A resource for the next generation of venture capital
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I gave first without question for almost five years. It came back to me in spades. I don’t regret it, and I think it was exactly the right thing for me to do at the time. But then….it just got to be too much.
Could I be more effective if I simply surrendered to a schedule that felt natural to me? After some serious self-reflection and experimentation, I can unequivocally say YES.
Dave Balter, the CEO of one of our MergeLane portfolio companies, Flipside Crypto, shares his perspective on investing in the cryptocurrency space. Dave is obsessed with and extremely knowledgeable about cryptocurrency, and has an interesting perspective from both sides of the table.
Most venture capital funds target a minimum ownership percentage when making investments. In this Fund81 episode, Amish Jani, a founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital, shares his take on why ownership matters and how funds of different sizes and strategies determine ownership targets.
Venture capital funds are typically structured to have a 10-year lifespan, but venture-backed companies often take more than 10 years to achieve an exit and return capital to their investors. In this Fund81 podcast episode, we discuss solutions to this problem with our our guest, Roland Reynolds.
This year, I decided to do an experiment. To build our MergeLane investor and mentor network, I dedicated four months to exclusively focus on meetings that involved skiing.
I launched my first business in 2005 at the age of 24. This was before Venture Deals was written, accelerators were commonplace and shows like Shark Tank existed. How would my experience as a first-time entrepreneur have been different if I would have started my business with a support system as robust as our startup community is today? I often think about that question.
Now, as an entrepreneur, turned angel investor, turned venture fund manager, I see a striking parallel to my experience as a first-time entrepreneur in 2005. Today, when entrepreneurs have a question, the answer is typically just one Google search away. This is not the case for new venture fund managers. With more and more people making the jump to venture, I would like to change that. That is why I've launched Fund81. 1981, the year I was born and the start of the millennial generation, Fund81 is a podcast for the next wave of venture capitalists. I am going to take all of the questions I have had as an emerging venture fund manager and try to answer them in a way that will benefit others in similar situations.
The Fund81 VC Managers’ Forum is an invite-only group of venture capitalists designed to facilitate deal flow and information sharing. Each month, Fund81 invites a veteran venture capitalist or limited partner to speak to the Forum. The Forum currently consists of managers of funds ranging in size from $5 to $300 million located everywhere from Omaha to Jerusalem. Forum members invest from Pre-seed to Series A across a variety of industries. Forums are held virtually and quarterly in-person events are held in the Bay Area and Colorado. To be considered for Fund81 Forum membership, apply here.