20VC: NEA Partner, Dayna Grayson on Sourcing, Picking, Winning, Gut vs Data in Investment Decision-Making & The Evolution of Entrepreneurial Expectations of Venture

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

🗓️ 8 April 2019

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dayna Grayson is a Partner @ NEA, one of the leading venture firms over the last 4 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Opendoor, Jet.com, Uber, WorkDay, Plaid, Box and many more incredible companies. As for Dayna, she has led the firm's investments in the likes of Desktop Metal, Formlabs, Onshape, Glamsquad, Framebridge and Curalate, just to name a few. Prior to joining NEA, Dayna was an investor at North Bridge Venture Partners where she championed companies including Camiant (acquired by Tekelec) and Tapjoy. Before venture Dayna was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies, later acquired by Dynavox Mayer-Johnson and also a product designer at Blackbaud (BLKB), the leading global provider of software to nonprofit organizations.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Dayna made her way into the world of venture and came to be a Partner at NEA from her roots in product design and engineering?

2.) Sourcing: How does Dayna approach the sourcing component of venture today? What does the deck filtering process look like to Dayna, prior to meeting? What has Dayna found works best in really building rapport in the first meetings? What does the conviction building process look like for Dayna from there? If negative, how has Dayna found is the most effective way to say no?

3.) Decision-Making: How does Dayna think about optimising the investment decision-making process? How does Dayna balance between data vs gut? Does NEA require unanimous decision-making? Why does Dayna believe that at A or earlier, the price really does not matter? When does price really become a big issue?

4.) Evolution of Expectations: How does Dayna believe entrepreneurial expectations of VC has changed over the last decade. Where does Dayna believe investors can really provide the most value? Which board member has been the most impressive to Dayna when sitting alongside them on the board? Why?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Dayna’s Fave Book: Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Dayna's Most Recent Investment: WhireWheel

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

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to another week in the world of the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings.
0:03.9	As always, I would love to see you behind the scenes.
0:06.1	You can do that on Instagram at H. Stebbing's 1996 with 2Bs.
0:09.9	Some exciting things to come there for sure.
0:12.0	But to our guest today, and I've wanted to have this guest on the show for a long, long time.
0:15.8	And so when Rebecca Caden at USV suggested it, I was super excited to make it happen. And so with that, I'm thrilled to
0:21.4	welcome Dana Grayson, partner at NEA, one of the leading venture firms over the last four decades,
0:26.7	with a portfolio including the lights of Open Door, Jet.com, Uber, Workday, Plaid, Box, and many
0:32.7	more incredible companies. As for Dana, she's led the firm's investments in the lights of desktop
0:36.9	metal,
0:43.2	form labs, on shape, glam squad, framebridge and curlate, just to name a few. And prior to joining NIA, Dana was an investor at Northbridge Venture Partners, where she championed companies like
0:47.4	Camiont and Tapjoy. And before venture, Dana was an engineer at Eye Response Technologies,
0:52.2	and also a product designer at blackboard.
0:58.1	I'd also have to say a huge thank you again to the wonderful Rebecca Caden at USV for the intro.
1:02.1	It really would not have happened without you, Rebecca, so I owe you many mehitos for this one.
1:05.7	But before we jump into the show's date, I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex.
1:11.1	The first corporate card for startups, Brex founders Enrique and Pedro built a payments business in Brazil,
1:15.6	but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator. They decided to build Brex with instant online sign-up, no founder liability required, and limits 10 to 20
1:21.0	times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know, and you can sign up for Brex and get
1:25.3	fees wavered by entering the code Harry during sign-up.
1:28.4	Honestly, it really is such a special service. And speaking of Brex, an incredible high-growth company.
1:33.4	Well, a lot of what we do on the 20-minute VC is talk to experts, pick the brains of founders
	...

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