20VC: Inside The Mind of A Leading LP: How LPs Evaluate New Fund Managers on Everything from First Meeting to Portfolio Construction To Fees and Carry with Lisa Edgar, Managing Director @ Top Tier Capital Partners
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lisa Edgar is a Managing Director @ Top Tier Capital Partners, one of the leading venture fund of funds over the last decade. Included in their stellar fund portfolio is the likes of Index, Initialized, True Ventures, a16z and Boldstart, to name a few. Prior to Top Tier, Lisa was part of the asset management team at WR Hambrecht + Co focusing on new and emerging private equity funds. Before that, Lisa spent ten years at Horsley Bridge.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Lisa make her way into the world of investing in funds and how did that lead to her becoming Managing Director at one of the leaders, Top Tier?
2.) Lisa has seen the boom and bust of the macroeconomy twice now, how has that impacted her mindset today when investing in funds? What have been the most prominent changes in the venture ecosystem that Lisa has seen over the last 20 years? What changes have been good? What changes have been bad?
3.) What is the best way to get in the room with LPs? Does it have to be through warm intro? What are the signs for the GP that that first meeting went well? If an LP does not respond to emails, does that mean they don't want to do it? How does Lisa and Top Tier structure the investment decision-making process? How does that differ when re-investing in existing managers? Is it worth it for first-time funds to pitch institutions for fund 1 when they know they will not invest in the fund?
4.) How does Lisa think about GP commits today? How does Lisa look at what is reasonable and what is required? Is it individual and context-based? How does Lisa feel about different carry structures? Are kickers when past a certain return profile amenable to LPs?
5.) Lisa has seen some of the best emerging managers in the US over the last decade, what learnings does she have from them in terms of what separates the good from the great? How do they think about partnership dynamics? How do they think about firm culture? How do they think about generational transition?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Lisa’s Fave Book: From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Lisa’s Most Recent Investment: Boldstart Ventures
As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And before we dive into the show |
| 0:03.7 | stay, I'm in San Francisco this week. So if you're in town and want to meet, it would be great to meet |
| 0:07.8 | in person. I'm on Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with two Bs. So do ping me there. I'm not a sponsor here, |
| 0:13.4 | but I do also want to say she's thank you to Zeus living for always making my stay away from home, feel just like home. Really I do appreciate it, cool, you are an absolute hero, my |
| 0:21.1 | friend. But to our episode today, and a special one for a couple of reasons. First, this show was |
| 0:25.6 | recorded live from an awesome event called allocate.gp in London. If you head over to allocate.gp, |
| 0:30.8 | you can register interest for next year, I believe. And the other way, it is special is because |
| 0:34.8 | this episode is with an LP, the people who fund the funds themselves, and an immensely special LP in that. |
| 0:40.3 | And so I'm very excited to welcome Lisa Edgar, managing director at Top Tier Capital Partners, one of the leading venture fund of funds over the last decade. |
| 0:47.3 | Included in their stellar fund portfolio is the likes of index, initialized, true ventures, Andresen, and some of my favourites in Ed and Elliot at |
| 0:54.9 | Boldstadt, just to name a few. Prior to top tier, Lisa was part of the asset management team at |
| 0:59.1 | W.R. Hamburgton Co. focusing on new and emerging private equity funds. And before that, Lisa spent |
| 1:04.0 | 10 years at Horsley Bridge. But before we dive into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, this is a product I love, Carter. |
| 1:16.1 | Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get valuations. |
| 1:22.8 | Go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off, and more than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars of equity, and Carter now offers |
| 1:27.3 | fund admin, |
| 1:28.3 | so you can see real-time data in the Carter platform and work with Carter's team of experienced fund |
| 1:33.1 | accountants also in the background. Go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off. And speaking |
| 1:39.1 | of companies that have taken our ecosystem by storm, I have to talk about Brex, the company which |
| 1:43.5 | built the corporate |
| 1:44.2 | card for startups, and who is the fastest company to reach unicorn status in history, |
| 1:48.9 | Brex founders, Henry K. N Pedro, built a payments business in Brazil, but kept getting |
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