20VC: Oren Zeev on Why Diversification Is Overrated, The Downside of Thematic Investing, Making Quality Decisions In Uncertain Conditions & Why He Has No Reserves Allocation
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2020
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Oren Zeev is the Founding Partner @ Zeev Ventures, one of the best and most under the radar firms in the early stage Silicon Valley landscape. Over the past decade, Oren has backed the likes of TripActions, Tipalti, Audible, Houzz, Chegg and Hippo Insurance to name a few. Prior to crushing it with Zeev Ventures, Oren spent 12 years as a General Partner @ Apax Ventures, starting in Israel and then moving to the US where he headed the Technology Practice of Apax and the Silicon Valley office.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Oren made his way into the world of venture with Apax and how that led to his founding his own firm, Zeev Ventures?
2.) Having been in a venture partnership, why did Oren want to be a solo GP? What are the benefits? How does it change decision-making? What are the downsides? How does Oren discuss deals and ideas without partners? How does Oren explain the decision to LPs on being a solo GP?
3.) Why does Oren not believe in thesis-driven investing? What are the dangers and downsides to it? Why do most managers still do it then? Why does Oren specifically look for under-appreciated markets? How is pricing and competition different there? How does Oren assess his own price sensitivity?
4.) Why does Oren think that diversification is overrated? How does Oren think about cross-fund investing? Why is it such a strength that managers should use? Why do many not do it? How does Oren think about reserve allocation? Why is he the only VC to not have a reserves strategy?
5.) How does Oren think about fund deployment timelines? Why do LPs not like the annual fundraising approach? How does Oren size up his position in companies over time and round? How does Oren feel about founders taking secondaries?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Oren’s Fave Book: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm
Oren’s Most Recent Investment: Treeverse
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the 20-minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and diving straight into the show today. |
| 0:04.0 | This guest's advice, ideas, and guidance. |
| 0:06.3 | They've really been so formative to me and my thinking, a wonderful and very humble player in the world of venture. |
| 0:11.3 | And so with that, I'm delighted to welcome back to the hot seat, Oran Zeeve. |
| 0:14.5 | Oran is the founding partner at Zeev Ventures, one of the best and most under-the-radar firms in the early stage Silicon Valley landscape. |
| 0:21.4 | Over the past decade, Oren has backed the lights of trip actions, Tipalty, audible, Howells, Chegg and Hippo insurance, to name a few. |
| 0:28.7 | Prior to crushing it with Zee Ventures, Oran spent 12 years as a general partner at Apex Ventures, starting in Israel and then moving to the US, where he headed the technology practice of Apex and the Silicon Valley office. |
| 0:39.6 | I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Ariel Cohen at Trip Action for some fantastic questions suggestions today. |
| 0:44.7 | Ariel, I so appreciate that. |
| 0:46.5 | But before we move into the show today, I want to take a moment to mention HelloSign, |
| 0:50.1 | a great example of a company that found success in building a product focused on user experience. |
| 0:55.2 | HelloSign is an effortless e-signature solution used by millions to securely send and request legally valid digital signatures and agreements. |
| 1:03.5 | They raised a total of 16 million in funding and recently got acquired by Dropbox for an impressive $230 million. |
| 1:10.2 | Check out HelloSign.com forward slash |
| 1:12.3 | 20VC to join the thousands of companies and founders who value fast, secure and simple |
| 1:17.9 | e-signatures. And speaking of incredible solutions to complex problems, the team over at Pendo, |
| 1:23.0 | the product cloud company, is expanding rapidly throughout Europe and recently released a version |
| 1:27.2 | of their |
| 1:27.5 | product which is designed and priced specifically for startups so no matter whether you're an |
| 1:32.2 | operator or an investor in Europe or the US Pendo has you and your portfolio is product covered showing |
| 1:37.8 | you how your product stacks up against your peers analyzing over a thousand software products |
| 1:42.8 | and creating benchmarks for startups, |
... |
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