How the Pandemic is Shifting LP Strategies

In this episode, Beezer Clarkson shares how the pandemic is affecting Sapphire Partners’ investment strategy. I also share what I’ve been seeing from investing in startups and venture capital fund...

Adding Value in Today’s Venture Capital Market with Peterson Ventures’ Ben Capell

The proliferation of venture capital funds, accelerators, and other startup resources has left many VCs wondering how to deliver unique value to their portfolio companies and how to scale that value t...

Diversity in Venture Capital: Taking Action to Actually Change the Ratio

Kim Smith, executive director of the League of Innovative Schools, has worked for many years to address education equity and has a unique perspective on the barriers to entrepreneurship. In this inte...

Feeling Stretched by COVID-19? Outsourcing and Delegating with Foundry Group’s Seth Levine

Seth Levine has been a MergeLane investor and advisor since the very beginning. I invited Seth to join the show because we’ve had some nice conversations about the challenge we each have in managing...

Choosing a Venture Capital Fund Administrator

With MergeLane’s new fund and the growth of our portfolio, we’re improving our fund administration processes and considering a few different solutions. Through this process, I’ve realized that I...

The LP Perspective and the #OpenLP Reboot with Beezer Clarkson

Beezer Clarkson invests in early-stage venture funds primarily in the US, Europe and Israel as the managing director at Sapphire Partners (the division within Sapphire Ventures that invests in ventur...

If Your VC Fund Makes You a Pirate, Should You Abandon Ship?

As an entrepreneur and startup investor, I have had many moments of feeling like I am pushing water uphill with a rake. Sometimes, I have kept pushing and have succeeded out of sheer grit. Sometimes, ...

Assessing Hustle with the Hustle Fund

Elizabeth Yin, co-founder and general partner at the Hustle Fund, shared her thoughts on how to assess a startup’s ability to “hustle”. Her thoughts are applicable to venture capitalists, start...

Episode #7: Venture Capital Liquidity: Innovative Solutions for Today and the Future

Venture capital funds are typically structured to have a 10-year lifespan, but venture-backed companies often take more than 10 years to achieve an exit and return capital to their investors. So what...

Episode #10: Lessons from 300+ Venture Capital Fund Pitches

For the final episode of the first season of the Fund81 podcast, I interviewed Jaclyn Freeman Hester from Foundry Group. As someone relatively new to the industry, she has a fresh perspective o...

Episode #13: Mental Health in Venture Capital with Brad Feld

In this Fund81 podcast episode, I invited Brad Feld, founding partner of Foundry Group, to share his thoughts on maintaining mental health in the fast-paced venture capital world and supporting por...