Podcasts about canvas ventures

Caroline Winnett is the Executive Director at Berkeley SkyDeck, a world leading startup accelerator. We discuss What it is like running a startup accelerator. How academics make the decision to commercialize their ideas and research.  What Skydeck looks for in applicants. Advising startups on their best path forward. About their fund _ _ _ _The Berkeley SkyDeck Fund is the investment partner for UC Berkeley's SkyDeck Accelerator Program. The Fund invests $200K into each startup that goes through SkyDeck, and can participate in later stage investment rounds with Berkeley founders. One of the most active seed investors in the Bay Area, the Fund has made over 130 investments in 3 years! In a first-of-its-kind, public-private partnership, the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund shares one-half of fund profits with UC Berkeley. This unique partnership helps support UC Berkeley education and creates a source of funding for UC Berkeley's public education mission. The Berkeley SkyDeck Fund is run by Chon Tang, Managing Partner, and Brian Bordley, Partner. It is funded by organizations such as Sequoia Capital, Sierra Ventures, and Canvas Ventures, as well as other VC firms, individuals, and large corporations.Learn more about Berkeley Skydeck: https://skydeck.berkeley.edu/our_teamGRAB YOUR COPY OF STARTUP MINDSETS ON AMAZON, UNLOCK VALUABLE LIFE AND BUSINESS INSIGHTS FROM OUR RESEARCH, PODCAST, AND LIFE EXPERIENCES: https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Mindsets-Blueprint-Innovation-Driven-Connected

In this podcast episode, Erica Waichman, Head of Talent and Community at Canvas Ventures, discusses the intricacies and expectations of a talent role in a venture capital firm. The conversation covers various topics, including Erica's background, the unique challenges of transitioning from agency and in-house recruitment to venture capital, and valuable lessons learned. Erica also shares insights on her day-to-day responsibilities, which involve supporting portfolio companies, managing advisor networks, and defining talent strategies. The episode provides a comprehensive look at the dynamic and multifaceted nature of talent roles in the venture capital space. Highlights: 01:15 Erica's Career Journey and Transition to Venture Capital 03:46 Due Diligence and Networking for a Venture Role 09:48 Day-to-Day Responsibilities in a Venture Talent Role 14:39 Challenges and Lessons Learned in Venture Talent 16:54 Advice for Aspiring Venture Talent Professionals Guest: Erica Waichman is an accomplished Executive with extensive experience in leading people and talent functions across multiple industries. She currently serves as the Director of Talent and Community at Canvas Ventures. Her leadership has been instrumental in building high-performing teams and enhancing employee engagement on a global scale. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-waichman-964bab10/ ----- Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Talent Tango, and we would appreciate it if you would take a minute to rate and review us on your favorite podcast player. Want to learn more about us? Head over at https://www.elevano.com Have questions or want to cover specific topics with our future guests? Please message me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirbormand (Amir Bormand)

Rob Bearden's journey is one of innovation, leadership, and relentless pursuit of growth. From his early days at Oracle to his most recent venture, Sema4.ai, Rob has been at the forefront of technological transformation across multiple industries. In this exclusive interview, Rob dives into his experiences, the lessons he learned when building and scaling his companies, and the vision that drives his latest endeavor. Rob's company, Sema4.ai, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Benchmark (Business/Productivity Software), Mayfield Fund, Canvas Ventures, Harpoon VC, and Uncorrelated Ventures.

Miguel Armaza interviews Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder & General Partner at Canvas Ventures, an early-stage VC with almost $900 million AUM, focused on Series A & B in fintech, digital health, marketplaces, and logistics.Rebecca has been operating or investing in fintech for over 25 years and has also been ranked on the Forbes Midas List 5 years in a row.In this episode, we discuss:Marketing and go-to-market strategies from her experience at Next CardHow companies should think about preparing for M&A opportunitiesThe areas of fintech where AI is making an actual differenceChallenges of building a VC fund from scratch … and a lot more!Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join 65,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Tune into our last episode of our AI Ventures miniseries where we are joined by Rebecca Lynn, Co-Founder and General Partner of Canvas Ventures, renowned for pioneering investments in AI applications within Fintech and Healthtech. Rebecca, a distinguished investor who has graced the prestigious Midas list an impressive five times, invites you to explore her journey navigating the ever-evolving realm of venture capital.  Listen today to discover firsthand what it takes to identify and nurture successful AI companies. Rebecca sheds light on the nuances of risk assessment, resilience in founders, and the critical factors that drive investment decisions. Gain unparalleled insights as Rebecca unveils the process behind investing in groundbreaking ventures like Casetext, offering invaluable perspectives on the legal tech landscape.  Don't miss this opportunity to glean wisdom from a trailblazing investor! Join us and uncover the keys to thriving in the fast-paced world of AI-driven entrepreneurship. Hosted by: ⁠⁠⁠Grace Kim⁠⁠⁠ Edited and produced by: ⁠⁠⁠Nicolas Besso⁠⁠⁠ Follow and connect with us at our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ More on HLEP at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠clinics.law.harvard.edu/hlep

In this special replay episode Grace Isford of Canvas Ventures joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss the GTM Playbook; Building a Career in VC; Societal Challenges and Opportunities Post-COVID; and a Comprehensive Analysis of Successful GPs and Venture Investments. In this episode, we cover: You're an extroverted, people-person… how you holding up w/ the quarantine? Quick overview of your background and path to VC? Your focus (and thesis) at Canvas? You developed a 30 page GTM Playbook based on interviews w/ 10+ CROs/VPs of Sales across major B2B companies. First of all, is this publicly available and also what were some takeaways that really stood out? There's a segment of VCs that believe that one must be an operator to be a good VC… what's your stance? Examples of successful non-operators? You completed a comprehensive analysis of the portfolios of over 200 venture firms, looked at 100 successful GPs, and winning, U.S.-based investments w/ a valuation greater than $500M… what were your key takeaways? A bit about signaling… Many in the industry and those observing determine the value of a startup based on whether a brand name venture firm is in the deal… “If Sequoia is in the deal, startup must be great”… what are your thoughts on this common perception? What does your weekly routine look like and how have you prioritized the various demands of the job? What have you found to be most challenging in your career as a VC? What advice do you have for young folks trying to make an impact as an investor or board observer? You wrote a great piece that analyzed three areas where VCs could invest to address the societal challenges of COVID-19. Can you walk us through each of these and why the opportunity here is greater? What do you think the future holds for venture & entrepreneurship in a post-COVID world? The old playbook for winning deals is gone… Any idea on how one might win a deal virtually? Guest Links: Grace's Twitter Grace's LinkedIn Canvas Ventures The hosts of The Full Ratchet are Nick Moran and Nate Pierotti of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area. Want to keep up to date with The Full Ratchet? Follow us on social. You can learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our LinkedIn and Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and we'll send a list of potential investors right to your inbox!

Rebecca is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures where she leads early-stage investments in Fintech, Healthtech, and AI. Rebecca has been named to the Forbes Midas List five years running, a Woman to Watch: Senior Deal Maker by the Wall Street Journal, and a Top Woman VC by the New York Times. Some of her notable investments include Luminar (NASDAQ: LAZR), Lending Club (NYSE: LC), Practice Fusion (acq Allscripts), Gabi (acq Experian), Check (acq Intuit), RelateIQ (acq Salesforce), CrowdFlower (acq by Appen), Viewics (acq Roche), FutureAdvisor (acq Blackrock), and Figure8 (acq Appen).  Before founding Canvas, Rebecca served as a General Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures. During her time at Morgenthaler, one of her early investments, Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), went public in 2021 and was one of the year's largest IPOs. Before that, she was the VP of NextCard. At NextCard, the first online credit card company, Rebecca helped scale the company from 30 people to 1300 and an IPO.  You can learn more about:  How to invest in the world's changing entrepreneurs   Founding and managing a leading VC firm  How to be a value-adding board member  ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG =====================   Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors who have raised capital. This episode is with Anshu Sharma of Skyflow, a startup that makes a data privacy vault delivered as an API. Anshu has raised over $70m for SkyFlow, but he's also angel invested in over 70 startups so we talk about targeting the right investors, testing your thesis, asking for advice and more. Skyflow's most recent round was a $45M Series B financing round. led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners. Other investors include Mouro Capital, Mitsui's MS&AD Ventures, Canvas Ventures, Foundation Capital, and leading fintech angels such as Coinbase Board Member Gokul Rajaram How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $10 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com.

Rebecca Lynn of Canvas Ventures joins Nate to discuss Why Good Marketing Beats Good Product, Emerging Use Cases for AI, and Tactical Advice for Founder to Build Their GTM. In this episode we cover: Product Market Fit, Customer Needs, Marketing Strategies and Product Development Marketing Strategies for Early-Stage Founders Venture Capital, Marketing, and Scalability Investing in Health Tech and Fintech Companies AI in Legal Tech and Debt Collection Guest Links: Twitter LinkedIn Canvas Ventures The hosts of The Full Ratchet are Nick Moran and Nate Pierotti of New Stack Ventures, a venture capital firm committed to investing in founders outside of the Bay Area. Want to keep up to date with The Full Ratchet? Follow us on social. You can learn more about New Stack Ventures by visiting our LinkedIn and Twitter. Are you a founder looking for your next investor? Visit our free tool VC-Rank and we'll send a list of potential investors right to your inbox!

Stephanie Tilenius successfully led her first startup through an IPO. Now she is taking on the healthcare space, which makes up 20% of GDP in the United States. Her latest venture, Vida Health, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Centene, Lumir Ventures, Hamilton Lane, and Canvas Ventures.

On episode 14, we speak to Mike Ghaffary, a General Partner at Canvas Ventures. Mike was also the co-founder of the podcast app, Stitcher, a Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Yelp, and the CEO of Eat 24, one of Yelp's subsidiaries. We learn about venture capital investments, including how VC investors evaluate potential investments, how they make investment decisions, and how to make a successful venture capital pitch. If you're a law student or lawyer interested in joining the venture capital space one day, or a founder interested in what it takes to successfully secure funding, this episode is for you! Follow and connect with us at our LinkedIn and Instagram More on HLEP at clinics.law.harvard.edu/hlep

My guest this week is Rebecca Lynn. Rebecca co-founded early-stage investor Canvas Ventures in 2013 and is regularly featured as one of the best VCs in the market. She has deep positioning and go-to-market experience, which she honed during her time at Procter & Gamble, and that's the focus of our discussion. We cover the details of great marketing, why you should say no to customers, and how she has built Canvas. Please enjoy my discussion with Rebecca Lynn.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It's all done on a single, modern Saas platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. I've been so impressed by the platform that my firm, Positive Sum, recently made an investment in Tegus. We did so because we feel that Tegus will be the gold standard platform for investing research for decades to come. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick.   -----   Today's episode is brought to you by Brex. Brex is the integrated financial platform trusted by the world's most innovative entrepreneurs and fastest-growing companies. With Brex, you can move money fast for instant impact with high-limit corporate cards, payments, venture debt, and spend management software all in one place. Ready to accelerate your business? Learn more at brex.com/best.   -----   Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:02:37] - [First question] - What she'd do a great job teaching if she could teach a singular 401 level course [00:05:20] - Defining what the umbrella concept is  [00:06:10] - What about her career at P&G applies most to the kinds of companies she spends her time with now  [00:12:06] - What types of questions she asks to help someone building a product understand their marketing angle  [00:15:34] - The top three things people do wrong when running a survey in tactics or strategy [00:19:33] - Categories of questions where surveys are always helpful and effective    [00:21:06] - What the Go-To-Market Council is and what it does  [00:28:21] - The ways that most funnels are commonly broken   [00:31:17] - Defining great positioning and what it accomplishes [00:33:36] - How her knowledge and ideas most impacted the way she built Canvas [00:35:04] - Lessons learned about the world of digital health and the quantified self   [00:39:15] - The base level attributes that most indicate investment potential when she's investing in a company [00:42:32] - The shifts in the world that most have her attention today [00:46:10] - What has her worried systemically about venture investing  [00:49:37] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for her 

Holiday cheers with a visionary on Drinks With A VC featuring Ben Narasin of Tenacity Venture Capital. Tracing back to his roots as an e-commerce pioneer with Fashionmall.com, Ben shares tales of early-stage triumphs, from DropCam to Kabbage. Vik and Bree tap into his love for comic books, his recent puppy adoption, and why Dungeons & Dragons aligns with venture strategy. Tune in for an episode filled with insights and Ben's philosophy: "Life is not about having what you want, it's about wanting what you have."Links:www.tenacity.vcwww.twitter.com/BNarasinFoster puppies here.www.nikubutchershop.com/ (Restaurant!)

Building a startup is tough in any industry, but for a healthcare startup, there is a whole different level of complexity. It is a heavily regulated industry that has been slow to change in terms of digital transformation. As you'll hear from Troy, the majority of healthcare records are transmitted via a fax machine. How is that possible in our modern world of technology? But, it is opportunities like this that catch the eye for entrepreneurs like Troy. Particle Health's mission is to enable simple and secure access to actionable healthcare data for digital health innovators. It's user-friendly API platform lets healthcare providers get patient records from over 270 million patients across the United States. The company announced a $25M Series B round of funding back in July led by Canvas Ventures. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Some of the biggest challenges around building a startup in a heavily regulated industry like healthcare. * Troy's background story including his time as an EMT and how he got involved in the healthcare industry and joining Startup Health in its early days. * All of the details on Particle Health and how they are disrupting the healthcare industry. * Advice for recruiting and attracting a world class team. * And so much more. If you like the show, please remember to subscribe and review us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

You don't meet many people like Tony Huang. After graduating from Harvard, he pursued education as a fourth grade teacher outside of Boston. He then transitioned to a business career at Axon where he helped commercialize & create the body camera industry that is integral to public safety. Now he is on a new mission: to make financial products more fair & affordable for everyday people. For the past 5 years, he's been CEO and Co-Founder of Possible Finance, which helps communities break the debt cycle and unlock economic mobility. And he's on to something big.   His venture investors include Canvas Ventures ,Columbia Pacific Advisors, FJ Labs, Hustle Fund, Union Bay Partners, Union Square Ventures and Unlock Venture Partners. What impressed me most about Tony was how genuinely mission driven he is and how that echoes through the entire organization. In this 20 minute conversation, Tony reveals how he's done that and continues to attract people who are truly mission driven

This week, we're super excited to chat with Troy Bannister, CEO and Co-Founder of Particle Health, a user-friendly API platform shaping the new standard for healthcare data exchange. Founded in 2018, Particle Health's comprehensive API uniquely combines data from 270 million plus patients' medical records by aggregating and unifying healthcare records from thousands of sources. With this approach providers are able to easily obtain clinical data points without complex technology integrations, putting actionable patient health data at their fingertips. In this episode, we learn about Particle Health's founding story, define healthcare data access and frameworks and the regulatory tailwinds for healthcare data access in the broader healthcare system. Is healthcare ready for the blockchain? We find out here! Particle Health raised $25M to accelerate their platform growth from Canvas Ventures. The financing brings the organization's total capital raised to $39M.

Grade Isford is a Principal at Lux Capital, a venture capital firm with over $4B in AUM that invests in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what's possible. Grace leads investments at the nexus of web3, data infrastructure, and applications of AI & ML from pre-seed to growth. Before joining Lux, Grace was a principal at Canvas Ventures. While there, she sourced 10 investments, including open-source robotic process automation platform Robocorp and blockchain-powered, real-time data sharing platform Vendia. Grace also holds a Masters of Science in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford, where she is also on the board of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

Ryan Broderick is the Co-Founder & CEO of Darwin Homes. Darwin Homes is a real estate investment management platform focused on the single-family rental opportunity, enabling investors to invest anywhere simply with confidence. Darwin has raised just under $50m in venture capital from Khosla Ventures, Camber Creek, Fifth Wall, Canvas Ventures, Tony Xu, Ryan Graves, Ryan Roslansky, and other technology leaders. Prior to founding Darwin Homes, Ryan was part of the founding team at DoorDash. During his tenure at DoorDash, he built and led the first Launch team, which was tasked with scaling the DoorDash operation from Silicon Valley to over 250 cities in the US. He then went on to build the Merchant Team responsible for Business Development, Sales, Merchant Products, and Merchant Operations. Before DoorDash, Ryan worked at JUMP Investors, an early-stage VC firm led by Randall Kaplan, the Co-Founder of Akamai Technologies. Ryan holds a B.S from the University of Southern California and an MBA from Pepperdine University. In this episode, Chris and Ryan discuss: Lessons learned from being early at DoorDash and how he applied those principles to property management How they enter a market and all that happens How they've approached single-family property management from first principles to building revolutionary tools for owners Future opportunities that can be done when Darwin hits scale, including new resident monetization strategies Learn more about Chris Powers and Fort Capital: www.FortCapitalLP.com Follow Fort Capital on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/fort-capital/ Follow Chris on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/FortWorthChris  Follow Chris on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrispowersjr/  Subscribe to The Fort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ32shRt8Od3MxMY-keTSQ Follow The Fort on Instagram: www.Instagram.com/TheFortPodcast    (2:58) - Ryan's early career with Doordash (16:40) - What was the initial thesis for Darwin Homes? (26:55) - What does scale give Darwin that the local PM will never have? (30:55) - What do you mean by the Surface Area in Property Management? (32:40) - What does a great engineering culture look like? (36:13) - How does the best idea win when you're first building a product that needs to 10x? (38:58) - What happens from Day 0 of entering a new market?  (42:22) - How do you source vendors in a market? (48:00) - What makes a good city for Darwin to enter? (49:22) - Darwin's Build-to-rent operation (50:12) - Why do you have an acquisitions team within a property management company? (56:38) - Ryan's vision for Darwin (1:01:30) - How big is the SFR & BFR market getting?  (1:04:53) - What do institutional owners care about and what do retail owners care about? (1:08:11) - Are we moving to a world where people rent homes sight unseen?  (1:11:38) - Resident Monetization (1:15:10) - Is there room for managing homes for homeowners?  (1:19:31) - Do you have any desire to buy property managers in other markets?  (1:21:06) - Are the people you're hiring already in the PM industry? (1:23:11) - Thoughts on construction (1:27:03) - What are you seeing going on in VC given everything happening in the economy? (1:36:29) - Thoughts on Blue Collar work (1:47:19) - Shooting the shit and bouncing business ideas off each other

This week's Espresso covers updates from UnDosTres, Revolut, Anyone AI, and more!Outline of this episode:[00:28] - Anyone AI closes a $1.5M pre-seed round[00:59] - UnDosTres closed a $30M Series B investment round[01:37] - Wibond extended its seed round, closing at $6M[02:16] - Merama acquires the Latin American startups Miind Brands and Culotte[02:54] - Mottu raised $40M in a Series B round and in debt financing[03:42] - Revolut announces plans to expand its business to Brazil[04:21] - Interview with Javier Sánchez Aldana, Managing Partner at Carabela[06:51] - Crossing Borders revisits a greatest hits episode featuring Agustin Feuerhake, Founder of Fintual[07:07] - Alejandro Guízar's article “Why is digital banking the first step toward financial inclusion in Mexico?”Resources & people mentioned:Companies & Startups: Merama, Anyone AI, UnDosTres, Wibond, Merama, Miind Brands, Culotte, Mottu, Revolut, Dooper, Gabu, Zuru, FintualVCs, Accelerators, Institutions: Latitud Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Canvas Ventures, Magma Partners, DC Ventures, IGNIA, Dalus Capital, Y Combinator, Trousdale, Soma Capital, Fintech Capital, Eureka Capital, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Verde Asset, Base Partners, Crankstart, CarabelaPeople: Harriet Heyman, Michael Moritz, Javier Sánchez Aldana, Agustin Feuerhake, Alejandro Guízar

Walker Drewett founded NuBrakes in May 2019. According to Mike Ghaffary, GP at Canvas Ventures, Drewett is building a high-growth business powered by a marketplace model, which is why Ghaffary led the company's Series A. The product is simple: On-demand vehicle brake repair services. Join this episode to hear how Drewett raised capital and built NuBrakes on the learnings from his previous startup, NuWash (it's on-demand car washes, of course).TechCrunch Live records weekly on Wednesdays at 12:00pm PST.

Tony Huang is the Co-founder & CEO of Possible Finance, a consumer fintech company focused on improving the financial health of lower-income Americans. Since 2019, Possible has provided small dollar installment loans to over 500,000 Americans to help them cover emergency expenses and build credit history. Recently, Possible announced the Possible Card, an unsecured credit card without interest fees or late fees, just one flat monthly fee. They designed this product so that they never make money from customers being stuck in vicious debt cycles which is unfortunately all too common for subprime credit cardholders. Possible's lead investors are Union Square Ventures, Euclidean Capital (Jim Simons's family office), Canvas Ventures, and Unlock Ventures. Prior to founding Possible, Tony and his co-founders collectively spent 26 years building body cameras for cops. Possible is a fully distributed company with team members all across the globe, and Tony has spent the past 18 months as a digital nomad living in various cities across the country. Tony joins me today to discuss how within two weeks of announcing the new credit card product, they have over 175,000 people on the waitlist. We talk about trade offs between short term profits and long term mission, product design with mission in mind his personal journey and the consumer debt market in the US.“We wanted to create value for customers and for society overall.” - Tony HuangToday on Startups for Good we cover:Why payday loans cost so muchLending to lower income communitiesThe importance of better dataInternational micro lending vs. domestic payday loansThe debt cycleTrade offs in managing mission and the productDebt investor experienceConnect with Tony on LinkedIn or through the Possible Financial Website Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes!Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Startups For Good with your host, Miles Lasater. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast listening app.Don't forget to visit our website, connect with Miles on Twitter or LinkedIn, and share your favorite episodes across social media. For more information about Purpose Built visit our website.

My guest today is Mike Ghaffary who is a partner at Canvas Ventures, a firm that specializes on leading Series A. Some of their investments include Flyhomes, Nubrakes, and Zola. This is Mike's second time on Consumer VC and is our first second time guest. His first appearance we went deep on how to evaluate and invest in marketplace businesses. On this episode, we discuss what is the next big thing in consumer after the iPhone? Is it web3, metaverse, remote work applications or something completely different? Questions I ask Mike: When we spoke a couple of months ago, you mentioned how this is the perfect entrepreneurial landscape for B2B. What did you mean by that? We've now had the iPhone for 14 years, which has been the platform (coupled with android) for consumer technology. What are the options for the next consumer platform as you see it? Who are the candidates? There's lots of chatter about web 3 and how web 2 companies need to become web 3 companies in order to survive. What does that mean? What do you think about? If web 3 / blockchain technology does become the future, what has to also hold true or needs to happen? VR was hot a few years ago and then quickly crashed and burned. Now VR is back as an interesting market to VCs. What has changed? What do you make of Facebook changing to Meta and how do you believe the metaverse means?Is it going to be similar to the open web where you have companies that build parts to it but there is no one owner of it?I discussed with Rui Ma how in China, livestreaming is a very powerful way to market your brand and is a multi-billion acquisition channel but it only happened because Alibaba introduced it on Taobao and user adoption became widespread as a result. This is early, but with Facebook changing to Meta, are we in the beginnings of a similiar inflection point where one of the incumbents is going to make metaverse/VR technology more widespread as a result? When you think about the next paradigm shift as an investor since it's still uncertain, how then do you think about current opportunities?Is this why it's easier to stay in B2B currently until the next platform arrives? Meanwhile, we've also seen new consumer marketplace businesses that have been built that are the same business models from 10-15 years ago. Do you think new marketplace businesses can still be successful? Is there any theories of the next consumer technological shift you don't believe? Since you sit at Series A, since there is alot of excitement and high valuations, do you ever consider going earlier What was your favorite book that you read this past year? What's one piece of advice for consumer founders during these times?

My guest today is Paul Hsiao, co-founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures. Canvas is one of the leading Series A firms having invested in Zola, Thrive Global and Roofstock. You'll learn what are the ingredients that could make for a spectacular marketplace businesses, what the series a currently looks like, and much much more. Without further ado, here's Paul. And there you have it. It was a pleasure chatting with Paul. You can follow him @paul_hsiao on Twitter. Some of the questions I ask Paul: What was your initial attraction to technology? After Mazu Networks, why did you decide to become a venture capitalist? How did Canvas come together? I know one of your main focuses is marketplace businesses. There's alot of chatter in consumer how consumer SaaS type businesses are becoming the future of consumer software as a primary business model. What do you make of the current landscape? What makes a market place business exciting for you to invest in? What is your due diligence process? What are the metrics you typically see at the Series A? In today's market where it seems like there's more unicorns today than maybe the number of companies that were raising a Series A 10 years ago, what is your expectation when you invest in a company? What's your biggest learning from this COVID period? After a first time founder raises a Series A, what do you find is the most common element that the founder might have a hard time with when it comes to the board meetings? What are some of the differences investing in enterprise vs. consumer facing businesses? I read that one of your passions is the data economy. How do you describe the data economy and what are some of the ways it could transform B2C businesses? What's one thing that you would change about venture capital? What's one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally? What's your biggest piece of advice for anyone building businesses that you find yourself saying the most?

Ben Narasin is the Founder and General Partner of Tenacity Venture Capital, a pre-Series A venture fund. Immediately previously, Narasin wes a full time investor and Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), one of the worlds largest and oldest traditional venture firms. A prolific entrepreneur and highly regarded early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise, Narasin has focused on emerging technologies and new markets throughout his investment career. With a portfolio comprising key early successes in some of today's fastest growing sectors, such as fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His overarching focus in seeking new investments is, in his words, “to find founders whho make me say wow.” Narasin is a 25-year entrepreneur and 10-year early-stage investor. His knack for spotting emerging trends led him to make seed investments in companies like Dropcam, Lending Club, TellApart, Kabbage and Zenefits. Before NEA, Narasin served as a General Partner at Canvas Ventures, and was prior to that was President of TriplePoint Ventures, the equity arm of TriplePoint Capital, where he oversaw the firm's seed funding investment activities. Narasin's path to investing is rooted in entrepreneurship. He founded several consumer companies before launching his investing career, including Fashionmall.com, one of the first e-commerce companies, which he founded in 1993 and led to a successful IPO in 1999. Narasin frequently writes and speaks about technology and investing, as well as food and wine, a lifelong passion. He holds a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennarasin/ Website: https://pitch-ben.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BNarasin --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geeksofthevalley/support

Show Notes(01:48) Sarah talked about the formative experiences of her upbringing: growing up interested in the natural sciences and switching focus on terrorism analysis after experiencing the 9/11 tragedy with her own eyes.(04:07) Sarah discussed her experience studying International Security Studies at Stanford and working at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.(07:15) Sarah recalled her first job out of college as a Program Director at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies — collaborating with academic researchers to develop computational approaches that counter terrorism and piracy.(09:48) Sarah went over her time as a cyber-intelligence analyst at Cyveillance, which provided threat intelligence services to enterprises worldwide.(12:22) Sarah walked over her time at Palantir as an embedded analyst, where she observed the struggles that many agencies had with data integration and modeling challenges.(15:26) Sarah unpacked the challenges of building out the data team and applying the data work at Mattermark.(20:15) Sarah shared her opinion on the career trajectory for data analysts and data scientists, given her experience as a manager for these roles.(23:43) Sarah shared the power of having a peer group and building a team culture that she was proud of at Mattermark.(26:41) Sarah joined Canvas Ventures as a Data Partner in 2016 and shared her motivation for getting into venture capital.(29:47) Sarah revealed the secret sauce to succeed in venture — stamina.(32:00) Sarah has been an investor at Amplify Partners since 2017 and shared what attracted her about the firm's investment thesis and the team.(35:28) Sarah walked through the framework she used to prove her value upfront as the new investor at Amplify.(38:35) Sarah shared the details behind her investment on the Series A round for OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that leverages Apache TVM to enable their clients to simply, securely, and efficiently deploy any model on any hardware backend.(44:39) Sarah dissected her investment on the seed round for Einblick, a Boston-based startup that builds a visual computing platform for BI and analytics use cases.(48:45) Sarah mentioned the key factors inspiring her investment in the seed round for Metaphor Data, a meta-data platform that grew out of the DataHub open-source project developed at LinkedIn.(53:57) Sarah discussed what triggered her investment in the Series A round for Runway, a New York-based team building the next-generation creative toolkit powered by machine learning.(58:36) Sarah unpacked the advice she has been giving her portfolio companies in hiring decisions and expanding their founding team (and advice they should ignore).(01:01:29) Sarah went over the process of curating her weekly newsletter called Projects To Know (active since 2019).(01:05:00) Sarah predicted the 3 trends in the data ecosystem that will have a disproportionately huge impact in the future.(01:11:15) Closing segment.Sarah's Contact InfoAmplify PageTwitterLinkedInMediumAmplify Partners' ResourcesWebsiteTeamPortfolioBlogMentioned ContentBlog PostsOur Investment in OctoMLAnnouncing Our Investment in EinblickOur Investment in Metaphor DataOur Series A Investment in RunwayPeopleSunil Dhaliwal (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Mike Dauber (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Lenny Pruss (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Mike Volpi (Co-Founder and Partner at Index Ventures)Gary Little (Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures)Book“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (by Robert Pirsig)New UpdatesSince the podcast was recorded, Sarah has been keeping her stamina high!Her investments in Hex (data workspace for teams) and Meroxa (real-time data platform) have been made public.She has also spoken at various panels, including SIGMOD, REWORK, University of Chicago, and Utah Nerd Nights.Be sure to follow @sarahcat21 on Twitter to subscribe to her brain on the intersection of data, VC, and startups!

Show Notes(01:48) Sarah talked about the formative experiences of her upbringing: growing up interested in the natural sciences and switching focus on terrorism analysis after experiencing the 9/11 tragedy with her own eyes.(04:07) Sarah discussed her experience studying International Security Studies at Stanford and working at the Center for International Security and Cooperation.(07:15) Sarah recalled her first job out of college as a Program Director at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies — collaborating with academic researchers to develop computational approaches that counter terrorism and piracy.(09:48) Sarah went over her time as a cyber-intelligence analyst at Cyveillance, which provided threat intelligence services to enterprises worldwide.(12:22) Sarah walked over her time at Palantir as an embedded analyst, where she observed the struggles that many agencies had with data integration and modeling challenges.(15:26) Sarah unpacked the challenges of building out the data team and applying the data work at Mattermark.(20:15) Sarah shared her opinion on the career trajectory for data analysts and data scientists, given her experience as a manager for these roles.(23:43) Sarah shared the power of having a peer group and building a team culture that she was proud of at Mattermark.(26:41) Sarah joined Canvas Ventures as a Data Partner in 2016 and shared her motivation for getting into venture capital.(29:47) Sarah revealed the secret sauce to succeed in venture — stamina.(32:00) Sarah has been an investor at Amplify Partners since 2017 and shared what attracted her about the firm's investment thesis and the team.(35:28) Sarah walked through the framework she used to prove her value upfront as the new investor at Amplify.(38:35) Sarah shared the details behind her investment on the Series A round for OctoML, a Seattle-based startup that leverages Apache TVM to enable their clients to simply, securely, and efficiently deploy any model on any hardware backend.(44:39) Sarah dissected her investment on the seed round for Einblick, a Boston-based startup that builds a visual computing platform for BI and analytics use cases.(48:45) Sarah mentioned the key factors inspiring her investment in the seed round for Metaphor Data, a meta-data platform that grew out of the DataHub open-source project developed at LinkedIn.(53:57) Sarah discussed what triggered her investment in the Series A round for Runway, a New York-based team building the next-generation creative toolkit powered by machine learning.(58:36) Sarah unpacked the advice she has been giving her portfolio companies in hiring decisions and expanding their founding team (and advice they should ignore).(01:01:29) Sarah went over the process of curating her weekly newsletter called Projects To Know (active since 2019).(01:05:00) Sarah predicted the 3 trends in the data ecosystem that will have a disproportionately huge impact in the future.(01:11:15) Closing segment.Sarah's Contact InfoAmplify PageTwitterLinkedInMediumAmplify Partners' ResourcesWebsiteTeamPortfolioBlogMentioned ContentBlog PostsOur Investment in OctoMLAnnouncing Our Investment in EinblickOur Investment in Metaphor DataOur Series A Investment in RunwayPeopleSunil Dhaliwal (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Mike Dauber (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Lenny Pruss (General Partner at Amplify Partners)Mike Volpi (Co-Founder and Partner at Index Ventures)Gary Little (Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures)Book“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (by Robert Pirsig)New UpdatesSince the podcast was recorded, Sarah has been keeping her stamina high!Her investments in Hex (data workspace for teams) and Meroxa (real-time data platform) have been made public.She has also spoken at various panels, including SIGMOD, REWORK, University of Chicago, and Utah Nerd Nights.Be sure to follow @sarahcat21 on Twitter to subscribe to her brain on the intersection of data, VC, and startups!

Connie and Alex talk tech news and chat with two VCs - Mike Ghaffary of Canvas Ventures and Sean O'Sullivan of SOSV. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)3. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Venture Capital is at the heart of financial services disruption. In Q1 of 2021, over 17 billion dollars has poured into fintech startups, and the investors are not simply side players that provide a check. They can be an invaluable resource for founders creating the products and services that are changing this industry. Understanding the expertise, networks, and talent pools that VCs bring to the table can help startups understand what they should look for in a VC. We spoke to Rebecca Lynn, Founder of Canvas Ventures about the role she plays and what VCs bring to the table. Guest: Rebecca Lynn, Founder, Canvas VenturesHosts: Sanjib Kalita, Editor-in-Chief, Money20/20Rachel Morrissey, Producer, Money20/20Producers: Roland Bodenham, Senior Video Producer and Podcast Lead, AscentialRachel Morrissey, Producer, Money20/20

Ben Narasin is a Venture Partner at NEA. A prolific entrepreneur and highly regarded early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise, Narasin has focused on emerging technologies and new markets throughout his investment career. With a portfolio comprising key early successes in some of today’s fastest growing sectors, such as fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His overarching focus in seeking new investments is, in his words, “to find founders who make me say wow.” Narasin is a 25-year entrepreneur and 10-year early-stage investor. His knack for spotting emerging trends led him to make seed investments in companies like Dropcam, Lending Club, TellApart, Kabbage and Zenefits. Before NEA, Narasin most recently served as a General Partner at Canvas Ventures, and was previously with TriplePoint Capital, where he oversaw the firm’s seed funding investment activities. Like many of NEA’s partners, Narasin’s path to investing is rooted in entrepreneurship. He founded several consumer companies before launching his investing career, including Fashionmall.com, one of the first e-commerce companies, which he founded in 1993 and led to a successful IPO in 1999. Narasin frequently writes and speaks about technology and investing, as well as food and wine, a lifelong passion. He holds a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bennarasin/ Website: https://pitch-ben.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/BNarasin

Miguel Armaza sits down with the fascinating Ben Narasin, Venture Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors, and geographies. Founded in 1977, NEA has received nearly $24 billion in cumulative committed capital since day one. Ben is not only a prolific investor but also a celebrated founder who launched fashionmall.com in 1993 and took the company public six years later. We talked about - Ben’s journey and entrepreneurial ambitions - A deep dive into his experience taking FashionMall public via IPO and the challenges it entails - The transition from entrepreneur to investor - The elements he looks for in every founder and how COVID has influenced his investment process - And plenty of stories and anecdotes from his exciting journey! Ben Narasin Ben Narasin is a Venture Partner at NEA. A prolific entrepreneur and highly regarded early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise, Narasin has focused on emerging technologies and new markets throughout his investment career. With a portfolio comprising key early successes in some of today’s fastest-growing sectors, such as fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His overarching focus in seeking new investments is, in his words, “to find founders who make me say wow.” Narasin is a 25-year entrepreneur and 10-year early-stage investor. His knack for spotting emerging trends led him to make seed investments in companies like Dropcam, Lending Club, TellApart, Kabbage and Zenefits. Before NEA, Narasin most recently served as a General Partner at Canvas Ventures, and was previously with TriplePoint Capital, where he oversaw the firm’s seed funding investment activities. Like many of NEA’s partners, Narasin’s path to investing is rooted in entrepreneurship. He founded several consumer companies before launching his investing career, including Fashionmall.com, one of the first e-commerce companies, which he founded in 1993 and led to a successful IPO in 1999. Narasin frequently writes and speaks about technology and investing, as well as food and wine, a lifelong passion. He holds a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College. About NEA New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a global venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors and geographies. With nearly $24 billion in cumulative committed capital since the firm's founding in 1977, NEA invests in technology and healthcare companies at all stages in a company's lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 230 portfolio company IPOs and more than 390 mergers and acquisitions. www.nea.com.

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Mike Ghaffary, general partner at Canvas Ventures about his journey as app builder, co-founder of Stitcher, CEO at Eat24, to becoming a successful angel investor and now institutional venture investor at Canvas. 00:00 Intro 02:21 Swiss army knife of education 04:04 Business school after Dotcom bubble burst 05:06 Founding Stitcher 06:14 Focusing on news 08:03 Becoming CEO of Eat24 09:39 Growing Eat24 from 10FTEs to $700m top line 10:45 Food delivery wars 11:55 Grubhub Partnership that never launched 13:12 Jeremy Stoppelman and Steve Jobs on search on mobile 14:30 Becoming a successful angel investor 15:35 Paying off graduate debt by making the most expensive iPhone app ever 16:37 Angel investment in Strava 17:20 Angel investment in Superhuman 17:50 Joining Social Capital 19:58 Mike’s experience at Social Capital 20:28 CloudKitchens investment 21:30 HubHaus investment 22:37 Joining Canvas Ventures 24:04 Flyhomes investment 27:52 Marketplace Deep Dive 28:27 Lenny Rachitsky: focus on supply or demand side? 30:06 Thomas Eisenmann: Two-sided networks 30:57 Uber: demand side vs. supply side subsidies 32:09 Local vs. global network effects 33:24 Sarah Tavel (Benchmark): Unlocking new supply in delivery wars 34:21 Local delivery war zones 35:36 Uber Eats entering the market 37:04 Public vs. privately held delivery war contenders 38:54 Marketplace take rate 40:38 Out-of bound marketplace take rates 41:57 Zero percent take rate 43:02 Finding out more about Mike

In this episode, Erasmus Elsner is talking to Brendan Wales, general partner at e.ventures on investing in data infrastructure unicorn Segment at the Seed and passing on TikTok (then Musical.ly) at the Series A. Check out Brendan Wales on Medium: https://medium.com/@brendanwales 2:10 First job running a Golf shop while at college 3:20 First job out of college in 2009 and entrepreneurial ambitions 4:29 'I gotta get to the Valley' finding Zozi's on Crunchbase 6:06 Joining e.ventures in 2012 7:52 History and roots of e.ventures 9:53 e.ventures current fund and global footprint 11:10 Investing in Segment.io at the Seed along with Kleiner Perkins 15:08 Consumer-tech perspective on Segment 16:02 Passing on Musical.ly/TikTok 17:30 Warm introductions vs. metric-based discovery (digital exhaust) 20:30 Metrics requested from Musical.ly/TikTok founding team / key consumer social metrics 22:17 Machiavellian founder perspective on Musical.ly/TikTok consumer retention 24:35 Ex-post reflections why they passed on Musical.ly/TikTok 26:35 Comparison to the recent Clubhouse a16z-led Series A 28:50 Venture capital returns over the lifetime of a fund 31:10 Pattern matching for early markups 32:58 This Week's Seed Companies 35:24 EVA Growth Index / X-Factors 37:37 Nacelle: headless CMS for Shopify stores, backed by Index and Accomplice 39:05 Most recent investment: Airvet, $14m Series A led by Canvas Ventures

Drew McElroy is the cofounder of Transfix which provides trucking brokerage services in the United States. The company has raised close to $130 million from top tier investors which include NEA, Lerer Hippeau, Founder Collective, Expansion Venture Capital, Corigin Ventures, Bowery Capital, Canvas Ventures, G Squared, Deep Fork Capital, Charge Ventures, and Thayer Street Partners to name a few. 

Drew McElroy is the cofounder of Transfix which provides trucking brokerage services in the United States. The company has raised close to $130 million from top tier investors which include NEA, Lerer Hippeau, Founder Collective, Expansion Venture Capital, Corigin Ventures, Bowery Capital, Canvas Ventures, G Squared, Deep Fork Capital, Charge Ventures, and Thayer Street Partners to name a few. 

Ben Narasin is a prolific entrepreneur and early-stage investor with three decades of company-building expertise. His portfolio comprises of key early successes in fintech, digital marketplaces, mobile and connected devices. His seed investments include Dropcam, Lending Club, TellApart, Kabbage and Zenefits. Before NEA, Narasin most recently served as a General Partner at Canvas Ventures, and was previously with TriplePoint Capital, where he oversaw the firm’s seed funding investment activities. He founded several consumer companies before launching his investing career, including Fashionmall.com which led to a successful IPO. He holds a B.A. in Entrepreneurial Studies from Babson College.

Grace Isford of Canvas Ventures joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss How Companies Can Maintain Growth Post-COVID. In this episode, we cover: You're an extroverted, people-person... how you holding up w/ the quarantine? Quick overview of your background and path to VC? Your focus (and thesis) at Canvas? You developed a 30 page GTM Playbook based on interviews w/ 10+ CROs/VPs of Sales across major B2B companies. First of all, is this publicly available and also what were some takeaways that really stood out? There's a segment of VCs that believe that one must be an operator to be a good VC... what's your stance? Examples of successful non-operators? You completed a comprehensive analysis of the portfolios of over 200 venture firms, looked at 100 successful GPs, and winning, U.S.-based investments w/ a valuation greater than $500M... what were your key takeaways? A bit about signaling... Many in the industry and those observing determine the value of a startup based on whether a brand name venture firm is in the deal... "If Sequoia is in the deal, startup must be great"... what are your thoughts on this common perception? What does your weekly routine look like and how have you prioritized the various demands of the job? What have you found to be most challenging in your career as a VC? What advice do you have for young folks trying to make an impact as an investor or board observer? You wrote a great piece that analyzed three areas where VCs could invest to address the societal challenges of COVID-19. Can you walk us through each of these and why the opportunity here is greater? What do you think the future holds for venture & entrepreneurship in a post-COVID world? The old playbook for winning deals is gone... Any idea on how one might win a deal virtually? To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

The post E994: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin shares his state machine that answers all growth questions; Future of Early-Stage VC w/Pete Flint (NFX), Rebecca Lynn (Canvas Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle Capital); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Lever CTO Nate Smith appeared first on This Week In Startups.

The post E994: All Turtles CEO Phil Libin shares his state machine that answers all growth questions; Future of Early-Stage VC w/Pete Flint (NFX), Rebecca Lynn (Canvas Ventures), Dave Samuel (Freestyle Capital); plus LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk w/Lever CTO Nate Smith appeared first on This Week In Startups.

Austin Russell is the cofounder and CEO of Luminar which is an autonomous vehicle sensor and software company. The company has raised over $250 million from investors like Peter Thiel, The Westle Group, Canvas Ventures, Moore Capital, 1517 Fund, GVA Capital, Invariantes Fund, and Corning to name a few.

Austin Russell is the cofounder and CEO of Luminar which is an autonomous vehicle sensor and software company. The company has raised over $250 million from investors like Peter Thiel, The Westle Group, Canvas Ventures, Moore Capital, 1517 Fund, GVA Capital, Invariantes Fund, and Corning to name a few.

Lynn, a member of the Midas List and a nuclear engineer, talks chickens and flawed potato chips.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Our esteemed co-host Alex Wilhelm was out again this week, but Kate Clark was in the studio with the lovely TechCrunch editor Connie Loizos and Canvas Ventures' general partner Rebecca Lynn. The wonderful Chris Gates is on vacation this week, so TechCrunch's Megan Rose Dickey sat in the producer's chair. That made this episode extra special, as it was our first all-female group on the mics and behind the scenes. First on the docket was news from StockX and Cameo. The buzzy startups both raised big rounds this week. The former, a sneaker resale marketplace, closed on $110 million at a $1 billion valuation, while the latter attracted $50 million at a reported $300 million valuation. Rebecca shared her thoughts on the rise of influencer marketing and how its made way for the success of mobile apps and websites like Cameo, which caters to celebrities and influencers. Next up was Brandless. The direct-to-consumer business made headlines this week after a report from The Information outlined internal drama following a big investment from SoftBank in 2018. Amid the turmoil, detailed here and here, the business brought on a brand-new CEO, former Walmart chief operating officer John Rittenhouse. Whether he can meet SoftBank's steep demands remains to be seen. The whole thing leaves us wondering: Do any of SoftBank's portfolio companies regret taking the firm's money? Finally, we talked about WeWork's latest acquisition. The co-working giant bought Waltz, a smartphone app and reader that allows users to enter different properties with a single credential. The deal will make it easier for WeWork’s enterprise clients, such as GE Healthcare and Microsoft, to manage their employees’ on-demand memberships to WeWork spaces. WeWork has been quite acquisitive in 2019. Will its M&A activity help it prepare for an IPO? And why the hell does it still have an all-male board? We have more questions than answers. That's all for now. See you next week.

The post E947: Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Canvas Ventures, shares “Strategic Advantages” @ Founder.University & shows how startups can identify, evaluate & strengthen defensibility in their markets appeared first on This Week In Startups.

The post E947: Mike Ghaffary, General Partner at Canvas Ventures, shares “Strategic Advantages” @ Founder.University & shows how startups can identify, evaluate & strengthen defensibility in their markets appeared first on This Week In Startups.

Maynard Webb is truly unique, he has worn 3 different hats and excelled in all of them. First, he is the Founder of The Webb Investment Network, the institutionalisation of his personal investing where he has invested in the likes of Zuora, GOAT, WePay, Okta, PagerDuty and many more incredible companies. He is also a Co-Founder and Board Member at Everwise, the startup that helps companies tailor, scale and run training at enterprise scale. Everwise has raised over $26m in funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital and Canvas Ventures. Finally, Maynard sits on the board of some of the biggest companies of our time including Salesforce and Visa. Previously Maynard was Chairman of the Board of Yahoo!, CEO of LiveOps, and COO of eBay. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Maynard made his way into the world of startups and came to invest in his first company, founded by Sequoia's Jim Goetz and how that led to eBay, LiveOps and more? 2.) Does Maynard believe we have an excess supply of capital in the market today? What does Maynard think of the mega $Bn+ funds being raised on a frequent basis? How does this distort pricing in the market? How does Maynard think about his own price sensitivity? What does this mean for his available reserve allocation? 3.) Does Maynard believe that the dominant role of CEO is management upscaling? How does Maynard advise on the transition from manager to inspirational leader? How do the vest best CEOs hire the very best execs? How does Maynard know when a stretch VP is a stretch too far? How should founders determine and approach "bet the company" decisions? 4.) When should a founder start installing their board? What does Maynard believe is the optimal board construction, both in characters and profiles? How has Maynard seen his own style of board membership changed over the years? What are the best board members talk to listen ratios? How can founders create alignment among their board? 5.) What is the right way for founders to deal with "s*** hit the fan moments"? What is the framework to approach this with? Where do many go wrong in their approach? How does one communicate this to the wider team, investors and board? What have been Maynard's biggest personal learnings here from eBay? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Maynard’s Fave Book: The Better Angels of Our Nature As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Maynard on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Owl, the two-way dash cam founded by a team of ex-Apple and Dropcam executives, has secured a $10 million Series A1 round led by Canvas Ventures. This brings Owl's total funding to $28 million. “We've seen a lot of pent-up demand for car security, and Owl is tapping into that demand with a product that's easy to install and use,” Canvas Ventures General Partner Rebecca Lynn said in a statement.

Paul Hsiao is a Founding Partner @ Canvas Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's leading and newer entrants to the Series A scene. At Canvas, Paul has made investments in the likes of Everwise, Fluxx Labs, Roofstock, Thrive Global, Transfix, and Zola. Before founding Canvas, Paul was a partner at NEA, where he led an early-stage investment in Houzz, as well as, had the privilege of helping eight companies go public on the NYSE or NASDAQ and seventeen companies with successful M&A exits during his 10-year tenure with the firm. Prior to VC, Paul was an entrepreneur with the founding of Mazu Networks, a pioneer in network security that was acquired by Riverbed Technologies. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Paul made his way into the world of VC with NEA and got Scott Sandell as his first mentor in VC? 2.) Question from Oren Zeev: Having been a partner at both, how does Paul compare the culture and strategy of two such differing firms of Canvas vs NEA? How does Paul's thinking on exit expectations and requirements change with the change of fund? How does a smaller fund fundamentally change the way you think about investing? 3.) What does Paul believe are the 5 fundamentals of building and scaling a successful marketplace? Why does Paul believe that it is the supply side that tells you if your marketplace is or is not working? Why does Paul believe stubbornness is good in marketplace founders? 4.) Why does Paul believe that raising $100m is critical for new companies if they want to go big? What does this mean for capital efficiency? What does this mean for ownership with multiple dilutive rounds impacting investor returns? How should founders then think about winning the "capital arms race"? What are the exceptions to these rules? 5.) Female founders receive 2.19% of VC funding, however, Paul has many more female founders in portfolio than the industry. Why does Paul think this is? What would Paul like to see change in the distribution of VC funds? What is the required steps to make this happen? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Paul’s Fave Book: The Innovator's Dilemma Paul’s Most Recent Investment: Thrive Global, Roofstock As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Paul on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Cooley is a global law firm built around supporting start-ups and the venture capital firms that fund them. Now we have spoken before about their forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, and forming more VC funds than any other law firm in the world but Cooley also represents more than 6,000 high-growth startups across the globe – through the full company life cycle. They are the #1 law firm for VC-backed exits (M&A and IPO) ranked by PitchBook, and since 2014 has represented more companies in their IPOs than any other law firm.  Simply head over to Cooley.com or you can check them out at Cooleygo.com.

Gary Little, Co-founder at Canvas Ventures, discusses the various types of venture capital and the evolution of the industry into a rather segmented current eco-system. For an entrepreneur trying to raise money, all this is extremely complicated, but essential to understand, or else, you will find yourself trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

In this episode, recorded live at Canvas Ventures in Portola Valley, I speak with Ben Narasin, a partner with Canvas and an avid venture investor in AI and ML companies, some of which we've interviewed (Crowdflower and Mulesoft), along with many others that we haven't (like Siri). Ben doesn't look for AI to invest in; instead, he looks for companies to invest in, a subtle but important difference in a business world increasingly caught up in the explosion of AI and ML technologies. From investments in Nuance to more recent one such as Houzz, Narasin has solid ideas as to what makes an investment interesting when AI is involved, what might actually add value to a model with AI, and what's wholly irrelevant when it comes to overall business model. Besides making important distinctions on where investments can make a return and how to raise money for your AI startup, this interview is also chock full of great analogies (give me golden dragons all day long—anyone?)

Rebecca Lynn, partner and founder at Canvas Ventures, shares her unlikely journey from the humble farming town of her childhood to the hotbed of technology innovation, fueled by engineering talent, entrepreneurial drive and solid guidance from mentors. Lynn describes her strategy for investing and observations about the world of venture capital.

Rebecca Lynn, partner and founder at Canvas Ventures, shares her unlikely journey from the humble farming town of her childhood to the hotbed of technology innovation, fueled by engineering talent, entrepreneurial drive and solid guidance from mentors. Lynn describes her strategy for investing and observations about the world of venture capital.

Rebecca Lynn, partner and founder at Canvas Ventures, shares her unlikely journey from the humble farming town of her childhood to the hotbed of technology innovation, fueled by engineering talent, entrepreneurial drive and solid guidance from mentors. Lynn describes her strategy for investing and observations about the world of venture capital.

My guest today is Mike Ghaffary who is a partner at Canvas Ventures, a firm that specializes on leading Series A. Some of their investments include Flyhomes, Nubrakes, and Zola. This is Mike's second time on Consumer VC and is our first second time guest. His first appearance we went deep on how to evaluate and invest in marketplace businesses. On this episode, we discuss what is the next big thing in consumer after the iPhone? Is it web3, metaverse, remote work applications or something completely different?

*Mike Ghaffary* ( https://www.canvas.vc/team-member/mike-ghaffary/ ) *is a General Partner at* *Canvas Ventures* ( https://www.canvas.vc/ ) *, one of the premier thesis-driven early-stage venture capital funds in San Francisco that invests in Fintech, Digital Health, Marketplaces, and New Enterprise. Prior to Canvas, Mike was a General Partner at Social Capital and as an angel investor, some of his investments include Strava, Skip Scooters, Pocket, Philz Coffee, Atrium, and Superhuman. He also has 10 years of operating experience as CEO of Eat24, VP Business and Corporate Development at Yelp, Director of Business Development at TrialPay, and co-founder of Stitcher and BarMax. And before that, Mike started his investing career at Summit Partners.* *For this episode, we talk quite extensively about evaluating marketplaces. Mike has written a few articles on the subject, the one we touch on is* *“Where I'm Investing and 15 Marketplace Questions”* ( https://medium.com/canvas-ventures/where-im-investing-and-15-marketplace-questions-cdf4ba9bc81d ) *.* *Two books that have impacted Mike professionally and personally is* *Give and Take* ( https://amzn.to/2N9WYbY ) *by Adam Grant and* *Drive* ( https://amzn.to/2FBATi4 ) *by Daniel Pink* *You can follow Mike on Twitter* *@newmike* ( https://twitter.com/newmike ) *for updates. You are also welcome to follow your host* *@mikegelb* ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) *and* *@consumervc* ( https://twitter.com/consumervc ) *for updates.* *On this episode you learn -* * *What attracted Mike to working in startups and becoming a founder? How important having operational experience is? What's makes him excited to invest in consumer tech in this current climate?* * ** * *What is a marketplace? An overview of the advantages of marketplaces. What marketplace founders need to consider when identifying and building marketplaces? Cross-side and same-side network effects & negative network effects. How important is having your own unique distribution? Evaluating switching costs.* * ** * *Online customer acquisition costs for both supply and demand. The current outlook of online CAC in today's climate.* * ** * *One thing he would change about venture capital. How an entrepreneur should think when a venture fund says they need a lead investor in order to invest?* * ** *...and much much more!* If you would like to follow along you can click “Subscribe” on the Apple podcast app or whichever platform you are listening on. If you enjoyed the episode, feel free to also leave a review. You are also to see all episodes here and learn more at www.theconsumervc.com ( http://www.theconsumervc.com/ ) and follow Mike on Twitter ( https://twitter.com/MikeGelb ) or Instagram ( https://www.instagram.com/mikegelb/ )