20VC: Lessons from Investing $2BN and Returning $8BN in Cash | Why Most Venture Partnerships are Broken | We Sold Salesforce Early and Lost Out on Billions | Are The Best Deals Always Expensive and Competitive with Jake Saper @ Emergence Capital
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 693 Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jake Saper is a General Partner @ Emergence Capital, one of the leading venture firms of the last 20 years. Their many wins include being early investors in Salesforce, Zoom, Veeva and more. In total, the firm has invested $2BN and returned an astonishing $8BN in cash with much more to come.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:45 The Zoom Investment Story
10:21 Founder, Market, Traction: Rank Them
26:37 Why Market Pull is the Most Important Thing and How to Know
27:23 Are the Best Deals Always Expensive?
28:25 What is the One Framework Emergence Use for Every Investment
29:08 Lessons from the 16x DPI Zoom Fund
30:44 Why Does Every Partner Do Reference Calls on Every Deal?
35:16 We Have Lied to SaaS Founders: The Revenue Rules Changed
37:53 Where Will Value Accrue in a World of AI?
41:37 Three Reasons Why AI Will Not Replace Vertical SaaS
46:38 Who Wins in AI: Startups or Incumbents?
50:09 Why Should Every Company Aim to Be a "Board Discussion"
55:12 Why is Jake Worried About AI's FTX Moment?
56:00 What Losing Billions on Salesforce Taught Us About Selling
01:00:07 Why Most VC Partnerships are Broken
01:03:07 Grok vs Anthropic vs OpenAI: Buy and Sell?
01:14:25 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We have deployed a little less than $2 billion in capital. |
| 0:03.2 | We've returned in cash a little over $8 billion. |
| 0:06.9 | That fund, I believe, was Fund 3, which is the same fund that has Zoom. |
| 0:11.8 | I think it's a 16 times DPI. |
| 0:13.7 | We did this analysis on how have our deals fared certain graduation metrics relative to market. |
| 0:20.2 | Nine out of 10 of our deals have gone on to |
| 0:22.5 | raise successful following rounds. One out of five have gone on to raise rounds at north of a |
| 0:27.7 | billion dollars. One out of ten of our early stage investments have gone public. This is 20 VC with me, |
| 0:33.4 | Harry Stebbings, and I thought it is time for a VC VC VC show. It has been way too long. So joining |
| 0:39.4 | me in the hot seat today is Jake Saper, general partner at Emergence Capital, one of the leading |
| 0:44.2 | venture firms of the last 20 years. There many wins include being early investors in Salesforce, |
| 0:50.2 | Zoom, Viva and many more. This was a real insider baseball VC conversation and I really can't wait to hear your thoughts. |
| 0:58.0 | But before we dive in today, turning your back of a napkin idea into a billion dollar startup |
| 1:04.0 | requires countless hours of collaboration and teamwork. |
| 1:07.0 | It can be really difficult to build a team that's aligned on everything from |
| 1:11.2 | values to workflow, but that's exactly what Coda was made to do. Coda is an all-in-one collaborative |
| 1:16.6 | workspace that started as a napkin sketch. Now, just five years since launching in beta, |
| 1:22.5 | Coda has helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page. |
| 1:27.5 | Now at 20 VC, we've used Coder to bring structure to our content planning and episode prep, |
| 1:33.0 | and it's made a huge difference. |
| 1:34.4 | Instead of bouncing between different tools, we can keep everything from guest research to |
| 1:39.0 | scheduling and notes all in one place, which saves us so much time. |
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