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A Venture Roast: Making Venture Capital Great Again

A Venture Roast: Making Venture Capital Great Again

By Nathaniel J Krasnoff

Lovingly poking holes in startups, Vc, and Silicon Valley.

Venture Capital and Silicon Valley is broken. There are amazing people coming up trying to upend that model, and we're out here putting pen to paper on their visions for the future in long-form 1:1 interviews.

If your preferred listening channel is outside of Anchor, and you'd like the reference links covered in the summaries of the podcasts, please go to anchor.fm/ventureroast
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Currently playing episode

Ep. 12 The role of platform in VC with Natalie Sportelli (Lerer Hippeau & Forbes)

A Venture Roast: Making Venture Capital Great AgainDec 23, 2020

00:00
40:28
Ep. 12 The role of platform in VC with Natalie Sportelli (Lerer Hippeau & Forbes)
Dec 23, 202040:28
Ep. 11 The Morality Of Venture and How to Pick Winners with Jeremy Kaufmann (Principal at Scale Venture Partners)
Nov 24, 202048:53
Ep 10. "Reputation is the skin in the game" with Alex Fayette of ACME Capital
Nov 17, 202052:18
Venture Roast Episode 9: Britt Danneman (Investor at Alpha Edison)

Venture Roast Episode 9: Britt Danneman (Investor at Alpha Edison)

Links from Podcast: 

Emily Kramer Report

Good Technology Company NYT Article


Britt's Bio:

An investor by background, Britt has worked with companies across asset classes to scale. Before joining Alpha Edison, she was an investor at Bain Capital Credit focusing on middle market and distressed companies. More recently, she led deal processing and management for #Angels, the seed-stage principal investing group founded by early employees of Twitter. With a passion for financial inclusion, she also worked in corporate development at the fintech startup Funding Circle.

Britt is a graduate with honors from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and with concentrations in Finance and Management. While at Penn, she was a Captain of the Women's Volleyball Team. She also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School where she launched the women's entrepreneurship initiative called Series W and cares deeply about diversity across tech.


Oct 31, 202049:49
Episode 8: Nitin Pachisia (Founding Partner of Unshackled Ventures)

Episode 8: Nitin Pachisia (Founding Partner of Unshackled Ventures)

Open access to pitch Unshackled

How to Start a Company on a Visa Program

Nitin is a founding partner of Unshackled Ventures, an early-stage fund he conceived to help immigrant founders in the U.S. succeed faster. His experiences working as a strategy consultant, leading strategy and finance at a startup, and as a founder on a visa culminated in designing an innovative venture model at Unshackled. He has invested in about 50 startups at Unshackled across a variety of industries, which has been a perfect avenue to apply his passion and skills including business strategy, business development, solving problems that are considered unsolvable, and doing good while doing well.

Being an immigrant himself and having founded startups while on a visa in the U.S., Nitin understands the venture resources immigrant founders need, besides capital. He is focused on making sure that immigrant founders are not slowed down by immigration in their pursuit of building companies and creating jobs in America.

Unshackled is actively Investing

Nitin's Twitter: @immigreating

Unshackled's Twitter: @UnshackledVC



Sep 01, 202047:04
Venture Roast Episode 7: Winter Mead (Cofounder of Oper8r, former LP Sapphire and Hall Capital)

Venture Roast Episode 7: Winter Mead (Cofounder of Oper8r, former LP Sapphire and Hall Capital)

First LP Episode!

Winter Mead - Winter invested ~$1 billion into >90 funds and companies as an employee of Sapphire Venture Partners and Hall Capital Partners. He was a committee member of the ILPA and NVCA; and is currently an assistant lecturer for Stanford GSB’s VC course. He holds an MS from Oxford, BA from Harvard, and CAIA designation. Winter also runs a maple syrup business.

Winter's Maple Syrup Company: Mead&Mead Maple Syrup

Link: http://meadandmeads.com/

Aug 18, 202041:08
Venture Roast Episode 6: Earnest Sweat (Cofounder of BLCK VC, Associate Partner at Great Point Ventures)

Venture Roast Episode 6: Earnest Sweat (Cofounder of BLCK VC, Associate Partner at Great Point Ventures)

Earnest Sweat is an Associate Partner at GreatPoint Ventures who focuses on verticals whose emerging technologies will have the most significant impact on global GDP, specializing in retail, supply chain, real estate, and manufacturing. Prior to joining GPV, Earnest was a founding team member at Prologis Ventures, the venture arm of the world’s largest industrial real estate owner. Earnest is also a founding Board Member of BLCK VC, a community built for and by black investors, and, shortly after college, founded an online marketplace to provide college advisory and professional development services, which was acquired four years later. Earnest is an alum of Columbia University and earned his MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.

Aug 04, 202039:14
Venture Roast Episode 5: Prashant Fonseka (Partner at Tuesday Capital)

Venture Roast Episode 5: Prashant Fonseka (Partner at Tuesday Capital)

Prashant is a former teacher, entrepreneur, and Partner at Tuesday Capital. Since joining in 2013, he has led or been involved with over 60 investments in consumer, enterprise, and frontier technology including Cruise Automation, Opendoor, Iron Ox, and nTopology. Prashant’s hobbies include music, motorsports, and aviation.

Jul 21, 202036:17
Venture Roast Episode 4: Alyson DeNardo (Partner Mac Venture Capital & M Ventures, Founder/CEO of Alden; Formerly Employee #1 at Atrium, Justin Kan's Chief of Staff)
Jun 29, 202048:05
Venture Roast Episode 3: Shawn Xu (Investor at Floodgate | Dorm Room Fund | 30u30 )

Venture Roast Episode 3: Shawn Xu (Investor at Floodgate | Dorm Room Fund | 30u30 )

Shawn is a great emerging mind in venture that I am lucky to call a friend. On the podcast he talks about the things trends he and the Floodgate team are excited about, some stories from the industry that are pretty shocking, as well as what we can do to give back and make venture and tech a better place people that are not named Michael (if you don't get it look up the JPM story).

Jun 16, 202046:15
Venture Roast Episode 2: Farooq Abbasi (GP and Founder of Preface Ventures)
Jun 08, 202050:32