20VC: Lessons from Investing in Uber and Airbnb, How To Think Through Bundling vs Unbundling, Late Stage Funds Moving Earlier, Early Stage Funds Moving Later& The Mechanics of Venture That Founders Should Know with Derek Zanutto, General Partner @ Capital
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 9 November 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Derek Zanutto is a General Partner @ CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund with investments in the likes of Stripe, UiPath, Looker, Robinhood and Lyft to name a few. At CapitalG, Derek has led investments in Collibra, Dataiku and Armis as well as sitting on numerous boards. Prior to CapitalG, Derek spent a decade investing in such companies as Uber, Airbnb, Lynda.com and CAA at investment firms TPG, Hellman & Friedman and GIC.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Derek made his way from the world of TPG and growth equity to being a GP with Alphabet's independent growth fund, CapitalG?
2.) Does Derek agree with Bill Gurley, "the biggest challenge is the over-supply of capital"? How does Derek see this changing with interest rate changes or lackof? How do interest rate changes impact later stage pricing? How does Derek assess his own relationship to price?
3.) How does Derek approach investments thinking through the bundling vs unbundling lens? What have been some core examples of this over the last decade? How does Derek assess market timing risk? What risks is he willing to take? How does he build a thesis ahead of meeting companies?
4.) What does Derek make of large later stage firms moving earlier and doing Seeds and Series A's? What do entrepreneurs need to know about these firms? What does Derek think about early-stage firms scaling into multi-stage firms? Why is stage specificity so important?
5.) What are the core economics of venture capital that all entrepreneurs need to understand? How do different GPs and funds have different motivations according to fund size? How do different funds approach carry allocation and fees? Why does this matter to founders?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Derek’s Favourite Book: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Derek’s Most Recent Investment: Armis
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the 20 minute VC. We have a new president and we have a new podcast and diving straight into day. |
| 0:05.1 | But a few weeks ago we had David Lowie, founder at Capital G on the show. |
| 0:08.5 | And this week I'm thrilled to welcome one of his rock star SaaS and data colleagues and general partner at Capital G, Derek Zanuto. G is Alphabet's independent growth fund, which invests in the likes of Stripe, UiPath, Looker, Robin Hood and Lyft, to name a few of their incredible companies. |
| 0:25.3 | At Capital G, Derek has led investments in Calibra, Dataiku, and Armis, as well as sitting on numerous boards. |
| 0:31.8 | And before entering the world of Alphabet and Capital G, Derek spent a decade investing in companies like Uber, Airbnb, Linda.com and |
| 0:39.4 | CAA at investment firms including TPG, Helman and Friedman and GIC. I'd also want to say a huge thank |
| 0:45.6 | you though, Leila Sturdy, Jean France, Florian at Dadaiku, and Felix at Calibra, some amazing |
| 0:50.7 | questions suggestions today and I really did so appreciate that. But before we move into the show today, I want to take a moment to mention HelloSign, |
| 0:57.2 | a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience. |
| 1:02.0 | HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and request |
| 1:06.9 | legally valid digital signatures and agreements. |
| 1:09.2 | They raised a total of $16 million in funding |
| 1:11.9 | and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. Check out HelloSign.com |
| 1:17.6 | forward slash 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and |
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| 1:28.3 | there with HelloSign, has anyone tried to send a business payment recently? |
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| 1:40.9 | Routable not only focus on digital business payments, but the time it saves on both the |
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| 1:55.9 | electronically at rootable.com for free. That's no transaction fees and no seat fees for one full month. |
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