is that your strategy?
Like they're pros and cons for each but howdoes that tie into kind of your background and
and your experience as well.
So yeah that's a it's a great point.
I think yeah Nicole just raised her her thirdfriend and again for Neil just started as an
associate there.
So super excited for them as well.
(17:19):
Well, you know, let's talk a little more about,like, emotional intelligence.
I think this is kind of a fun topic.
So, like, what are some maybe mistakes thatyou've seen from and not even mistakes, but
just kinda maybe bad ways to interact with LPsjust so fund managers can think about that.
Mean, think one of the basic things I heardthis from an LP a while ago is like, look,
(17:42):
sometimes like LPs might just be in town andlike LPs might actually reach out and like
those LPs, they may just come out and just say,hey.
You know, I'm in town.
If you wanna grab coffee and that's kind of areally fortunate thing.
If an LP wants to come out and and grab coffee.
But there's been some managers that have beenvery shortsighted.
They're like, oh, you know, like, I'm notraising right now or maybe that person didn't
(18:05):
write a check immediately, so maybe their theirego got hit by it.
So they don't wanna, like, take the meeting.
And I feel like the best time to fundraise isessentially when the best time to fundraise is
essentially when you're not raising.
Right?
So if you're not raising or you're not inmarket, that's a great way to kinda continue
that relationship because it might take, like,eighteen months to eventually, you know, be the
(18:28):
timing that's right for the the LP as well.
You know?
So I don't know if you have any other exampleslike that where, like, maybe a manager just
came in too strong or was too aggressive.
I've had managers come to me a few times andlike they kind of were like, Oh, I guess you
don't have liquidity right now so that's whyyou're not investing.
(18:49):
I'm like, No, that's not the reason.
I just don't have an interest to invest in yoursector right now.
But I think sometimes people take it to heartand then they accuse you of something.
I don't know if you've had weird personalitieslike that.
Yeah.
But we'd love to hear any other examples.
Yeah.
Well, that's a unfortunate experience that youhave to go through, but I think one of the
(19:13):
things venture kind of a lot of these theseindustries that we spend time in is like the
really long term nature of these relationships.
And while it might not work out for a specificdiligence process, today, you never know what's
gonna happen in the next kind of couple monthsor even couple of years if they maybe move to a
different firm or something changes in terms oftheir own kind of liquidity status or anything
like that.
(19:33):
So I think one of the things that just likehaving that kind of mindset that everything
doesn't necessarily need to be immediately kindof transactional in that sense of, oh, I'm only
gonna speak with you or get coffee, whatever.
If you can write me
a check.
And then I'm sorry.
It's like a $2,000,000 2 million dollar cup ofcoffee.
So I think just like having that, like,framework that everyone is just like trying to
(19:54):
do a good job at work and and maintain thosepersonal relationships as well.
And if you're only speaking with someonebecause of their check check writing
capabilities or not speaking with them becauseof their supposed lack of, then that's probably
not a great way to kind of go into that.
And if these are people if they do invest,these are people you are gonna be working with
over the next kind of Mhmm.
(20:14):
Seven to to ten years probably over the courseof kind of a fun life cycle.
And these wanna be people you know really welland can work with.
And if you're only speaking with them on thispurely transactional basis, that is probably
gonna make it a little bit harder to kind ofmaintain that over
that
long period of time.
And I think there's so many parallels.
So I always joke around about this.
I mean, in a lot of the, I've joked around withthis with other guests too, but it's like,
(20:37):
there's so many parallels, right?
So if you're a founder and you're trying toraise money, it's the same exact If you're
doing enterprise sales, same thing.
You might have to, it might be like a six monthsales cycle.
And then, you know, the funniest thing is likeeven if you're dating, right?
I mean, you can't like, so no one's going tomarry you on the, I mean, usually, most people
won't marry you on like the first date, right?
(20:57):
They.
Yeah.
They want to get to know you maybe maybe youknow, have a relationship with you and then and
then maybe, you know, become more, you know,serious but I think there's just like
psychologically, there's so many differentparallels to that when you think about
psychology, just kind of like the, you know,the the law of attraction, right?
I mean, and I think and I think a lot of LPstoo like not to say that they have FOMO, they
(21:20):
want to know, I've heard this from LPs, want toknow who you're co investing with.
That's kind of a signal of your network, youraccess.
And a lot of times they also want to know, andI think this is a good signal, who your LPs are
because your LPs could be, you know, like,they're you know, it could be like the the the
family office of, a very, very successfulfounder or there could be a really large
(21:43):
endowment.
And, like, that kinda is a really interestingsignal.
Doesn't need to be a transactional signal, butit just be some type of interesting thing to
pay attention to saying, hey, you know what?
Some other people are paying attention to thisfirm.
So maybe there's something special about them,specifically the person, you know?
Yeah, absolutely.
And if you are kind of a manager raising a newfounder, even if you're kind of a startup
(22:07):
founder or CEO, there's typically like a coupleof different types of diligence processes that
investors, whether fund or direct investorswill do.
If it's a fund investment, for example, they'llprobably speak to existing LPs or other LPs
kind of considering investments, other GPs toyour point that you probably co invest with, or
are likely to slash have done in the past andfounders that you've worked with in the past,
(22:28):
too.
And so I think if you're only kinda maintainingthose on a purely transactional basis, it's
hard to get, like, really genuine relationshipswith all three of those different kinda
categories.
And so to what extent can you show that you arebeing kind of a prudent manager of capital for
LPs, also being a collaborative investor withother GPs or partners that you work with and
actually kind of hoping, hopefully kind ofadding value or kind of engaging effectively
(22:53):
with your startup companies as well.
So, yeah, I think having that kind of mindsetand framing is really.
Yeah.
I know.
That's helpful.
And then, you know, what and did you enjoy kindof, you know, diligence and did they also have
a direct strategy as well?
Yeah.
Adams Street has a a direct as well, more onthe growth side.
(23:13):
Yeah.
So more on the growth side.
So but it sounds like you mainly focused onmanager selection.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Any other, you know, any other learnings forlike LPs to kinda develop their skills?
And then maybe just any more advice that youhave for emerging fund managers?
Yeah, absolutely.
On the LP side, so I also lead the EVCA kind ofLP community as well, which you touched on
(23:38):
earlier.
And so I think part of the reason for that is Iwas working at Adams Street kind of during
COVID like we were working really remote.
And so while the team was really effective inbuilding up internal community and culture, I
wasn't able to engage with that many other kindof junior folks on the fund investing side
outside of Adam Street.
(23:58):
And so coming over to the direct kind ofventure side, I saw all these different
communities and and ecosystems that exist tokind of support more more junior folks.
EBC is one of the the kind of leading kind ofnonprofits in that space for kind of community
and and collaboration on that side.
And I was like, this would have been so so niceand such a great kind of support ecosystem to
have while I was at Adams Street.
(24:20):
So that's kind of our goal is for both kind ofpre partner and more more senior investors as
well.
Kind of provide access to these curated eventslike the NAPO and we're doing in a couple of
weeks, both kind of virtual and in person aswell to be able to provide kind of networking
opportunities with kind of your peers and maybeeven more senior folks as well to understand
what does the career path and fund investinglook like versus sourcing a metric for that?
(24:43):
Is it diligence to manage your relationships?
How do you actually kind of navigate thatjourney?
And then just like meeting other folks in thisspace too, and the processes for endowments
versus institutions versus multifamily officescan be very, very different.
And even within each of those categories, theyall have their own kind of strategies, kind of
deployment focus areas and everything.
So that's kind of the goal of our community aswell to be able to provide those resources and
(25:07):
network for folks on the LP side that arelooking to kind of build and grow in the space
as well.
So, yeah, for anyone that's interested in thatwould love to chat and happy to share more
about our resources and event invites andeverything and looking forward to hopefully co
hosting another event with you in the future aswell.
Yeah.
No.
Definitely.
And then, you know, for managers, I I just sawa question here like Yeah.
(25:27):
What are your thoughts on emerging managers ontheir first fund?
So what should fund managers think about asthey're preparing to go in in market?
It says, especially if they're pivoting into adifferent sector.
Okay?
So maybe you're I don't know, like you work infinance and you wanna launch a cyber fund or
something.
I don't know.
Maybe that's kind of the example of Ishkar.
Feel free to clarify.
(25:49):
Like but I I'd say, like, yeah, any any advicefor people that are maybe thinking about fund
one or now kind of in market for fund one, whatadvice as a former allocator and now connected
to a lot of other allocators, any any Yeah,
absolutely.
(26:09):
So one of the things that the GP at CMI andJulian mentioned when I was first kinda getting
started, he was providing feedback on justkinda how to think about framing the job was he
provided a great framework in terms of what arethe core kind of metrics or requirements for
this role.
Find, pick, win, kind of the the mainrequirements, and then, hopefully, kind of
build as well kind of post that.
(26:30):
So the first kind of bucket of that is justlike finding really interesting companies.
So if you are looking at real estate, forexample, what are your sources for finding
these proprietary deals?
Are you on the most common newsletters orwebsites?
Or do you have diversified networks to be ableto get access into some of these maybe more
(26:51):
unique opportunities that aren't kind ofpublicly listed somewhere?
And then two is kind of the diligence process.
So do you have the right network and resourcesor even just kind of experience to be able to
understand those categories mentionedcybersecurity, for example, it's a very
technical space.
So to what extent can you understand thecompetitive landscape?
Why is this company better than others?
(27:12):
What else exists in the market?
And why would customers pick them versus anyoneelse?
And then third part is kind of winning the dealtoo.
So you've done all your diligence.
You're really excited about this company, butif it's a great company, they might have a ton
of other investors lined up willing to kind ofgive them capital.
So how do you kind of most effectivelycommunicate why you win or are you kind of
deserve to be at least kind of part of thatround over over another investor.
(27:35):
So those are kind of the three kind of mainrequirements for being able to to get the deal,
then hopefully kind of post close or postinvestment depending on your investment
strategy.
Are you able to kind of work with a portfoliocompany to provide them access to maybe
customers or partners that they're looking tospeak with?
Can you help them with access to serviceproviders, help them with future fundraising or
legal support or whatever else kind of yourspecial sauces in terms of probably ties into
(27:59):
your strategy around kind of why you won thedeal as well, but the broader categories that
might be helpful to think about as you areemerging fund manager and thinking about
speaking with LPs or potential investors inyour fund.
How do you explain why you went in in buckets?
Yeah.
No.
That's helpful.
And then so hopefully that was helpful for thequestions in the audience.
(28:20):
But, yeah, I think to your point, like, I mean,no matter what so I mean and I and I did this
in my career.
You know, I was working in aerospace and then Ikind of pivoted into SaaS.
And I think if you can just, you don't need tobe a genius or like super intellectual.
Think if you just jump in and kind of absorbcontent and I think you can accelerate that by
(28:44):
having other smart people around you so thatand to be honest, that's the secret for me with
this podcast.
I spend an hour with a person every week, so Ireally just absorb all of their knowledge,
which I'm very grateful to do with you andAnya.
But like, yeah, I think just kind ofsurrounding yourself with those people.
If you want to get into real estate, hang outwith a bunch of successful real estate
(29:06):
investors, read all of the content that couldbe helpful.
And then I think just being part of thecommunity and then actually just doing it.
Think learning by doing maybe doing your firstdeal.
I'm curious if there's anything kind of givenyour experience starting in this space too.
Is there anything that maybe kind of lookingback now that you would have done differently
(29:27):
or kind of what your advice would have been nowis kind of a retrospective?
Yeah.
I mean, I think for me, I try look.
I mean, we're here on this planet for a shortamount of time.
So I try not to, focus too much on regret andthe past.
And I think for me, I'm very grateful thateverything just kind of connected somehow.
(29:49):
When I was in New York in my 20s, had a lot offriends that were working on Wall Street and
banking and I was like, wow, that seems likesuch a sexy job.
I want to go to B School and work ninety hourworkweeks.
I even took a GMAT class and I was like, oh,I'm gonna like study really hard and get into
(30:11):
like an Ivy League school and do B school andthen like get into banking and do PE.
And that was a weird time in my life.
I really didn't know kind of what I wanted todo.
And then I ended up like working in tech andthen did grad school.
But I think it all connects because my thesisin deep tech definitely got strengthened from
(30:35):
working in deep tech for some time.
And then especially with fintech and SaaScompanies, I understood some of the way the
businesses work because I was in the weeds likepushing out software releases.
So I think that definitely helped me understandand lean into my background where I think
earlier too, it wasn't as trendy to be anengineer and have a heavy tech background and
(31:02):
then get into finance.
It was traditionally people that just kind oflike went the investment banking route and then
they were just purely financed.
But I think over time, a lot of founders havebecome really amazing investors.
Then on the deep tech side, you see a lot ofpeople that have like a PhD and have a science
background or they've worked for like a bigpharma company.
(31:23):
And I think that's more prevalent on the WestCoast.
I see a lot of VCs, I would say, used to beengineers or product managers.
I think one piece of like being a productmanager is like you have to really figure out
like if it's worth building something and youknow, part of that is kind of like a light
(31:44):
market sizing exercise, right?
Yeah.
I think for you as an investor, it's like, oh,is it worth me investing in this space because
there's so many other types of companies thatare maybe doing the same thing.
You have to kind of like prioritize your likein product, you're prioritizing your backlog
and like finance or investing, you'reprioritizing your capital, right?
You only have like a certain amount of slots tolike write a check.
(32:05):
So you have to kind of like really make sureit's going to hit and like make an impact.
But I'd say, yeah, I think you just got to leaninto who you are.
The comment here, if you're a doctor looking atreal estate, hey, what if you built an entire
medical facility and you have tenants that areliving there and getting services?
(32:25):
So I think there's a lot of cool synergies andways to lean into who you are as a person and
then develop your brand as an investor just byleaning into all that.
And a lot of us are just, we're all insecure.
We all have insecurities.
We're worried about what other people think orjudgment.
But I think if you just lean into it and justkind of embrace it.
(32:48):
I mean, that's kind of what's worked for me.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think that's such an interesting point,especially kind of given your background in
terms of like working in the industry and thennow being on like the other side of like having
that experience to be able to kind of get allthose investments in those categories too is
like especially in in kind of venture or atleast kind of early later stage.
There's not like one kind of traditional careerpath.
(33:08):
You don't necessarily need to do investmentbanking or to to to get a banking fee and then
get your MBA sort of thing.
You you both have art history backgrounds orMhmm.
Worked on the product side more operationallyas well or kinda worked on their own company
too and are now able to leverage those on theflip side.
I really believe if you really want to dosomething and it's truly burning inside of you,
(33:32):
I think you'll make it happen.
I think if anybody really wants to start a fundand they have the right mentorship, they have
the right frameworks and they're in the rightrooms with the right people and there's ways to
get in those rooms by building relationships.
But if you're able to do that, then you willlaunch fund.
Same thing, like a lot of the people thatprobably broke into VC that came from like a or
(33:55):
private equity that came from like atraditional non finance background.
They probably just knew that they wanted to getin and just kind of had that burning desire and
that they made it happen somehow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I truly believe that.
And then, you know, so let's talk a little bitmore.
You know, we we started talking about EVCA.
So let's talk a little more about thatorganization.
(34:18):
So it's really interesting.
It's a nonprofit.
And you guys had like a I think you guys had asummit over the summer.
It looked like a lot of fun.
I I think I saw like a swimming pool there, butit looked like a really cool like, you know,
get together with a lot of them.
Like, is it only emerging managers or can youhave like fun twos and fun threes as well?
Yeah, absolutely.
So I don't think there was a swimming pool orif there was an issue, I missed it.
(34:40):
No, it was a great summit.
So high level context, UTC is a nonprofitorganization, currently has about a little over
1,300 members, I think, as of the last count.
More initially focused on kind of pre partnerinvestors.
And it was initially started with the focus oninvestors on the direct side as well.
So across every kind of stage sector and nowgrowing geographically as well to provide as I
(35:05):
mentioned kind of community networks as you'respeaking with other folks in terms of kind of
understanding different investment thesis,categories or trends in the space, or even just
kind of sharing deals with our portfoliocompanies raising and someone else is a good
fit for the next round or things like that.
So that's been been really helpful.
And now we're working on kind of building upthe equivalent on the LP side as well.
(35:26):
So we wanna be mindful of kind of managing timeand resources.
So for LPs that are joining, we don't wannanecessarily have their inbox be inundated with
kind of 1,300 emails from different managerswho are thinking about maybe kind of launching
their own fund or pitching their own fund
as well.
But having it being a really focused group thathopefully adds value to them in terms of
(35:47):
similar opportunities around kind ofnetworking, career building and development as
well, but kind of much more focused on thatecosystem as well.
So yeah, the summit was more focused on thedirect side as well, but hopefully a lot of
these smaller kind of curated dinners andevents will be helpful build out the LP
ecosystem around this as well.
Yeah, I think definitely like doing smallerkind of curated events.
(36:09):
Think the benefit of that and I think there's alot of things we can talk about events.
So I think you know, when you have, like, 20high quality people, all those people can talk
to each other and, you know, you have enoughtime even if it's, like, three hours long or a
longer dinner.
Everyone has enough time to have, like, ameaningful conversation with each person versus
(36:32):
like I think if you're like, you know, at a 300or, you know, 500 person event, there's like a
sea of people and everyone's kinda like reallyjust trying to shake everybody's hand.
Yeah.
And I don't think you get the depth that couldgo much farther than just kind of like, you
know, trying to get somebody's business card orget their email and then.
Yeah.
You know, you meet them and you ping them yourdeck or something.
(36:54):
Yeah.
You know, that that definitely, in my opinion,I think it travels further if you just kinda
have, like, you know, like, I think you'redoing a dinner in a couple of weeks.
So I think just kinda doing a more intimate,you know, way for people to engage, I think,
definitely helps.
I know you've done some really cool events forthe LP community in New York as well.
I think it was at a at a car club.
(37:14):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, I think also if you can do somethingexperiential, that gets people excited to go
there.
If you just do it at like, you know, an nothingwrong with, Italian restaurants, but if you
just do it at, like, you know, an Italianrestaurant, you know, I think it's still great,
but some people might not some people might notmove their plans around to attend.
(37:39):
If they have something else and it's kind oflike, you know, I I would say also, especially
in San Francisco, what I learned is just, youknow, people have longer commutes.
I mean, people do have commutes in New York aswell, but people I feel will, stay in the city
if it's like an exciting event and then theycan always take the train back where I and and,
(38:01):
you know, you'll know better than me, but Ifeel like sometimes in San Francisco, if you
have to drive, you know, it's kind of like, youknow, it's a long drive maybe to kinda, you
know, stick around longer and then you get homeeven later.
Where I think in New York, you know, people arepeople who are in transit probably are taking
the the bus or taking probably like the the thelong, you know, the LIRR or Metro North.
(38:24):
So, they're kind of, hey, you know, it's it'snot as burdensome to kind of drive.
I mean, there are people that still driveprobably as well.
You know, they probably park in the city and goback.
But that's just kinda something I've noticedjust from doing one or two events in SF.
But I don't if you've had if you had someinsights in terms of, like, community building
and, like, SF versus New York.
(38:45):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think one of the exciting things about likebeing in both these cities and some of the
other kind of growing tech hubs and communitiesacross the country is that there is so much
excitement around kind of venture kind ofprivate investments kind of events.
So whether that's happy hours, dinners,summits, lot of the tech week, climate week
that just happened in New York previously.
(39:05):
So I think that's one of the really excitingkind of aspects of this, but on the flip side,
because there is so much interest there, a tonof different events and things happening too.
So how do you kind of make your kind of eventor experience kind of stand out within that?
I think experiential events are a great way ofdoing it.
At Schematic for example, we've done a lot ofvery industry focused events.
So we do supply chain and manufacturing kind ofstartup showcases or happy hours or kind of
(39:31):
summits, fireside chats and panels, veryspecifically focused on kind of key topics.
So while there are a ton of really interestinglike AI hackathons or kind of more broad more
broad sort of venture founder kind of meetups,I think having these, like, industry focused,
activities with with a very kinda clear purposeattracts people who maybe are interested in
kind of a more kinda curated experience to yourpoint.
(39:53):
So I'm currently planning a robotics summit forlater this year as well.
And we did a robotics kind of hackathon lastyear as well too.
So there's been really great kind of feedbackand reception around that too around why would
people spend a few hours, extra hours out ofout of their day to go to your event versus
going home or or spending more time at work orwith family or anything else too.
(40:15):
Sure.
No, absolutely.
And then, know, I know we have about fifteenminutes left.
I'd love to kind of learn a little more aboutsome of your observations and like your sector
focus, you know, so I think definitely like,you know, the deep tech side, industrial tech,
you know, what are some of the trends thatyou're seeing and what are some of the things
that you maybe see in the future happening,within those, areas of focus that you're
(40:39):
looking at?
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And I'm really curious about your perspective,on this as well since you come from kind of
these, from from this industry.
So you've used I'm sure, like, seen thetransition of the adoption of a lot of these
new technologies that that have been coming upas well.
But I just simply have been spending a lot moretime as I kinda mentioned earlier on, the data
kind of developer tooling and, like,infrastructure applications for companies in
(41:02):
this category.
So for example, specifically within supplychain, one of the biggest trends we've seen
over the last kind of year, year and a half orso has been the adoption of a lot of the larger
kind of data platforms like Snowflake andDatabricks.
I recently had a conversation with seniorleader at Databricks who focuses on kind of
manufacturing, automotive and kind of energy goto market strategies.
And he echoed that sentiment around increasinginterest and adoption of kind of some of these
(41:28):
tools for companies in the industrial category.
There's so much data that exists today, but alot of it is unstructured in terms of kind of
email or even just kind of physical kind of penand paper communication around coordinating
logistics or deliveries or purchase orders, forexample, in the procurement side, robotics,
kind of sensor data coming off of machinery orkind of warehouse automation solutions.
(41:49):
So there's so much information, but how can youactually leverage that in a more effective
manner for companies building in category?
So that's an area that I'm really excitedabout, especially being out here in San
Francisco, there's so much happening in likethe data and dev tooling space too.
So I'm really excited about kind of hopefullyproviding access to some of these kind of
industrial spaces that we spend more time inthat maybe isn't kind of the first kind of go
(42:12):
to market focus for a lot of these morehorizontal companies, but it's a really
interesting kind of vertical application aswell.
So curious from your kind of industrybackground as well, how you've kind of seen the
shift and adoption of some of these newer tech.
So I would say I think you're completely on themarket.
I mean, I think a lot of these logisticscompanies, I mean, there's a lot of opportunity
(42:34):
to modernize them.
And a lot of them are on like legacy enterprisetools that have been the market leader.
And those enterprise tools and softwareplatforms have really expensive yearly
contracts.
So I think there's a disruption to not onlyprovide maybe a more cost effective solution,
(42:55):
but I think the real cool thing is to have likesome secret sauce on top of their own data.
So like if they have some type of supply chaincompany and like the standard company that
they're working with right now, their softwareSaaS platform to kind of manage the supply
chain, maybe gives them like order informationand purchase and delivery date information.
(43:20):
I think having more secret sauce in terms ofprediction and then also maybe giving insight
in terms of like, hey, you know what you'redoing?
You're doing like 30% better than you did thistime last year.
I think that could help.
And then I think also pushing more content topeople to help them have better behaviors in
the workplace, I think definitely helps aswell.
(43:41):
So I think just automation, cleaning data,prediction to help people do the job better,
but also, like, personalizing it based on,like, their specific settings.
Right?
So if you have, like, a certain setting thatthat you're, you know, configuring for your
infrastructure, you know, having some type of,you know, insights on top of that so you can
(44:07):
just do better at what you're doing.
I don't know.
Like, I don't know if you kind of agree withthat, but I think that's those are just, like,
some of the few things I've been learning,especially on the SaaS side.
That's super interesting.
We'd love to kinda talk through what as youmentioned, kind of the different settings or
applications for this, especially in kind ofthe categories that that we're both looking at.
There's a ton of variation in terms of whenthese technologies are most effectively used.
(44:30):
For example, if it's someone kind of maybehigher up in the CC, they're sitting at their
desk on a laptop and then kind of going througha lot of this data.
So they maybe prefer sort of a web interfaceversus someone on the factory floor might maybe
have access to something on their phone or theyhave like on on-site kind of hardware too.
So what does that kind of form factor look likein terms of engaging with some of these
(44:51):
different tools?
But kinda curious what you've seen on that aswell.
Yeah.
Mean, there was a company I saw a little whileback, I mean, where there was kind of like a
device that people would wear to detect ifthey're actually completing their task
effectively and also in a safe and compliantway.
And if they were not doing it in the proper wayin the factory, then there'd be a notification
(45:13):
that would get sent out to their manager.
And then the manager, their form factor wouldbe a screen because they would have to go there
and kind of like And they also use it forplanning shifts and stuff, right?
For getting deliveries out.
But on top of that, it's like, hey, thisperson, you know, your score is this because,
you know, you had this many mistakes happen orsomething like that.
(45:36):
So, I think also like helping people havevisibility in terms of, you know, possible
accidents or mistakes that could happen in thefactory because then if somebody gets injured,
you know, there's a whole you know, insuranceclaim like a workman's comp claim that could
come about.
So, I think trying to obviously mitigate, youknow, workman's comp, you know, insurance
claims and then, also, you know, just havebetter processes in the workplace, I think
(46:02):
definitely helps too.
I've seen in terms of it.
And then I think like there's a whole uniquedata set that you could probably sell to some
specific entity that has an interest in thatdata as well that was never there before.
So I think there's also a ripe industry forcreating new data sets that is created by the
(46:23):
activities of what people do because people maywant to consume that, especially when you think
about underwriting insurance policies.
Right?
They want to have a lot of data tostatistically calculate and ingest based on
what's coming into them.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great point and to your point earlierabout kind of the the tracking, I think there's
justifiably a lot of questions and concernsmaybe about increasing sort of automation and
(46:46):
kind of monitoring within kind of thesefacilities as well.
But I think there's so much opportunity forimproving like the facility kind of worker
experience as well in terms of better safetystandards and better data to make sure that
people are operating in kind of safeenvironments and are comfortable and aren't
maybe kind of at risk for any injury or kind ofissues as a function of too.
(47:08):
So I think there's a lot of opportunity to kindof improve the experience hopefully with some
of these categories as well.
And then super interesting on kind of the dataaspect as well too.
So one of the things that we've seen is aroundkind of data privacy and security for these
companies as well.
A lot of time it is very proprietaryinformation.
So while there's definitely a premium to be hadfor selling that information as well, but
(47:30):
there's a lot of even just kind of internalapplications and tools that you can use to
continue to improve sort of operationsinternally and whether there's cybersecurity
requirements for government applications, forexample, if we're selling into UD or kind of
any other kind of government entities aroundNIST frameworks or onboarding on FedRAMP or
(47:51):
things like that as well.
So kind of applications and and use cases theretoo.
Yeah.
And I mean, one one of the companies I investedin a while back was using Fido technology
that's been around for a long time.
Yeah.
But, like, you know, there's new encryptionbecause, I mean, the two factor is not as
secure.
Yeah.
So there's new technologies out there thatintegrate in with a piece of hardware.
(48:14):
That way you can't really replicate it withsoftware.
Right?
So it has to kind of ping some type of chip orsome type of hardware to authenticate that that
person did actually do a two factor versus justkind of the SMS, right, which has caused a lot
of people to get hacked.
I actually know someone that got hacked viaWhatsApp and just through two factor, you know,
(48:36):
I think someone, I don't know, like, they gavehim the two factor password, but, you know,
sometimes you get triggered.
I mean, there was one time where, I got anemail and it looked like it was a, like a
university email.
I was like, oh, reset your university accountand it looked just like the university.
And it's like, oh, if you wanna, you know, ifyou wanna reset your access, type in your
(48:59):
student ID or something like that.
And then, like, by luck, I looked at, like, theemail handle and it was, like, at, like, a hot
mail or something like
that.
Okay.
But, you know, there's a lot of, like, I thinkspoofing with email.
You know, people are getting really good.
Like, another scam that you should definitelybe careful of.
I've seen this a few times.
It's like you getting invited to like sign aDropbox like a like a
(49:25):
Like a DocuSign.
Yeah.
There's a few of them.
Just be really careful because it's like, hey,click this to like see your document and it
says, like, signature required.
So, like, oh, what is this?
Am I am I getting sent a contract?
And then, you know, you just gotta really lookat like the URL and like the email because
Yeah.
It's just if it's not official, you just neverknow.
But like some of them are really, really goodand it was Yeah.
(49:47):
So this one actually made you go into Dropboxand then, you know, to open the file.
It was kinda like a screenshot and it almostlooked like you were gonna like open the file.
And then again, same thing.
Was like, this is really efficient.
I like looked at the URL and then the URL wassome weird URL.
So then I definitely knew it was fake.
(50:08):
So I think definitely people are getting betterand better at it.
So I think there's probably a huge market forlike helping people detect that better natively
from their computer or something or even justlike the mail providers.
I think helping them detect that as well sotheir you know, users don't get impacted as
well.
(50:28):
You know?
Yeah.
No.
Absolutely.
And I think that there's a really interestingkind of category companies popping up both in
sort of like obviously, for a lot of these,like, deep tech industry categories managing,
like, physical safety and infrastructure foragainst kind of bad actor threats, also like
software supply chain kind of security categoryas well.
(50:48):
So to your point, whether it's through emailsor through other documentation or even if it's
an email from a person that you know, but howcan you, kinda make sure that it's actually
being sent from them and they weren't hacked oryou're you're not sending the wrong wire
information or or something like that as well.
Yeah.
Well, this is amazing, Ananya.
I really appreciate all your time and excitedto hang out in the next, you know, couple
(51:13):
weeks, and, and I'll see you in New York too.
Yeah.
No.
This is such a fun conversation.
Really enjoyed hearing your perspective on someof these, kinda categories as well.
Looking forward to to catching up in personvery soon.
Thanks so much.
Likewise.
Thank you so much.
Really appreciate it.
Likewise.
Have a good one.
Alright.
Bye.
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