Podcasts about susa ventures

Episode 352 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Mark Ghermezian and Manisha Shah, Founder of Tildei. Mark is the Founder and General Partner of m]x[v Capital and he's also the CEO of two companies that have spun out of his firm, that being Tildei and Gynger. Mark has been an entrepreneur pretty much his entire life and he shares lots of fun and interesting stories of these ventures, including the full story of Braze, a customer engagement platform that eventually went public in 2021. Manisha is a Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Tildei. In this interview, she shares her professional journey into the tech industry and ultimately running customer success at Rebel which was acquired by Salesforce. Tildei is changing how companies and customers communicate. The company's AI-powered platform, which is initially focused on WhatsApp, enables brands to build deep relationships with customers through conversation at scale. The company has raised $6M in funding led by Susa Ventures with participation from Ludlow Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Vine Ventures, MXV Capital, Marcelo Claure, Jason Lemkin, and other angel investors. In this episode of our podcast, we also cover: * The importance of persistence and grit when building a startup. * How Mark and Manisha came together to build Tildei and how it works. * Building and investing into companies from m]x[v including the details on Gynger. * Mark's contrarian point of view of PLG sales models and why he favors a traditional outbound sales operation. * Manisha's biggest lessons learned as a co-founder. * And so much more.

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop welcomes guest Leo Polovets, General Partner at Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures. The discussion covers the shifting landscape of investment from software to hard tech and deep tech, advancements in robotics and AI, and the evolution of Humba Ventures. Leo shares his insights on being an opportunistic investor, the importance of the physical world in tech innovations, and his journey from engineering to investing. He also highlights exciting projects like DeepChecks, which connects deep tech founders with investors. Check DeepChecks' website to learn more.Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation!Timestamps00:00 Welcome and introduction, discussing Leo Polovets's background and the topic of AI's impact on software and investment shifts to hard tech and deep tech.05:00 Exploration of hardware and bio labs, space factories, new materials, and other deep tech categories; the importance of the physical world in these technologies.10:00 Leo's transition from engineering to investing, learning through investing, and applying an engineering mindset to business and investment decisions.15:00 Discussion on the evolution of Humba Ventures, experimental fund beginnings, and focus on deep tech and American dynamism sectors.20:00 Insights into investment approaches: thesis-driven vs. opportunistic, and Leo's preference for a serendipitous and opportunistic investment style.25:00 Challenges and opportunities in the chip industry, including labor practices and supply chain dependencies, and the potential of robotics and AI in various applications.30:00 The intersection of robotics and AI, rapid advancements in robotics capabilities, and the role of efficiency and learning in factory automation.35:00 Further discussion on robotics, examples of robots learning tasks quickly, and the potential impact of advanced robotics on various industries.40:00 The importance of understanding investment sectors, managing the tension between knowledge depth and investment opportunities, and the role of serendipity in discovering new areas.45:00 The significance of Miami as a tech hub, its role in connecting the US and Latin America, and the dynamics of the startup scene in different regions.50:00 Leo's excitement about current projects, such as DeepChecks, and the benefits of having a community for deep tech founders to pitch their ideas to investors.55:00 Closing thoughts on investing, learning from founders, and the continuous evolution of technology and investment landscapes.Key InsightsInvestment Shift to Deep Tech: Leo Polovets highlights a significant shift in the investment landscape from software-centric ventures to deep tech and hard tech sectors. This transition is driven by the maturation of software, reduced barriers to entry, and the growing potential of physical-world technologies like hardware, bio labs, and advanced materials.Serendipitous vs. Thematic Investing: Leo contrasts thematic, thesis-driven investing with his preferred approach of serendipitous, opportunistic investing. He emphasizes the importance of being open to discovering new opportunities through conversations with founders and exploring emerging trends without rigidly adhering to predefined investment themes.AI's Impact on Knowledge Work: The discussion explores how AI, particularly generative AI models, is revolutionizing knowledge work by automating complex tasks and enhancing productivity. Leo mentions the potential of AI to speed up regulatory processes, improve design efficiency, and transform industries like protein design and material science.Evolution of Humba Ventures: Leo shares the evolution of Humba Ventures, which began as an experimental fund to explore new investment categories beyond Susa Ventures' traditional focus. Over time, it has become a dedicated deep tech and American dynamism fund, targeting sectors with significant engineering and scientific challenges.Robotics Advancements: Robotics is identified as a rapidly advancing field, with significant improvements in robots' learning capabilities. Leo explains how modern robots can quickly adapt to new tasks, contrasting the efficiency-focused automation in factories with the emerging trend of versatile, learning-oriented robots for more dynamic environments.Miami as a Tech Hub: The conversation touches on Miami's growing role as a tech hub, particularly for remote companies and those connected to Latin America. While it may not rival traditional tech centers like San Francisco or New York in terms of engineering talent, Miami offers unique advantages for certain industries and demographics.DeepChecks Community: Leo introduces DeepChecks, a project aimed at connecting deep tech founders with investors. This initiative provides a platform for founders to submit their pitches and gain visibility among a curated group of angel investors and venture capitalists, fostering collaboration and investment in groundbreaking technologies.

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop welcomes guest Leo Polovets, General Partner at Susa Ventures and Humba Ventures. The discussion covers the shifting landscape of investment from software to hard tech and deep tech, advancements in robotics and AI, and the evolution of Humba Ventures. Leo shares his insights on being an opportunistic investor, the importance of the physical world in tech innovations, and his journey from engineering to investing. He also highlights exciting projects like DeepChecks, which connects deep tech founders with investors. Check DeepChecks' website to learn more. Check out this GPT we trained on the conversation! Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and introduction, discussing Leo Polovets's background and the topic of AI's impact on software and investment shifts to hard tech and deep tech. 05:00 Exploration of hardware and bio labs, space factories, new materials, and other deep tech categories; the importance of the physical world in these technologies. 10:00 Leo's transition from engineering to investing, learning through investing, and applying an engineering mindset to business and investment decisions. 15:00 Discussion on the evolution of Humba Ventures, experimental fund beginnings, and focus on deep tech and American dynamism sectors. 20:00 Insights into investment approaches: thesis-driven vs. opportunistic, and Leo's preference for a serendipitous and opportunistic investment style. 25:00 Challenges and opportunities in the chip industry, including labor practices and supply chain dependencies, and the potential of robotics and AI in various applications. 30:00 The intersection of robotics and AI, rapid advancements in robotics capabilities, and the role of efficiency and learning in factory automation. 35:00 Further discussion on robotics, examples of robots learning tasks quickly, and the potential impact of advanced robotics on various industries. 40:00 The importance of understanding investment sectors, managing the tension between knowledge depth and investment opportunities, and the role of serendipity in discovering new areas. 45:00 The significance of Miami as a tech hub, its role in connecting the US and Latin America, and the dynamics of the startup scene in different regions. 50:00 Leo's excitement about current projects, such as DeepChecks, and the benefits of having a community for deep tech founders to pitch their ideas to investors. 55:00 Closing thoughts on investing, learning from founders, and the continuous evolution of technology and investment landscapes. Key Insights Investment Shift to Deep Tech: Leo Polovets highlights a significant shift in the investment landscape from software-centric ventures to deep tech and hard tech sectors. This transition is driven by the maturation of software, reduced barriers to entry, and the growing potential of physical-world technologies like hardware, bio labs, and advanced materials. Serendipitous vs. Thematic Investing: Leo contrasts thematic, thesis-driven investing with his preferred approach of serendipitous, opportunistic investing. He emphasizes the importance of being open to discovering new opportunities through conversations with founders and exploring emerging trends without rigidly adhering to predefined investment themes. AI's Impact on Knowledge Work: The discussion explores how AI, particularly generative AI models, is revolutionizing knowledge work by automating complex tasks and enhancing productivity. Leo mentions the potential of AI to speed up regulatory processes, improve design efficiency, and transform industries like protein design and material science. Evolution of Humba Ventures: Leo shares the evolution of Humba Ventures, which began as an experimental fund to explore new investment categories beyond Susa Ventures' traditional focus. Over time, it has become a dedicated deep tech and American dynamism fund, targeting sectors with significant engineering and scientific challenges. Robotics Advancements: Robotics is identified as a rapidly advancing field, with significant improvements in robots' learning capabilities. Leo explains how modern robots can quickly adapt to new tasks, contrasting the efficiency-focused automation in factories with the emerging trend of versatile, learning-oriented robots for more dynamic environments. Miami as a Tech Hub: The conversation touches on Miami's growing role as a tech hub, particularly for remote companies and those connected to Latin America. While it may not rival traditional tech centers like San Francisco or New York in terms of engineering talent, Miami offers unique advantages for certain industries and demographics. DeepChecks Community: Leo introduces DeepChecks, a project aimed at connecting deep tech founders with investors. This initiative provides a platform for founders to submit their pitches and gain visibility among a curated group of angel investors and venture capitalists, fostering collaboration and investment in groundbreaking technologies.    

Leo shares the origin story of why storied VC firm Susa Ventures decided to launch new fund, Humba Ventures, to invest at the intersection of deep tech and American Dynamism, details what differences are required to evaluate companies with that level of focus on deep tech, defends Humba's thesis that deep tech is the best place to invest and build right now by dispelling 4 key misconceptions of this category, and brings us home sharing a “What's Hot and What's Hype” outlook.  

Leo Polovets is the Co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures. Leo focuses on enterprise software and technical products at Susa. About two years ago, He also started Humba Ventures, a fund that invests in deep tech and critical national sectors like energy and defense at Humba.   Leo led Susa's investments in Mashgin, People Data Labs, Scalyr, and Treasury Prime. Having been a software engineer for 10+ years, Leo approaches challenges with an engineering mindset and supports portfolio companies in vetting and hiring technical talent. Prior to Susa, Leo was the second engineering hire at Linkedin, where he worked on the first versions of products like LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Groups. Leo then worked on payment fraud detection algorithms at Google, and was also an early engineer at Factual, where he built data processing software. Leo received a bachelor's degree in Engineering and Applied Science (Computer Science) from Caltech. We talk about lessons that translate from investing in traditional startups; explore lessons learned about market sizing, pricing, team dynamics, managing burn, scaling, valuation and many other topics in the deep tech space.   Shownotes: https://humbaventures.com/ Leo's presentation on “Exploring Startup Ideas” https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C-JFkqsY40tidqPD1OZbV3-OXPAyrsPIV5Q_00PkToQ/edit#slide=id.g221d008c440_0_35 Thinking about making money for scientific founders Thinking about market attributes for a potential startup Intro to Humba ventures Investing in deep tech Founder-market fit; Time to make money Investment thesis Communication: between team members, to investors and beyond Working with startup teams: Commercialization Pricing in deep tech: Think of value being created How to ask for money for your product? Aloha robot- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaaZ8ss-HP4&t=5s Story telling Manage your burn! Scaling: Calibrating on talent; learning to delegate; firing Bs and B+s on the team Keeping up with new technologies Thoughts on valuation What Leo likes to hear while being pitched to

Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz, the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Chapter, a Medicare advisory platform that uses a blend of technology and a trained team of advisors to decipher all plans at a microscopic level, ensuring that members can enroll in the plans that are best suited for their needs based on cost and coverage. Chapter has raised to date $61 million from notable investors such as Addition, Narya Capital, Susa Ventures, Maverick Ventures, XYZ Venture Capital, Core Innovation Capital, and Health2047 Capital Partners, and Peter Thiel.Where to find Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz:• Website: Free Guidance from Licensed Medicare Advisors - Chapter (askchapter.org)• LinkedIn Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz | LinkedInWhere to find Hadi Radwan:• Newsletter: Principles Friday | Hadi Radwan | Substack• LinkedIn: Hadi Radwan | LinkedInIf you like our podcast, please don't forget to subscribe and support us on your favorite podcast players. We also would appreciate your feedback and rating to reach more people.We recently launched our new newsletter, Principles Friday, where I share one principle that can help you in your life or business, one thought-provoking question, and one call to action toward that principle. Please subscribe Here.It is Free and Short (2min).

Our guest for today's podcast is Eva Ho, General Partner of Fika Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that invests in founders solving meaningful, systemic problems through the use of data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation. While this horizontal thesis allows Fika Ventures to be fairly sector agnostic, the firm is especially drawn to innovations in enterprise software, fintech, marketplaces, and digital health.  Fika is investing out of their Fund III and has committed capital of over $300 million life to date.   Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, most recently a founding executive at Factual, a leading location data provider in Los Angeles. Prior, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Prior to Google, she was the head of marketing for Applied Semantics, a company that sold to Google in 2003. Eva holds an MBA from Cornell and a BA from Harvard.  Eva also graduated from one of the top high schools in the country, Boston Latin School.  And for those listeners who know me, I am biased as that is my high school.  In fact, Eva and I were high school classmates and we took many of the same AP classes together back in the day!   So, how does one get their start to becoming a great venture capitalist?  There isn't a clear answer, but I know our listeners will get a lot from this interview.  Without further ado, here is our conversation with Eva Ho.

Maia Benson and Joe Lynch discuss A SaaS Gal in VC Land. Maia is a SaaS gal in VC land and a Managing Director at Forum Ventures where she works with SaaS founders from inception to scale.  About Maia Benson Maia Benson is a Managing Director at Forum where she works with SaaS founders from inception to scale.  She has spent over 20 years founding, building and scaling award-winning SaaS products for Entrepreneurs and SMBs at places like LexisNexis, Pitney Bowes and most recently at Shopify, where she helped found, launch and scale their Shipping and Fulfillment products from inception to 60%+ merchant adoption and $Bs of transportation spend. About Forum Ventures Forum Ventures is the leading early-stage fund, program and community for B2B SaaS startups. Founded in 2014 as Acceleprise, we're on a mission to make the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible and successful for early-stage founders, through pre-seed and seed-stage funding, high touch programming, corporate perks and introductions, and an active SaaS community. Forum For Founders, our pre-seed program, provides founders with $100k in funding and 15 intense weeks of talks, events, mentorship and 1:1 guidance focused on go to market and fundraising. Forum Seed, our seed fund, backs exceptional SaaS startups at the seed-stage both from within and outside of our pre-seed program. With over 250 portfolio companies, Forum founders have gone on to raise from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncork Capital, 8VC, Founders Fund, Menlo Ventures, Canaan, Bowery Capital, Susa Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, SV Angel, True Ventures and many more. Our private peer community for Innovation executives -- The Innovation Forum -- brings together like-minded intrapreneurs from all backgrounds to share best practices, insights, and advice, and support one another. In addition to our incredible peer community, members get access to industry trend reports, collaborative events, emerging technology, and startup introductions. Key Takeaways: A SaaS Gal in VC Land Forum Ventures is the top choice for early-stage B2B SaaS companies looking for funding. Forum Ventures is different and better for the following reasons: Founder-focused: Their team consists of former SaaS founders, offering deep understanding of the early-stage journey and expertise in GTM, sales, and fundraising. Pre-seed and seed investments: They empower early-stage B2B SaaS companies with pre-seed and seed funding, ranging from $100k to $2 million. High-touch programs: Beyond funding, they provide high-touch programs like "Forum For Founders" (15 weeks of talks, mentorship, and guidance) and a dedicated fundraising track. Thriving community: They foster an active SaaS community with over 450 founders, mentors, and experts, offering connections, support, and valuable insights. Accessibility champions: Committed to diversity and inclusion, they strive to make the B2B SaaS ecosystem more accessible to underrepresented founders. Proven success: With over 250 successful pre-seed and seed investments, their track record speaks for itself. Fractional co-founder approach: They act as a "fractional co-founder" with world-class expertise, helping startups navigate crucial steps like product development, go-to-market strategy, and fundraising. Mission-driven: Driven by a genuine passion for aiding founders, they prioritize their success and strive to make the B2B SaaS journey easier and more impactful. Learn More About A SaaS Gal in VC Maia Benson | LinkedIn Forum Ventures | LinkedIn Forum Ventures | Homepage The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube

Matt Mckinney and Joe Lynch discuss unlocking logistics profits. Matt is the Co-founder and CEO of Loop, a modern transportation audit & pay company. About Matt McKinney Matt Mckinney is the Co-founder and CEO of Loop, a modern transportation audit & pay company. Loop's AI-driven platform removes payment friction in the supply chain to unlock margin and increase liquidity. Matt drew upon his background at Uber Freight to tackle the massive problem of building a new structure for the legacy transportation payment system that supports the global supply chain. Having studied engineering at USC and Stanford, Matt is no stranger to complex data problems. Matt's most significant achievement to date is his powerhouse engineering team, from his co-founder Shaosu Liu to several Flexport, Uber, and Meta engineers. When he's not wrangling unstructured data, you can find him running, biking, or playing with his two sons. About Loop Loop is on a mission to unlock profits trapped in the supply chain and lower costs for consumers. Bad data and inefficient workflows create friction that limits working capital and raises costs for every supply chain stakeholder.Loop's modern audit and pay platform uses our domain-driven AI to harness the complexity of supply chain data and documentation. We improve transportation spend visibility so companies can control their costs and power profit. That is why industry leaders like J.P. Morgan Chase, Great Dane, Emerge, and Loadsmart work with Loop.Our investors include J.P. Morgan, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, 8VC, Susa Ventures, Flexport, and 50 industry-leading angel investors. Our team brings subject matter expertise from companies like Uber, Google, Flexport, Meta, Samsara, Intuit, Rakuten, and long-standing industry leaders like C.H. Robinson. Key Takeaways: Unlocking Logistics Profits Loop is a leading provider of audit and payment solutions for successful supply chains. Its innovative platform and services are helping businesses to improve their supply chain performance and achieve their business goals. Loop's mission is to transform supply chains by providing an audit and payment platform that promotes transparency, efficiency, and collaboration. Loop offers a suite of services that help businesses manage their supply chains more effectively, including: Supply chain audits: Loop conducts comprehensive audits to identify areas for improvement and ensure compliance with regulations. Performance-based payments: Loop allows businesses to pay their suppliers based on performance, incentivizing them to deliver high-quality goods and services on time. Data analytics and reporting: Loop provides businesses with actionable insights into their supply chain performance, helping them identify trends and make data-driven decisions. Loop's technology platform is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, which enables it to automate tasks, analyze data, and identify risks and opportunities. Loop's services can provide businesses with a number of benefits, including: Reduced costs: By identifying waste and inefficiency in their supply chains, businesses can save money on procurement and improve their bottom line. Improved quality: Loop's performance-based payments incentivize suppliers to deliver high-quality goods and services. Increased transparency: Loop's platform provides businesses with a clear view of their supply chain performance, which helps them make better decisions and manage risks. Enhanced collaboration: Loop promotes collaboration between businesses and their suppliers. Loop has been recognized by a number of industry organizations for its innovative approach to supply chain management. It was named a Gartner Cool Vendor in 2021 and was also featured in the IDC MarketScape for Supply Chain Finance and Trade Finance Platforms. Loop is constantly innovating and expanding its services. It is currently developing new features, such as risk Learn More About Unlocking Logistics Profits Matt Mckinney | LinkedIn Loop | LinkedIn Loop homepage Contact Loop Episode Sponsor: Wreaths Across America Wreaths Across America Radio – Wreaths Across America Episode Sponsor: Lean Solutions Group Outsourced Sales and Marketing with Ryan Mann The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube

In today's edition of Funding the Future, we speak with Courtney Lipkin, partner at Susa Ventures, a seed fund based in San Francisco. Topics Discussed: Courtney's background growing in the Bay Area, studying international relations, and making her way into tech and venture capital  Why Courtney sees herself as better at venture than she would be at founding her own company Why Courtney loves working with founders and creative designers, and why her favorite book is a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci The history of Susa Ventures, and the characteristics that set it apart from other funds Why Courtney doesn't think Silicon Valley is dying at all, and what a typical day is like for a venture capitalist   Favorite book:  Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson

10 years after their initial launch, Susa is relaunching the firm with a new vision and strategy, which Susa General Partner, Chad Byers, tells us about in this episode of Turpentine VC. If you're looking to improve your sourcing, tracking, and due diligence, check out: https://synaptic.com/turpentine We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com. --- SPONSORS: Synaptic unifies over one hundred real-time company performance metrics across alternative datasets like user traffic, employee data, app downloads, product reviews, and more. It's your all-in-one source for alternative data that helps you make better investment decisions. To learn how Synaptic can improve your sourcing, tracking, and due diligence, visit https://synaptic.com/turpentine --- RECOMMENDED PODCAST:  Every week investor and writer of the popular newsletter The Diff, Byrne Hobart, and co-host Erik Torenberg discuss today's major inflection points in technology, business, and markets – and help listeners build a diversified portfolio of trends and ideas for the future. Subscribe to “The Riff” with Byrne Hobart and Erik Torenberg: https://link.chtbl.com/theriff RECOMMENDED PODCAST: LIVE PLAYERS Join host Samo Burja and Erik Torenberg as they analyze the mindsets of today's most intriguing business leaders, investors, and innovators through the lens of their bold actions and contrarian worldviews. You'll come away with a deeper understanding of the development of technology, business, political power, culture and more. LIsten and subscribe everywhere you get your podcasts: https://link.chtbl.com/liveplayers. --- Join our free newsletter to get Erik's top 3 insights from each episode every week: https://turpentinevc.substack.com/ --- RELATED SHOWS: If you like Turpentine VC, check out our show The Limited Partner with David Weisburd, where David talks to the investors behind the investors: https://link.chtbl.com/thelimitedpartner --- X / TWITTER: @chadbyers (Chad) @eriktorenberg (Erik) @SusaVentures @TurpentineVC --- TIMESTAMPS: (00:00) Episode Preview (00:56) How does Susa see themselves within the venture ecosystem? (01:54) The history and next evolution of Susa Ventures (8:29) Why Susa isn't becoming multi-stage and the trade-offs of their new vision (11:59) What does Susa look like 5-10 years from now? (14:07) Chad's thoughts on Thrive (15:39) Sponsor: Synaptic (16:38) On incubations and whether Susa would want to pursue them in the future (17:47) On LP strategy (20:31) The trade-offs of investing in platform as a fund (23:21) The sweet spot of where Susa invests in relation to product-market fit (26:16) How has Susa thought about partner recruiting? (29:18) Why doesn't Susa pursue the maximal AUM game? (33:03) The unique ways Susa adds value to founders (36:29) How Chad thinks about seeds firms evolving to multistage firms and competing against Sequoia, Founders Fund, etc. (39:10) Pattern-matching the best founders Chad has backed (42:18) Chad on Sam Lessin's theory on seed investing (46:24) Predictions for the next 3-5 years of venture (48:47) Diving deeper into why Susa decided to double-down to become specialists in seed (50:15) Thought experiment: how would Chad launch Susa in 2023?

On this episode of Investor Connect, Hall welcomes Michael Cardamone, CEO and General Partner at Forum Ventures. Located in New York, NY, USA, Forum Ventures is the leading early-stage fund, program, and community for B2B SaaS startups. Founded in 2014 as Acceleprise, they are on a mission to make the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible, and successful for early-stage founders, through pre-seed and seed-stage funding, high-touch programming, corporate perks and introductions, and an active SaaS community.  With over 250 portfolio companies, Forum founders have gone on to raise from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Uncork Capital, 8VC, Founders Fund, Menlo Ventures, Canaan, Bowery Capital, Susa Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, SV Angel, True Ventures and many more. Michael Cardamone focuses on developing our investment strategy with the mission to make the B2B SaaS journey easier, more accessible, and more successful for early-stage founders. As one of the first 30 employees at Box, as well as leading partnerships at AcedemixDirect, Michael has had direct experience growing SaaS companies from small startups to large-scale enterprises. He is also an angel investor in a dozen companies including a seed investment in Flexport. Michael shares insights about his background in tech, the evolution of Foreign Ventures, and their unique approach to investing in startups. He discusses the challenges of raising pre-seed capital in the current market and outlines the criteria they look for in founders and startups. Michael also explains the differences between Foreign Ventures and other venture funds, emphasizing their hands-on approach and extensive resources.  Visit Forum Ventures at , and on . Reach out to Michael at , and on . _______________________________________________________ For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at:    Check out our other podcasts here:   For Investors check out:   For Startups check out:   For eGuides check out:   For upcoming Events, check out    For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group    Please , share, and leave a review. Music courtesy of .

On this episode of The Casey Adams Show, Chad Byers, co-founder and general partner at Susa Ventures, shares his experience in venture capital. He explains the key to success in early stage investing, his experience of raising their first fund, and his thoughts on competition, and offers four key pieces of advice for first-time venture capitalists. Follow Chad on Twitter: https://twitter.com/chadbyers [00:00:00] Startup journey to venture fund. [00:04:27] Early stage investing success [00:09:47] Find brilliant entrepreneurs, build network. [00:14:06] Venture capital highly vintage dependent. [00:18:43] SF Bay Area: Home of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. [00:23:48] Tech force for good: SF home base. [00:27:46] Competitive drive to improve daily. [00:32:49] Compete, test mental fortitude, social accountability. [00:37:11] Venture investing: harder, AI challenge, strategy advantage. [00:41:13] Build team, execute strategy, cultivate relationships. - Follow Casey on social media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/casey Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CaseyAdams  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caseyadams YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CaseyAdams Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, we dive into the fascinating journey of Pratyush Buddiga, a former professional poker player turned senior associate at SUSA Ventures. Pratyush shares his experiences of being ranked second in the world in professional poker, the highs and lows of his career, and how he transitioned into the world of tech and venture capital. We also explore the importance of intuition in decision-making, the value of faith in overcoming challenges, and the mentorship and learning opportunities at SUSA Ventures. Join us for an insightful conversation on competition, risk, and personal growth in the world of startups and investing. [00:04:47] Professional poker career [00:07:39] Competition and mamba mentality. [00:11:26] Understanding players' strategies in poker. [00:12:01] People's core being expressed. [00:16:02] Power of intuition in decisions. [00:19:06] EV in real life decision-making. [00:21:35] Overcoming financial and personal challenges. [00:27:41] Faith and community in career. [00:31:15] Creating the kingdom of heaven. [00:35:07] Web3 and its future. [00:37:14] Control in decentralized finance. [00:40:35] Regional banks and startup ecosystem. [00:44:09] Humans are meant to create.

Ryan Delk is the Co-Founder and CEO of Primer, a startup helping ambitious kids unlock their potential by empowering teachers to launch and run their own micro-schools. Primer's supported by investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Village Global, Susa Ventures, Sam Altman, Naval, Ryan Peterson, Amjad Masad, Julie Zhuo, Tobias Lutke, Lachy Groom, Howie Liu, Dylan Field, Packy McCormick, and many more. Before Primer, Ryan was the COO at peer-to-peer rental marketplace Omni (sold to Coinbase), and prior to that led Growth and Partnerships at Gumroad from $10,000 to $50 million in GMV. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes In this episode, we discuss: - How the $1 trillion US K-12 education system works - The broken incentive structures in education - Why teachers are superheroes - How to double a teacher's income - Primer's origin story - How to open a school - If online school works - Why founders make the best employees - How the US government wastes billions of dollars - Why everyone should care more about local politics Where to find Ryan: Twitter https://twitter.com/delk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delk/ Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Timestamps: (3:42) The state of K-12 education in the US (6:35) The structural problem causing a radical misallocation of resources (8:00) The importance of teachers (9:34) The “totally flipped” incentive structure for teachers  (12:22) The problem of bureaucracy in education  (13:38) Primer's thesis (14:52) How to start a school (16:00) How Primer helps teachers start their own schools (18:20) Using underutilized real estate to host micro-schools (20:05) Ryan's take on digital vs in-person learning (21:59) How Primer supports teachers (23:21) Inspirational stories from Primer users (28:00) The underestimated entrepreneurship of teachers  (29:12) How Primer stays affordable for all users  (30:26) How Primer gets teachers on board  (32:04) The role of after-school activities  (33:07) How Primer sets its Curriculum (35:14) Ryan's unique education and how it inspired Primer  (38:39) Why someone hadn't solved this problem yet (40:24) Primer's initial strategy (41:30) The breakfast that changed everything (42:09) The concept of “Barrels” from Keith Rabois (42:36) Finding and recruiting Ian Bravo (43:31) How Primer recruits ex-founders (44:52) The 3 things Primer screens for in teachers (46:27) What Primer messed up when launching (48:19) Re-thinking school admissions from first principles (51:03) How they convinced the very first teachers to try Primer (51:59) The ineffective usage of education spending (53:28) Policymakers prioritizing “signal over outcomes” (57:21) The worst public schools are worse than you think  (59:08) How the Government wastes billions of dollars and Ryan's idea for solving this (61:31) The importance of increasing engagement with local politics (63:37) The vision for Primer Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io/ For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

In the immortal words of Andy Grove, “Training is one of the highest leverage activities a manager can perform.”  WorkRamp is the learning cloud for leading B2B companies such as Box, Lattice, Loom, and Intercom. The company has raised almost $70M across multiple rounds from top VCs and angels including Jack Altman, Elad Gil, Initialized Capital, Y-Combinator, and Susa Ventures to name a few.  I absolutely loved this conversation with WorkRamp's founder and CEO, Ted Blosser, and have no doubt that you will walk away with a ton of actionable ideas.  Topics covered include:  How the company struggled with PMF early on and how they overcame it The importance of vision and the framework he learned from the CEO of Cisco How the best SaaS businesses leverage customer education for acquisition, activation and retention Why “being 10x better” is terrible advice for startups How to break into an existing market and compete against incumbents Why it's so important in this economy for everyone in the company to be a seller  How AI is poised to change education (in a corporate setting and for children) Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:42 What is WorkRamp? 03:45 WorkRamp in numbers 04:51 Struggling with PMF 06:26 Finding PMF 10:03 Grand Vision 12:49 What did your background have to do with founding WorkRamp? 15:09 The founding story 16:33 Advice on entering an incumbent category 19:13 Selling strategy 21:40 Onboarding switching clients 24:45 How do customers use the LMS? 29:37 WorkRamp growth channels 34:09 Finding PMF multiple times 37:24 New products 38:13 Employee learning categories 40:20 How do founders leverage enablement training? 43:30 How is AI changing the educational space? 46:27 Lightning round Guest Contact Info: WorkRamp linkedin.com/tedblosser Learn Podcast Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In this episode we answer questions about how to build relationships with your investors! Most startup companies have investors, and your relationship with them is critical to your success. We are here to help and in this episode we answer questions including:How honest should I be in my investor updates?One of my investors just invested in a competitor, what do I do?My investors have stopped responding, how do I get them engaged again?We are joined by a special guest host in this episode: Leo Polovets from Susa Ventures! Leo is a founding partner at Susa Ventures, a $125m seed stage fund that was an early investor in companies like Robinhood, Flexport and Viz.ai. He also runs Humba Ventures, a new micro-fund in the Susa family that's focused on emerging/frontier sectors like robotics, climate/energy, and defense. Prior to Susa, Leo spent a decade working as a software engineer. He was the second non-founding engineer at LinkedIn, then worked at Google for three years, and then spent four years at Factual before transitioning into venture capital. We are lucky to have Leo join us to answer your questions!All of these questions were submitted by listeners just like you. You can submit questions for us to answer on our website https://www.thestartuphelpdesk.com/ or on Twitter @thestartuphd - we'd love to hear from you!Reminder: this is not legal advice or investment advice.Q1: How honest should I be in my investor updates?You should have at least one and ideally a few investors that you trust enough to share all of your concerns with. Investors can't help if they don't have a good picture of what's going on.The cost of secrecy or retaining information is too high. Transparency is freeing as a CEO. Talking about problems in your investor updates is a great way to get help.However, the person that wrote a $10k check 3 years ago and hasn't talked to you since doesn't need to know everything about your day to day.Thus, the bigger the investor group, the less detail you need to provide in your general investor updates. Rather, share the complete picture with your trusted circle of a few investors.Q2: One of my investors just invested in a competitor, what do I do?Avoid the impulse to respond hastily. First, meet with the investor and try to understand the situation as clearly as possible.After that, you will likely want to limit informational sharing with the investor as much as you can. Talk to your attorneys to better understand if you should limit the investor's relationship with your startup and, if so, how.If you have a good relationship with the investor, you can tell them you're uncomfortable with the situation. If the investment is not 100% closed yet, sometimes the investor will reconsider if they know that they are jeopardizing their relationship with your company.Q3: My investors have stopped responding, how do I get them engaged again?Investors are busy and if they aren't responding, it might not be about you. Have you been sending regular updates? Write your updates in a way that invites responses! For example, if you don't include any asks in your updates, then fewer people will respond. Or if you include the exact same ask each time, then people who can't help with it in the first update will have nothing to add in additional updates. However, if your asks vary, and especially if you have really easy asks like “check out our homepage and tell us 2 things you'd improve about it” then your response rate should go up.Reach out to investors 1:1 and not just in groups if you want them to engage more.Focus on your business and don't stop communicating.

In this episode, we delve into the world of early-stage venture investment with Leo Polovets, a General Partner at Susa Ventures and former software engineer. Join us as we explore successful investment strategies in the rapidly evolving AI landscape and the transformative impact of AI on startups and society. Discover the essential entrepreneurial skills for different startup stages and how to avoid early-stage traps. Gain valuable insights from LinkedIn's early days working with Reid Hoffman and learn about the art of storytelling in investment presentations. Tune in now for a dynamic and informative episode packed with actionable advice and valuable knowledge. Chapters: (00:00) Intro (02:30) What is Susa Ventures' investment thesis? (05:24) Leo's background: from engineering to investment (07:37) Essential skills for engineers in venture capital (11:20) Quantum computing: progress and potential for commercial applications (11:50) Uncovering investment insights in the AI landscape (17:16) The impact of AI on startups and society (22:03) The Flexport success story: the winning pitch that revolutionized shipping (24:32) The art of storytelling in investment presentations (27:44) Required entrepreneurial skills for different stages of startups (33:45) Prioritizing pricing from day one: a key to success (39:11) Insights from LinkedIn's early days: lessons learned working with Reid Hoffman (42:28) Lightning Round Further reading: “Startups are risk bundles” “How to de-risk a startup” Recommended newsletter: Lenny's newsletter Recommended book: 7 Powers Guest Contact Info: twitter.com/lpolovets linkedin.com/in/lpolovets susaventures.com leo@susaventures.com Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up.  To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com ⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In this episode we answer questions about how to manage risk! Startup companies face mountains of risk, and it can be hard to know which risks to focus on and what you can do about them. We are here to help and in this episode we answer questions including:What do I do if I think my VP of Sales is looking for another job?How do we handle unusual requests from our biggest customers?How do we stay ahead of huge numbers of new competitors?We are joined by a special guest host in this episode: Leo Polovets from Susa Ventures! Leo is a founding partner at Susa Ventures, a $125m seed stage fund that was an early investor in companies like Robinhood, Flexport and Viz.ai. He also runs Humba Ventures, a new micro-fund in the Susa family that's focused on emerging/frontier sectors like robotics, climate/energy, and defense. Prior to Susa, Leo spent a decade working as a software engineer. He was the second non-founding engineer at LinkedIn, then worked at Google for three years, and then spent four years at Factual before transitioning into venture capital. We are lucky to have Leo join us to answer your questions!All of these questions were submitted by listeners just like you. You can submit questions for us to answer on our website https://www.thestartuphelpdesk.com/ or on Twitter @thestartuphd - we'd love to hear from you!Reminder: this is not legal advice or investment advice.Q1: What do I do if I think my VP of Sales is looking for another job?Always be ready for the "hit by the bus test." Establish clear processes (such as using a CRM) and regularly check in to confirm that teams are documenting their work. If someone leaves their role, you want to be able to pick up where they left off with minimal damage.Second, you cannot have your startup's major customer relationships only tied to the VP of Sales. The CEO needs to have a relationship with these customers (for tons of reasons, not only to manage the relationship if the VP of Sales leaves).Lastly, look within. Are you doing something wrong? Have regular check-ins with team members to understand the pulse of your startup. Seek honest feedback from the team member to learn more about their needs and how they feel about their role and the company.Q2: How do we handle unusual requests from our biggest customers?Customer concentration is a common problem for startups and there's no easy answer. If you strike gold and this large customer asks for things you were already planning, great! Try to get some compensation out of it. Unfortunately, that rarely happens. You should be ready to say "no" to such a request. If their revenue is critical to your survival, then it can make sense to accommodate their request. Otherwise, it is too much of a distraction. Short term sacrifices to appease your large customer will limit your ability to learn about the needs of other customers, making you more vulnerable in the long term.Q3: How do we stay ahead of huge numbers of new competitors?Having tons of competition emerge is a badge of success! This can be a signal that there is a real opportunity. Let's talk strategy: Completely ignoring competitors is a mistake. Know what key industry players are doing and react appropriately. Often the right move is to ignore their actions, but not always.The big risk is that the sheer number of competitors drown out signal in your market.How do you stand out?- Land big customers.- Get press coverage to show you are a leader in the space.- Go big on outbound.- If you have a major product feature where you are winning, double down on it to extend your lead.- If your competition has depth but your customers need multiple features, consider differentiating by adding breadth to your product.

Leo Polovets is a cofounder and General Partner at Susa Ventures, a seed stage firm that has invested in iconic companies such as Robinhood and Flexport. Prior to Susa, he was the second engineering hire at Linkedin where he helped build the first versions of products like LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Groups. He then worked on payment fraud detection algorithms at Google, and was also an early engineer at Factual, where he built data cleaning, processing, and deduping software. And he has an engineering degree from Caltech.  In this episode, we cover a range of topics including: - How to derisk a startup - PMF risk, market risk, and funding risk - How should enterprise SaaS founders think about the first 10 customers (choice of customers, how to find them, how to convince them)  - How should VCs think about providing feedback on pitches (why is it important and how to do it well) - Pricing mechanics - How should seed stage companies think about moat - AI-infused software applications - What gets him excited about an investment opportunity - GTM motion of successful seed stage startups Leo's favorite books: - A Guide to the Good Life (Author: William Irvine) - Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth (Authors: Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares) --------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

You'll hear me say it in the intro, but wow. This was a heck of a discussion. John Andrew Entwistle is the Founder and CEO of a company called Wander. In a very short amount of time, Wander has exploded on the scene for vacation rentals. They're approach: verticalize the entire business. When I say the entire business—I mean everything! The tech, the management, property selection, the marketing, and oh the brand. Wander has masterfully build an incredible community around their brand of high-end, luxury smart homes that serve as vacation rentals. There's more to the business than I can write for this intro so hit play to hear what John Andrew has to say about Wander.More about John Andrew and WanderWander is vertically integrating the vacation rental space, creating a radically better experience for travelers. Wander is the only network of smart homes built for the future of work—there are currently 15 properties (more to launch in 2023) in stunning locations across the US. Everything from unlocking the door, turning on the lights, lighting the fireplace, and opening the Tesla in the garage (which each home is equipped with) can be controlled from the Wander mobile app. The company launched with a seed round led by Redpoint Ventures in 2021, and months later raised a Series A led by QED with participation from a16z, Fifthwall, Susa Ventures, Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman's Thirty Five Ventures, Packy McCormick, Sahil Bloom, and others.The co also recently launched their B2B product, Wander Teams, which allows employers to offer Wander credits/stays as a benefit. With Wander, working remotely becomes much easier: the workstations are comfortable, with adjustable desks and extra monitors; the WiFi is strong and reliable; and the kitchen and gyms are equipped so guests don't have to sacrifice their daily routines. Wander Teams is still in beta but will become a core part of the business as they ramp up.Wander recently secured a $100M credit line from Credit Suisse in November to turbocharge growth.John Andrew Entwistle is Founder and CEO of Wander. Previously John Andrew was Co-founder of Coder (exited) and a Thiel Fellow. Follow John Andrew on Twitter Follow Wander on Twitter Connect with John Andrew on LinkedIn Check out Wander

On the latest episode of 20 Minute Playbook, we interview Leo Polovets, who is a Founder & General Partner at Susa Ventures. We decode what he's mastered and learned along the way—from his biggest lessons learned as a venture investor to his favorite books, his superpowers, the advice he'd give his younger self, and more—all in 20 minutes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the latest episode of Outlier Investors, we decode how Susa Ventures is building the next great seed-stage venture capital firm. Learn about Susa's playbook for finding the best seed-stage companies, discovering their focus areas and industries, creating their investing algorithm, approaching due diligence, thinking about pro rata follow-on investments, and more. To date, Susa Ventures has raised more than $600M and has invested in companies including Stedi, Flexport, and Robinhood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SEATTLE—-Karat, the interviewing company, announced the acquisition of Triplebyte's technical assessment product and team. The acquisition adds a unique top-of-funnel, skills-based assessment to Karat's suite of Interviewing Cloud offerings, helping organizations identify and hire the best tech talent faster, more accurately, and fairly. https://hrtechfeed.com/karat-acquires-leading-adaptive-assessment-technology-from-triplebyte/ RiseKit, a US-based startup looking to change the way enterprises source diverse talent from community organizations, recently raised $4.75 million in funding to support DEI initiatives. https://hrtechfeed.com/risekit-raises-4-75m-for-recruiting-diverse-talent/ In a move to further provide its customers with efficient and robust hourly hiring processes, Fountain, the world's leading applicant tracking system (ATS) for high volume hiring, today announces the launch of Fountain AI to its suite of hiring solutions. https://hrtechfeed.com/fountain-launches-a-new-conversational-ai-feature/ HeadRace, a recruiting platform, announced today that it raised $6M in seed funding from Greylock, Susa Ventures, and Breyer Capital with Packy McCormick, Kindergarten Ventures, and Blue Lion Global participating in the round. The company also announced that its technology platform is now available to any recruiter or employer who wants to use it. https://hrtechfeed.com/headrace-lands-6m-to-democratize-the-recruiting-industry/ Barley, a compensation management platform that makes it easy for companies to structure, analyze and manage pay, launched last week with $4 million in seed funding led by Golden Ventures. https://hrtechfeed.com/barley-launches-with-4m-in-seed-funding-to-make-compensation-more-structured-transparent-and-fair/

Tune in for an intellectually rigorous conversation about investing, value, and the world's hardest problems. Timestamps: 2:30 - Would Nostradamus make a good VC? 6:00 - How'd you go from engineer to VC? 22:30 - What are the hardest problems we need to solve? 25:00 - How do you actually measure value and impact? 37:30 - The benefits of moving to Miami 50:00 - Innovating in legacy industries Leo's favorite Tweet: https://twitter.com/lpolovets/status/1188979329935409152 Follow Leo and check out Susa Ventures https://twitter.com/lpolovets https://susaventures.com/

We invited Rachel Coffman, Operations Manager within Susa Ventures, to the program to be the spokesperson of Venture Capital. If you're a loyal listener of REACH (and we hope you are!) you know we've featured several Executive Assistants who support the movers and shakers of the tech world, so we wanted to give the Venture Capital industry some love. In this episode, we address questions like 1.) How can you take ownership of your role and drive your destiny as an Executive Assistant in Venture Capital? 2.) What hidden opportunities are there specifically within VC for Executive Assistants to bring more leverage and value to the executive(s) they support? This is an incredibly informative episode for Executive Assistants and administrative professionals considering a career in Venture Capital. 

Michael talks with former pro poker player, spelling bee champion and investor Pratyush Buddiga. Pratyush tells the story of how he torched his net worth by 90% (2x), how He chased after money, status, and glory, and how he finally found freedom + redemption in Jesus. Pratyush is on the investing team at Susa Ventures, where his current primary interests are crypto and education. Prior to investing at Susa, he spent six years playing high stakes poker and was ranked #2 in the world for tournaments. After poker, he worked on a crypto gaming project at Three Arrows Capital and as the Chief of Staff to the CEO at Volley, a voice-controlled entertainment startup. He writes about investing at www.pratyushbuddiga.substack.com. "On Cards, Crypto, and Christ" - https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ (https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ) Follow Pratyush on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga (https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga)

Michael talks with former pro poker player, spelling bee champion and investor Pratyush Buddiga. Pratyush tells the story of how he torched his net worth by 90% (2x), how He chased after money, status, and glory, and how he finally found freedom + redemption in Jesus. Pratyush is on the investing team at Susa Ventures, where his current primary interests are crypto and education. Prior to investing at Susa, he spent six years playing high stakes poker and was ranked #2 in the world for tournaments. After poker, he worked on a crypto gaming project at Three Arrows Capital and as the Chief of Staff to the CEO at Volley, a voice-controlled entertainment startup. He writes about investing at www.pratyushbuddiga.substack.com. "On Cards, Crypto, and Christ" - https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ (https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ) Follow Pratyush on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga (https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga)

Michael talks with former pro poker player, spelling bee champion and investor Pratyush Buddiga. Pratyush tells the story of how he torched his net worth by 90% (2x), how He chased after money, status, and glory, and how he finally found freedom + redemption in Jesus. Pratyush is on the investing team at Susa Ventures, where his current primary interests are crypto and education. Prior to investing at Susa, he spent six years playing high stakes poker and was ranked #2 in the world for tournaments. After poker, he worked on a crypto gaming project at Three Arrows Capital and as the Chief of Staff to the CEO at Volley, a voice-controlled entertainment startup. He writes about investing at www.pratyushbuddiga.substack.com. "On Cards, Crypto, and Christ" - https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ (https://pratyushbuddiga.substack.com/p/on-cards-crypto-and-christ) Follow Pratyush on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga (https://twitter.com/pratyushbuddiga)

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Networking for Nerds, published by Evie Cottrell on July 6, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Sharing because I think this post is so damn good and will likely be valuable for at least one person. Originally written by Ben Reinhardt. Check out his blog here; DM him on Twitter here. “Networking.” What a word. When I left grad school in 2015, networking was for slick-haired salesmen, former jocks, and social parasites in general. Real heroes built better mousetraps and the world beat a path to their doors. But then I looked at what real successes actually do - they lead a balancing act between connecting and building. Though Edison, Einstein, Musk (and anybody you may have heard of) have done real work, their projects would have been stillborn or failed if they didn't know the right people: partners, employees, backers, supporters. Always the slave to the scientific method, I proceeded with a “networking might be useful” as a hypothesis and did many experiments. Some were successful, some less so. In the process I developed a set of tactics that unleashed many opportunities - a stint as an EIR at Susa Ventures, speaking at conferences in Brazil and SXSW, and getting a company off the ground. (I like to think that) these were all built on a door of real value, but tactical network building provided the key. Here are just a few of the specific tactics I've developed. At the end of the day, all of them boil down to one thing - make it easy for the other person - to remember you, to help, and to meet. Tactic 1: The Projection Model How do some people seem to wind up with advocates everywhere? They create a little mental model of themselves that makes it easy for everybody they meet. Everybody has a “projection” - a small representation - of each person they know living in their heads. You know that friend who's “the badass interface designer who is looking to get into machine learning and consults?” She has an amazing projection and makes it easy for opportunities to find her. A projection can be distinct - “Ben is looking for X, Y, Z and can help with A, B, C.” Or it can be fuzzy - “Ben's that guy with curly hair I think who I met at that meetup and we talked about a bunch of interesting stuff.” If it's distinct, whenever X comes up in conversation, you will instantly come to mind, and you'll start getting messages like “we were having a discussion about X and would love to bring you on as an advisor.” In my experience, there's a direct correlation between how well I create a distinct projection and people's ability to help. When I was “the AR/VR guy who's interested in giving talks” it led to a new friend introing me to an organization in Brazil that was doing a course on future tech, cascading to lecturing in Sao Paulo, making new friends, and opening up several collaborations. The trick is that projections are small and can only hold a few pieces of information (rule of thumb - about three.) In order to maximize the effectiveness of your projections, figure out which things you want to be associated with in people's heads and be excited about them. Nothing is more memorable than distinct excitement. Similarly, try to figure out the things that drive the whomever you're talking to and incorporate them into your mental representation of that person. The best way to encourage people to keep you in mind is to keep them in mind. (NOTE: Many people take this to the extreme and straight up ask the question: “how can I help?” This is exactly the sentiment you should have, but it makes your counterpart feel like you weren't actually listening ) Tell a Story How do you build a strong projection? A strong story. Stories stick in people's heads better than anything else. Make sure you have a good one. All you need is a short narrative with at least one compelling character (yo...

Ramped, a platform for job skilling and recruitment, has closed a $3.1 million seed round of financing…They'll use the money to focus on sales and marketing, and an expansion of the product's capabilities. https://hrtechfeed.com/career-discovery-platform-lands-3m-in-seed-funding/  WorkRamp, the All-in-One Learning Platform helping businesses and their employees unlock their true growth potential – has raised a $40 million Series C funding round co-led by Salesforce Ventures, Slack Fund and Susa Ventures.  https://hrtechfeed.com/workramp-raises-40-million/  Wedge, the recruiting platform turning video screening into a competitive advantage, today announced the raise of $2 million in funding, which includes participation from Michigan Capital Network, Michigan Rise and Northgate Holdings amongst others.  https://hrtechfeed.com/video-screening-platform-wedge-secures-additional-2m-in-funding/ HR TECH JOB ALERT Lensa.com one of the biggest recruitment and career platforms on the United States market, with 18 million registered users is looking for a partnerships/affiliate manager. Our global headquarters located near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Tech and Business Ops Hub in Europe. Click the link in the show notes to learn more and apply. https://hrtechfeed.com/lensa-is-looking-to-hire-a-new-partnerships-affiliate-manager/

Eva is a General Partner at Fika Ventures, an early stage fund investing in companies that leverage the power of data as a core component of their business model. Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, with a company experience portfolio including Applied Semantics (AdSense), Factual, Google, Youtube and Navigating Cancer. She is active in the non-profit sector, serving on the boards of California Community Foundation and UCLA Technology Development Group. She was recently the EIR for the city of LA working with Mayor Eric Garcetti. Eva holds an MBA from Cornell and a BA from Harvard. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evaho1/ Twitter: eva_ho Website: fika.vc --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geeksofthevalley/support

Susa Summer Fellows Application: https://airtable.com/shr66JTPi2nEiJhI1 Timestamps: 1:30 - What Susa Ventures does 3:15 - Natalie's Path to VC 18:30 - The Susa Summer Fellowship 26:00 - Lessons from working at startups 31:35 - Why selling dirt was the best job ever Natalie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nataliearora/

FarmRaise: www.FarmRaise.com  Building a startup in ag? Email me: tim@aggrad.com  Support this show and join the FoA community: www.Patreon.com/agriculture    A point we try to drive home as often as possible here is that innovation on its own doesn't really get anywhere until it can be implemented. For agriculture, that often means that the ideas we talk about here on this show need to actually work for farmers. So for the future of agriculture to be more data-driven or more technological or more regenerative, the tools and practices will have to be executable. And for farmers to find this out, they will need to experiment with them. Which is very risky. Luckily there are programs to help absorb some of that risk. A lot of them involve free money in the way of grants, or very cheap loans. But to access these programs requires an often tedious process of seeing if you are eligible then applying then waiting to hear back then keeping up with the ongoing reporting.  Lowering these barriers is exactly where FarmRaise comes in. Jayce Hafner is the co-founder and CEO of FarmRaise. What's interesting about this episode is not only the impact they are having for farmers, nearly 10,000 so far and $9M in funding applications, but also where they hope to take the company. Today, they offer a freemium model where a farmer can check their eligibility on 15 programs for free or pay $25/month to check eligibility on hundreds of programs, apply to them in less than 15 minutes, and get ongoing support.  Jayce sees this as just the beginning. This valuable service can grow into many more financial services including lending, ecosystem services, and even tax support. In the interview I compare it to H&R Block for farmers, but she quickly corrects me that it's more like TurboTax. Which is fair. FarmRaise just announced they closed a $7.2M seed round led by Susa Ventures as well as angel investments from some notable names including former podcast guest Zach Johnson (The Millennial Farmer). They also have some really interesting distribution partnerships with Corteva and Cargill with others scheduled to be announced this year. We talk about that as well. There's so much here to dive into and I think you'll find this full interview to be well worth your time.   Jayce grew up on a livestock farm in Virginia, where she saw first hand how these financial incentives can improve a farming operation. Before FarmRaise, she invested in agriculture with SLM Partners, completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Trinidad and Tobago, and worked on environmental sustainability at Apple. Jayce has led policy coalitions at several United Nations COP climate negotiations and founded a record-breaking conservation coalition that mobilized 100,000 citizens to advocate for the Arctic Refuge. She has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, an MS in Agriculture from the Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. 

How'd you like to build a company with a 90% offer acceptance rate? With near-perfect employee retention? And with 50% of employees comprised of under-represented minorities? Sean Byrnes has done it (and the company doesn't interview candidates… at all) Based in San Francisco, he's Founder & CEO of Outlier, the VC-funded business intelligence company. His customers are large consumer-facing companies with an  immense amount of data. Outlier watches all of your business data & lets you know when unexpected things are happening, anywhere in the myriad metrics and dimensions of your data.  Outlier plugs into your business data where it lives (e.g. Google Analytics, Adobe Cloud, Salesforce, Stripe, SQL databases) and understands your business cycles, trends and patterns. Clearly, he's onto something. Outlier's investors include: SV Angel, Capital One Growth Ventures, Emergence, First Round Capital, Susa Ventures, Ridge Ventures, In-Q-Tel, and Homebrew Prior, he served as Founder/CEO of Flurry, the mobile analytics company, which was acquired by Yahoo. In this 20-minute conversation, Sean reveals how he puts a Rockstar in every seat (and how he keeps them)

In this episode, we are joined by Pratyush Buddiga, and Dr. David Jarvis to talk about how Pratyush came to Christianity, how to win in highly competitive environments, and how to make America better. Pratyush is an investor at Susa Ventures. 

Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Eva Ho (@eva_ho), General Partner at Fika Ventures, an LA-based boutique seed fund that invests in founders solving meaningful, systemic problems through the use of data, related AI-enabled technologies, and automation.Prior to Fika, Eva was a founding GP at Susa Ventures. She is a serial entrepreneur and founder, most recently a founding executive at Factual, a leading location data provider in Los Angeles. Previously, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Prior to Google, she was the head of marketing for Applied Semantics, a company that sold to Google in 2003. She also co-founded Navigating Cancer, a health startup, in 2008 which is now based in Seattle. She is active in the non-profit sector, serving on the boards of California Community Foundation and First Descents. She is also a founding member of All Raise. She recently served as the Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the city of Los Angeles working with Mayor Eric Garcetti and his team.In her spare time, you can find her wandering remote geo coordinates, with a special affinity for cold, inhospitable places. Almost always, she is accompanied by her trusty camera and a backpack too large for her frame. Eva holds an MBA from Cornell and a BA from Harvard.Website: Fika VenturesLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/evaho1Twitter: @eva_hoEva's Email: eva@fika.vc   Show Notes: Eva's original vision for launching Fika Ventures with her partner TX Zhuo Eva's time with Susa Ventures Eva's personal background and the journey that has brought her to where she is today How she began angel investing in 2013 and her path to VC The importance of representation and diversity in VC Eva's advice for improving and growing as an investor The mindset shift from operator to investor Finka Ventures' portfolio construction and the progression through their three funds Balancing discipline around a clearly focused thesis with knowing when to make exceptions and take risks Adapting to the quickly changing world of modern investing Eva's thoughts on the Future of Work and embracing discomfort Eva's experience with Screendoor More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Andrew Wynn, Co-Founder Ascend, the first modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend is funded by heavyweight investors FirstRound, FirstMark, Susa Ventures, South Park Commons and Box Group. Andrew and co-founder Praveen Chekuri previously built Sheltr. The company became the first acquisition made by insurtech unicorn Hippo because of its intuitive and technological approach to building an insurance product that went beyond the customer interaction. Prior to Sheltr, both Andrew and Praveen were employees at Instacart, leading the company's product and data integration team. Prior to that the two founders were at Instacart. Andrew and Praveen see insurance payments as a specific-enough problem yet general enough that it applies to a wide group, so they went about to solve it for everyone in the industry. Their product brings premiums management, commissions, reconciliations, online payment and premium finance a streamlined, all-in-one experience. Of high interest is how Ascend's teams are formed as being end-to-end across the whole customer journey for one vertical segment, whether insurtechs, producers, agents or carriers. As an outsider to the industry, Andrew sees more insurtechs coming from people in insurance in the future. He seeks experts from this "highly networked industry" to provide input, advice and counsel to help balance out the traditional venture focus on speed. Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers. More About Ascend Ascend is the modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend was built on the premise that, as the insurance industry moves from offline to online, insurance distributors will need to provide a modern seamless customer experience with a payment infrastructure in order to keep pace with the increasing demand for high-quality customer experiences. Founded by two-time insurtech entrepreneurs Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri, Ascend helps distributors sell more by eliminating labor-intensive, expensive processes while providing customers with the great online checkout and financing experience they've come to expect. To learn more, please visit LinkedIn, Twitter or check out https://useascend.com/.   

Continuing his series on the human side of investing and company building, Outliers Venture Capital Founder & Managing Partner, Mohammed Almeshekah, sat down with Susa Ventures GP, Leo Polovets, to discuss the process for learning and being a great investor.

Hammad Aslam is an investor at Susa Ventures, where he focuses on Series B and Series C investments out of Susa's Opportunity Fund, and specializes in fintech, supply chain / logistics, enterprise software and emerging markets. Prior to joining Susa, Hammad helped lead technology and software investments at Vista Equity Partners. Hammad also brings extensive technology M&A and capital raising experience from his time at Morgan Stanley. He graduated with honors from Princeton University, with an AB in Near Eastern Studies and is based in San Francisco Bay Area.

In this episode of The Vitalize Podcast, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Leo Polovets (@lpolovets). Leo Polovets is a co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures. He invests across sectors but mostly focuses on b2b companies. A few specific sectors he's invested in heavily are enterprise software; developer tools and technical products; and logistics and supply chain. He led Susa's investments in dozens of companies, including Outlier, Pex, Scalyr, and Stedi.  Having been a software engineer for 10+ years, he approaches challenges with an engineering mindset and supports portfolio companies in vetting and hiring technical talent. Prior to Susa, he was the second engineering hire at Linkedin where he helped build the first versions of products like LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Groups. He then worked on payment fraud detection algorithms at Google and was also an early engineer at Factual, where he built data cleaning, processing, and deduping software.Leo's Blog: https://www.codingvc.com/ Leo's Twitter: https://twitter.com/lpolovetsTopics Discussed: The story around Susa Ventures' investment in Pex 3 big risks Pex had as a company and why Susa Ventures invested a couple of years after initially meeting them The importance of moats in startups and why they are a key to what Susa Ventures looks for in companies Moats that people don't talk much about including Robinhood's UX moat A "schlep moat" How to get access to deals as an investor Why being a focused investor can attract founders The importance of investing in underserved markets Sourcing, vetting, and winning when it comes to hiring technical talent How Susa Ventures built its reputation over time How Leo got started angel investing and invested in 70 companies What Leo looks for from angel investing How learning accelerates through angel investing Building a portfolio of angel investments Determining a check size for angel investing Why you should spread your investments out over a number of companies and years Thoughts on founders becoming angel investors What Leo is most excited about in VC More about the show:The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series. The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors. The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital. More about us:Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.The Vitalize Team:Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVCCaroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/

Abhijeet Patra (@abhijeetpatra88), former Deep Tech entrepreneur and venture fellow at Susa Ventures who is now leading Deep Tech at On Deck, joins Erik to discuss:- What exactly Deep Tech is and some of the examples of technologies involved, including nanotechnology, quantum computing, hardware, autonomous vehicles, space, manufacturing, machine learning, and more.- Why there's been an explosion in talk about Deep Tech over the last several years.- The fact that there's almost always a market for a technology, if you can get the technical side figured out.- Democratization of technologies and how the trajectory of sequencing DNA is representative of the typical path of Deep Tech — first a technology is expensive, then it goes down dramatically in cost, then it becomes easy to build on top of.- Why it's difficult to find enough talent in the field these days. He says that Deep Tech is still a niche.- How On Deck is aiming to 100X the number of people working in the space and how you can get involved.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

On today's episode, Kunle is joined by Domm Holland, Co-Founder of Fast, the world's fastest online login and checkout platform. Fast is a San Francisco based privately held company funded by Stripe, Addition, Index Ventures, Susa Ventures and Sugar Capital.More and more shoppers now prefer buying things online rather than in stores. But that being said, most of these shoppers would also tell you that the checkout process in stores is still way better. Why? Because you don't fill any form, you just tap your credit card or phone and off you go. Now we are even seeing innovations like Amazon Go, where you don't even need to tap.But online checkouts are still another story altogether. Most businesses try out new and optimised forms to simplify checkout, yet don't really see the results. There are many “1-click” checkout solutions out there. But they all require (a lot) more than 1 click to checkout. This is where companies like Fast are coming in and disrupting the checkout landscape.In this episode, Kunle and Domm talk about what it takes to create a truly 1-click checkout experience. You will get to hear about how Fast solves the checkout puzzle with an identity-first approach. This is a great episode for merchants and businesses of all sizes! -----------SPONSORS:This episode is brought to you by:Klaviyo This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper's first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.  RewindThis episode is brought to you by Rewind - the #1 Backup and Recovery App for Shopify and BigCommerce stores that powers over 80,000 online businesses.Direct-to-Consumer brands like Gymshark and MVMT Watches rely on Rewind.Cloud based ecommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce do not have automatic backup features. Rewind protects your store against human error, misbehaving apps, or collaborators gone bad with Automatic backups!For a free 30-day trial, Go to Rewind Backups, reach out to the Rewind team via chat or email and mention '2x ecommerce'ShipBob This episode is brought to you by ShipBob. ShipBob is an end-to-end global fulfilment provider trusted by thousands of DTC brands. With the recent launch of their first UK fulfilment centre, in London, merchants that work with ShipBob now have access to ecommerce markets in Europe as well as North America. ShipBob was ranked the #1 Fulfilment Tech Platform by AdWeek's Retail Award and enables affordable 2-day shipping. Get your products picked, packed, and shipped. Go to Shipbob.com/2x to get $500 in free shipping credits today.

Produced by Foundersuite (www.foundersuite.com), "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders and investors. This episode is with Michael Kim of Cendana Capital (https://www.cendanacapital.com/), a "fund of funds" that invests in very early stage venture capital funds. In this episode, Michael talks about why he started Cendana Capital and how he raised his fund, the types of emerging VCs he prefers to invest in (and what he's looking for when meeting a new VC), the evolution of seed investing, tips for raising an inaugural fund, the process for raising capital from a FoF, and much more. The VC funds that Cendana Capital has invested in include: US Seed: 11.2 Capital, Accelerator Ventures, Angular Ventures, Bowery Capital, Collaborative Fund, Forerunner Ventures, Founder Collective, Freestyle Capital, IA Ventures, L2 Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, MHS Capital, Montage Ventures, Moxxie Ventures, Neo, NextView Ventures, Silicon Valley Data Capital, Spider Capital, Susa Ventures, Uncork VC (fka SoftTech VC), Wave Capital and XYZ Ventures US Pre-Seed: Better Tomorrow Ventures, Bolt VC, Engineering Capital, K9 Ventures, Mucker Capital, Notation Capital, PivotNorth Capital, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Root Ventures and Wonder Ventures International Seed: 01VC, Blackbird Ventures (AUS and NZ), Cherubic Ventures, ChinaRock Capital Management, Entree Capital, Golden Ventures, Leo Capital, Moonfire, Saama Capital and System.One How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $3 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at https:/www.foundersuite.com/

Ryan Zauk brings you one of the most impactful, information-dense, and fun episodes to date with Chad Beyers, Partner & Co-Founder of Susa Ventures. Susa is a sector-agnostic early-stage VC investing in areas like Enterprise Software, Fintech, Logistics, Healthcare, Consumer & Frontier Tech. Notable investments include Robinhood, Fast, Flexport, PolicyGenius, Okra, LendUp, Nova Credit, Railz, Treasury Prime, and Expanse. Chad was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 for VC in 2015. Prior to Susa Ventures, Chad was the senior director of platform at Integrate.com and held various marketing and product roles at Silver Spring Networks, Bloom Energy, and Electronic Arts. They discuss: - His unusual path to venture and the critical tools he used to become an incredible cold-emailer, meeting a16z's Chris Dixon and BoxGroup's David Tisch - The wild story of turning a Jon Stewart taping into an internet phenomenon! - Susa Ventures and the exciting, Wharton Fintech exclusive release of their upcoming opportunities fund - Critical advice for starting your first fund (or angel investments) - His seed Robinhood investment, including the moment the lightbulb went off - Fintech trends he's most excited ]for - And much more! Mentioned in the Episode: Jon Stewart Tweet Thread: https://twitter.com/chadbyers/status/1273726486973804545?lang=en Robinhood COO: https://bit.ly/3AGEHdi Atom Finance CEO on PFOF: https://bit.ly/3hK0EzI For more Fintech insights, follow us below: Medium: medium.com/wharton-fintech WFT Twitter: twitter.com/whartonfintech Ryan's Twitter: twitter.com/RyanZauk LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/wharton-fintech-club/

Founder's FAQ: answers to all the possible questions of a founder. Hosted by Ilker Koksal. This episode's guest is Leo Polovets, co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with having portfolio companies such as Robinhood, Andela, Flexport, and Stedi.Before Susa, Leo was the second engineering hire at Linkedin, where he helped build the first versions of products like Linkedin Jobs and Linkedin Groups. He then worked on payment fraud detection algorithms at Google and was also an early engineer at FactualIn this episode;1-) Defining the track record 2-) How to help to scale after the investment3-) Determining the valuation4-) Pivots in later stagesFounder's FAQ is a book for founders and you can pre-order through the website. You can also reach us through @foundersfaq on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube.

Early this morning, Fast, a startup building platform-agnostic login and checkout services, announced that Stripe has led a $20 million investment into its business. Prior investors Index Ventures and Susa Ventures took part in the round. Susa previously participated in the company's late-2019 round that Index led. Coming in late March, the new capital is […]

Jennifer Fitzgerald is the co-founder and CEO of Policygenius which has developed an easier way to compare and buy insurance. Policygenius has raised to date over $50 million from top investors like Norwest Venture Partners, Revolution, Susa Ventures, AXA Venture Partners, Otter Rock Capital, and Karlin Ventures to name a few. 

Traditionally, companies have gathered data from a variety of sources, then used spreadsheets and dashboards to try and make sense of it all. Outlier wants to change that and deliver a handful of insights that matter most for your job, company and industry right to your inbox. Today the company announced a $6.2 million Series A to further develop that vision. The round was led by Ridge Ventures with assistance from 11.2 Capital, First Round Capital, Homebrew, Susa Ventures and SV Angel.

Eva Ho is a serial entrepreneur and founder, most recently a founding executive at Factual, a leading location data provider in Los Angeles. Prior, she was a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google and Youtube for 5 years. Series: "Innovator Stories: Creating Something from Nothing" [Business] [Show ID: 30928]