20VC: Moxxie Ventures' Katie Stanton on What It Takes To Raise A First Time Fund As A Solo GP, The Entrance of Multi-Stage Funds Into Seed Rounds and The Inverse Relationship of Those That Fund Diverse Managers and Those That Say They Do
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Katie Stanton is the Founder and General Partner of Moxxie Ventures, investing in founders who make life and work better. Prior to Moxxie, Katie was a Founding Partner of #angels and has the most incredible angel portfolio including Airtable, Carta, Cameo, Coinbase and Modern Fertility to name a few. Katie also served in numerous executive operating roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and Color and also served in the (Obama) White House and State Department. If that was not enough, Katie is also on the board of Vivendi and previously sat on the board of Time Inc.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Katie made her way into the world of tech with Yahoo? How did that translate into her investing in Lowercase Fund I? How did the angel investing lead to founding Moxxie? How has Katie found her investment mindset has changed moving from angel to VC?
2.) How did Katie find the fundraise for Moxxie? How many LPs did Katie meet and how did she structure the process? What does Katie think she did well in the fundraise? What would she look to improve or change when raising for Fund II? What advice was Katie given in the process by Semil Shah which really changed her thinking? What advice would Katie give to other emerging managers raising today?
3.) Does Katie agree with Semil Shah that "founders are voting with their feet in taking multi-stage money at seed"? What advice does Katie give to founders who do have these offers from multi-stage funds at seed? How does Katie assess these later stage funds moving earlier? How should smaller micro-managers respond to this?
4.) How does Katie think about portfolio construction today with Moxxie? What are the hard rules that mean Katie is willing to walk away from a deal? How does Katie think about and assess her own price sensitivity? In terms of decision-making, what support system has Katie built around herself to enhance her decision-making process?
5.) How does Katie advice founders when it comes to selecting their VC? What are the most common ways founders look for and need to help with? How does Katie think about party rounds? When are they good? When are they not? Why does Katie believe so much of the power has shifted to the hands of the founders?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Katie’s Fave Book: Becoming by Michelle Obama, Angel by Jason Calacanis
Katie’s Most Recent Investment: ethel's club
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Katie on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back. You are listening to The 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and it'd be awesome to welcome you behind the scenes here. |
| 0:05.2 | You can do that on Instagram at H. Debings, 1996 with two bees. But to the show today, and I've really wanted to do this one for a long time, having not only heard many great things from many previous guests, but also being a massive admirer of her angel portfolio built over the last few years. And so with that, I'm very excited to welcome |
| 0:20.9 | Katie Stanton, founder and general partner of Moxie Ventures, investing in founders who make life |
| 0:26.1 | and work better. Prior to Moxie, Katie was a founding partner of hashtag Angels and has the most |
| 0:30.9 | incredible angel portfolio, including the likes of Airtable, Carter, Camio, Coinbase, and Modern Fertility, |
| 0:37.1 | to name a few. Katie also served in numerous executive operating roles at Twitter, Carter, Cameo, Coinbase, and Modern Fertility, to name a few. |
| 0:38.0 | Katie also served in numerous executive operating roles at Twitter, Google, Yahoo, and |
| 0:42.6 | Color, and also served in the Obama White House and State Department. |
| 0:45.8 | And if that wasn't enough, Katie's also on the board of Vivendi, and previously sat on the |
| 0:49.7 | board of Time, Inc. |
| 0:50.7 | And I'd also want to say huge thank you to a whole host of incredible people who helped |
| 0:54.1 | with questions. Austin at Lambda, Elad Gill, Russo at Threads, Michael Kim, Roy Bahat, and |
| 0:59.4 | Yana Measures Schmidt, just to name a few. I really do so appreciate that. But before we |
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| 1:39.0 | Check them out today at Pilot.com forward slash 20VC. |
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