20 VC: Investing in Hardware and The Future of IOT with Kate Shillo, Director @ Galvanize Ventures

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2016

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kate Shillo is Director @ Galvanize Ventures, a prolific seed fund which acts as the the investment arm of Galvanize -- a collection of "tech campuses" that offer coworking space and educational programs in order to encourage continuous learning and helping others to grow. within Galvanize, the organization focused on continuous learning and helping others to grow. To date Galvanize ventures have made an astonishing 48 investments in 2 years. Prior to Galvanize, Kate helped Ken Lerer launch Lerer Ventures, now called Lerer Hippeau Ventures due to the addition of Eric Hippeau who was only the show only recently, there Kate lead the investments in the likes of Venmo and Paperless Post.

A special thank you to Mattermark for providing all the data displayed in today's show and you can find out more about Mattermark here!

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Kate made her way into the world of startups and investing?

2.) What were the biggest takeaways from Kate's time at Lerer Hippeau Ventures and working with the amazing Ken Lerer?

3.) What was it about Galvanize that made Kate leave LHV and Kate provides a brief synopsis on Galvanize Ventures? Sectors? Stage? Geography?

4.) With 42 investments since Feb 2014. What is the strategy at Galvanize? Galvanize's sector weighting is largest in mobile, how does Kate view the space and how would Kate respond to the likes of Fred Wilson stating consumer mobile is very difficult with difficult customer acquisition and then even harder, customer retention?

5.) How has the process been for Kate in establishing the fund? What are Kate and Galvanize's key differentiators to the sea of other NYC seed funds? How does Kate approach deal sourcing at Galvanize? If investing outside the Galvanize community, what channels are the preferred channels?

6.) Why is Kate so excited about hardware? Where does Kate see the future of IOT going? Is crowdfunding an option for hardware startups?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Kate's Fave Book: The God of Small Things

Kate's Fave Mobile Apps: Slack, Sunrise Calendar, Moments, TwoDots, Panna, Wildcard

Kate's Fave Blog or Newsletter: AVC, Ben Evans

Kate's Most Recent Investment: Msg.ai

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Kate on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the 20-minute VC. I am your host, Harry Stebbings, and today's episode we feature an
0:05.8	individual I have spotlighted as a rising star of the VC industry, an immense talent and one to watch.
0:12.5	Therefore, I'm thrilled to introduce Kate Schillow, director at Galvanize Ventures, a prolific seed fund which acts as the
0:19.4	investment arm of Galvanise, a collection of tech
0:22.2	campuses that offer co-working space and educational programs in order to encourage continuous
0:28.1	learning and help others to grow. To date, Galvanise ventures have made an astonishing 48
0:33.4	investments in two years, and prior to Galvanise, Kate helped Ken Leera launch Leera Ventures,
0:39.8	now Leera Hippo Ventures, due to the addition of Eric Hippo, who was only on the show recently.
0:44.9	So check that out if you hadn't had a chance to listen to that one yet. And there, Kate led the
0:49.4	investments in the likes of Venmo and paperless post. But before we dive into the show today with Kate,
0:55.3	I'd like to give a big shout out to Mattermark
0:57.4	for providing all the data and analysis for today's episode.
1:01.1	And if you still have not confirmed a New Year's resolution,
1:04.1	join me and mine and read Mattermark daily every day,
1:07.1	cover to cover, thanks to the legend that is at Thinker
1:09.9	for putting that together.
1:11.5	However, it is now time to dive into the show, so ladies and gents, may I welcome the one to watch
1:16.7	Kate Schillow, director at Galvanize Ventures.
1:25.7	You have now arrived at your destination.
1:28.9	Well, Kate, I'm hugely excited to have you on the 20-minute VC.
1:31.8	Thank you so much for joining me today.
1:33.7	Thanks for having me.
	...

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