20VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments

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

🗓️ 17 August 2020

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Apurva Mehta is the Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments, investing in early stage venture capital funds and making direct co-investments. To date they have backed the likes of Raymond Tonsing, Lachy Groom and Josh Buckley to name a few on the fund side and then on the direct side, invested in Airtable, Virta Health and Sourcegraph. Prior to founding Summit Peak, Apurva spent 7 years as the Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Cook's Children's Hospital and before that spent 3 years as Director of Portfolio Investments at The Juilliard School.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Apurva make his way into the world of fund investing? How did that lead to his founding Summit Peak and also becoming a GP?

2.) How does Apurva think about how much importance to place on references when diligencing managers? What reference types mean a lot? Which mean less? Why does Apurva still believe early-stage is the most inefficient segment of the venture landscape?

3.) How does Apurva think about GP commits? Is it fair to have a required benchmark? How does Apurva advise founders on LP concentration limits? When is one LP too much of a fund? How does Apurva advise managers on selling a stake in the management company?

4.) As a fund of funds, how does Apurva approach fund portfolio construction today? How does this differ between the fund portfolio vs the direct portfolio? How does Apurva think about the compression of fundraising timelines both with GPs and Founders? Why does Apurva believe founders at the early-stage care less about firm brand today?

5.) How does Apurva feel about investing in managers he has not met in person? How does the GP/LP fundraising process need to change? How does COVID change the fundraising process for venture funds? How will LPs react to these changes?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Apurva’s Fave Book: Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio

Apurva's Most Recent Investment: Sourcegraph

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

Transcript

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0:00.0	We are back. This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And if you'd like to suggest future
0:03.9	guests or questions for future episodes, you can on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two Bs.
0:09.9	But to our episode today, and I always love interviewing LPs. And state is even more exciting,
0:14.5	as our guest is really a hybrid of an LP and a GP. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome
0:19.1	a Pervamator, managing partner at Summit Peak
0:21.5	investments, investing in early stage venture capital funds, and making direct co-investments. To date,
0:27.0	they've backed the lights of Raymond Thompson, Lockheed Groom and Josh Buckley. Don't think you
0:31.1	could get better managers in my perspective, but I might be slightly biased on those three. And then
0:35.6	on the direct side, they also have investments in the likes of Airtable, Verta Health and Sourcegrove.
0:40.7	Prior to founding Summit Peak, Aperver spent seven years as the deputy chief investment officer at Cook's Children's Hospital.
0:46.6	And before that, I spent three years as director of portfolio investments at the Juilliard School.
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