Sue Decker

His career started when someone said to him, “well, have you thought about venture capital? We don’t think that you’d be any good at it.” The rest is history. Today’s Alt Goes Mainstream episode features one of the legends of the venture capital industry. Peter Barris joined New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in 1992 after a storied operating career as President and COO at Legent Corporation and an executive at GE Information Services. He served as Managing General Partner and Chairman of NEA from 1999 to March 2024. Under Peter's leadership, NEA saw tremendous success, growing into one of the world's largest venture capital firms and raising the largest-ever venture capital fund a number of times. Today, NEA's AUM stands over $25B. Peter was responsible for investing in a number of foundational and industry-transforming technology companies, including Salesforce, UUNET, Groupon, WebMD, Workday, CareerBuilder, Tempus AI, and more. We had a fascinating discussion about the early days of venture capital and how the industry has evolved. We covered: * The inside story of how almost every other Partner said no but Peter's investment turned out to be a 75x return. * What's the “best characteristic and the death characteristic” of an entrepreneur? * In today's hypercompetitive market do VCs have enough time to make good decisions? * Why the world of venture capital is about influence. * What does it mean to earn an entrepreneur’s trust as a VC? * Why VCs with operating backgrounds can bring unique value to startups. * How NEA came up with the term "Venture Growth Equity." * How can a VC tell that a founder is good at experimentation and that they have the good judgment? * Why specialization and domain expertise are prerequisites in today’s venture industry. Thanks to Ultimus Fund Solutions for sponsoring this episode of the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. Thanks Peter for coming on the show. It was an honor and a pleasure to hear your views on the evolution of an industry and for you to share your wisdom and experiences. https://lnkd.in/eEJGEFWe

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Well said, Olivia O'Sullivan. 💡People who know me know that I am passionate about ecosystem platforms. Executed well, it is a superpower applicable to many use cases. This is another. Sharing with the startups in my network. Choose partners to accelerate your journey wisely. 🚀 #platforms #acceleration

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We love seeing founders be able to keep their equity and take advantage of non-dilutive funding sources⚒️. We're excited to collaborate with Stacy Chin, PhD leader of KeepYourEquity.co, who has secured over $15M in SBIR/STTR grants for startups across various sectors. She's written a guest blog post sharing her insights on navigating the competitive landscape of grant funding 💰. Some highlights: ❇️ Understanding SBIR/STTR: A lifeline for startups, offering up to $2 million in non-dilutive funding! ⏺️ Learning how to overcome hurdles and capitalize on the golden opportunity. ❇️ Gaining essential tips on outlining your go-to-market strategy, choosing the right program, and preparing thoroughly. ⏺️ Benefiting from Stacy Chin's 10+ years of grant writing experience and her extensive track record in securing funding for startups. Read More in the blog post linked in the comment below 👇🏾 #SBIR #STTR #GrantFunding #StartupSuccess #SmallBusiness #KeepYourEquityCo #ShayCPA #cpafirm #techaccountants #startupaccountants #techstartup #techcompany #nondilutivefunding

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Exciting news! We just sent out the inaugural newsletter for Future Frontier Capital, our pre-seed venture fund backing frontier tech startups. As I hit "send," I realized how launching FFC parallels the path of the founders we support. Starting FFC has required the same passion, perseverance, and self-belief that drive entrepreneurs. Just like a startup, getting a VC fund off the ground demands relentless hustle—building the brand, perfecting the pitch, and networking tirelessly. There are constant challenges that test your resolve and endless hours of unglamorous work behind the scenes. And perhaps most daunting - the self-doubt, wondering if you're crazy for attempting something so bold. Pushing through that negative self-talk requires unshakable faith in your mission. Raising this VC fund reminds me of starting our IP strategy and patent analytics firm two decades ago. It’s a powerful reminder of the perseverance, creativity, and resilience needed to turn an ambitious idea into reality. This experience makes us more empathetic partners, ready to support the founders we back. Our work is just beginning, and this inaugural newsletter underscores our commitment to supporting frontier tech startups every step of the way. #startups #VentureCapital #EmergingManagers #Entrepreneurship #InnovationMindSet

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Flourish Ventures team is excited to back the indomitable Chris Brummer as he builds Bluprynt to transform the infrastructure for disclosures. We feel privileged to be part of an amazing group of industry leaders and backers working with Chris. Arguably, we are living through a pivotal moment for disclosures and trust and transparency in finance. The concept of financial disclosure became prominent with the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934, following the 1929 market crash. Digitization began in the 1990s with EDGAR and XBRL in the early 2000s. Today, we face a new phase in disclosures with the integration of digital assets into the financial system. This evolution reflects market changes and regulatory responses, presenting an opportunity to transform the technological underpinnings of disclosure systems fundamentally. #fintech #digitalassets #crypto #disclosures https://lnkd.in/eme7fgDE

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For some insight into what I look for in companies, check out Good Revenue's recent podcast!

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To all #founders and #entrepreneurs out there, our intro meetings are conversational and easy going. Feel free to message me to setup a call. Learn what Pioneera Ventures can do for you!

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Thanks so much, Ty Findley, for having me as a guest on Heavy Hitters: The Digital Industrial Podcast! It was great to chat about: 🏭 Our launch of the Industrial Renaissance practice at Bain Capital Ventures that builds upon our investments in scaled companies like Kiva, ShipBob, FourKites, Inc., Vention and MaintainX and many emerging seed and Series A companies. ✨ The tailwinds that are converging and creating a perfect ecosystem for innovation including unprecedented technological advancements, compounding geopolitical and environmental pressures, public and private alignment, and the new wave of talent entering the space. 🤠 Core insights from 20 years of investing in founders transforming the physical world - namely that the key is still software! https://lnkd.in/eJGR9TkB

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DeepCast shipped a number of really cool new features recently in advance of a broad outreach push to podcast listeners. One new feature is our new Daily DeepDigest tool that sends you a concise daily email including any new episodes from the trailing 24 hours from any podcasts you Subscribe to (on DeepCast). Think daily podcast cliff notes or podcast news ticker tape, with a hint of Morning Brew various brews or PitchBook News—it's increasing information throughput when you're pressed for time. And this feature is rapidly evolving to distill other key extractions from shows you're already interested in, but also exposing you to other shows you might be unfamiliar with that also have nuggets to share—and thus increasing your aperture yet still conscious of your time. Want to go deeper on any given episode? Click the episode detail and you're off to an episode on DeepCast, where you can subsequently read a longer form distillation of that episode or go straight to the source and listen to the episode. (And podcaster friends, these pages are definitely increasing indexing and thus Google entry points to your shows!) I'm loving this feature as a user, personally. Can't wait to see what others think! #BuildingInPublic #Podcasts #AllTheWorldsInformation #HowYouWantIt

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As I said right at the start of this week's The Heart of Healthcare Podcast, Shivdev Rao is one of the most exceptional founders I have ever worked with. He is also a great human being. In this week's episode he shares what is it like leading the 🚀 that is Abridge and some awesome life lessons. IMHO this is a great listen for founders building in both the AI and healthcare fields!

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"Innovation is often just improvisation." "Even things that seem new are likely not actually new." Philip Brittan made these two points (and many others) in his keynote at a summit here in #Bozeman yesterday. I thought he was spot on, and his talk took my mind to the importance of leaning on experienced advisors when you're a #startup #founder. I've always felt that problems are really just opportunities for value creation. I also believe that as we grow in our careers, we assemble a history of crafty solutions which ended up facilitating new value. Many of the best examples happen on the fly, where the consequence of moving slowly can be existential. Founders have no shortage of problems to solve and breakages to fix. And I think too many of us go at it alone. I think it's critical to align with experienced advisors who carry with them diverse backgrounds. Folks who have been there before and provide a range of perspective and experience dealing with a broader set of challenges. This collective knowledge base creates leverage for founders solving problems - and creating value - in the here and now. #VentureStudios do this. So do good #VCs.

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Join us tomorrow for a panel discussion on the complex relationship many FirstGens have to money and how that affects founders, investors, operators and others. See you tomorrow! https://lu.ma/9rixyzgs

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One of my proudest moments as an investor occurred today as Alaffia Health announced its series A because it shows how the Aperture® Venture Capital vision of multi-level, multi-generational #impactinvesting is succeeding in the marketplace. Here’s the model in its most basic form : ✅As diverse fund managers with meaningful capital to allocate, we are changing the VC landscape every day just by doing our day jobs. ✅As Black/Brown investors with ~40 years experience collectively, Aperture GPs have access to talent /excellence that others do not, so our portfolio *organically* is more inclusive by race, gender and geography even while optimizing for financial outcomes (all about the alpha). ✅Our most successful portco’s are using financial #innovation to solve market problems that impact underrepresented demographics and underserved communities. Alaffia Health is a shining example of the impact portion of our overall fund thesis, and we couldn’t be prouder of TJ Ademiluyi and Adun Akanni, MPH, PMP - the dynamic brother-sister founder duo whose vision we have steadfastly supported on their journey. Congratulations to TJ and Adun from William Crowder and myself, as well as the whole Aperture team- Marjorie King Philip McKenzie Yves Louis-Jacques Tanvi Lal Michelle Dhansinghani Lisha Bell Katie Kelly Amy Chung Cindy Chong, CFA Brian Fernandes-Halloran Monroe France Jayden Pantel Darren Herman Evan Wladis Neal Triplett Thomas Scriven Peter Ammon Irina Bit-Babik Tim Milanich Rob Rahbari

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This week Mikal Ventures brings you a 4-week breakdown of the non-US capital market with an emphasis on the Mikal verticals. Over the 4-week period ending May 29, a total of 1,545 new companies were added, with 101,688 companies included in the non-US Health Tech, Med Tech, Fin Tech, AI Tech, and Ed Tech verticals. The non-US AI Tech saw the greatest percentage growth in new companies for the period, weighing in at a notable 27%, nearly two times the overall vertical average of 15%. The non-US Heath Tech vertical led the group in transactions. Non-US Med Tech vertical lead in both SEC Filings and news articles. Mikal Ventures publishes these stats on a rolling 4-week basis to provide a perspective on how the verticals and new startups move through time. We hope you find them informative and thought-provoking. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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Interesting concept to rename rounds by milestones. But "Series Client Expansion Extension" just doesn't have the same ring to it 😋 . Maybe we can start incorporating it into a descriptor to add context, "Series Seed Extension: client expansion." #startups #venturecapital

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A little late, even though this process started in July.... Excited to share our latest investment in Heads Together Health!! We met Steve DeVrieze in October last year, and we think they are poised for impressive growth! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/ecYcqqkn #earlystagestartup #earlystageinvesting #VCinvestment #ncstartups #nctechstartups

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Boards of Directors – How Relevant To The Business Is The Board? In 2014, activist investor Starboard Value successfully replaced all 12 directors on the board of Darden Restaurants. The following shows the Darden incumbent board at the time of Starboard's proxy fight, Starboard’s value creation plan initiatives, the Starboard director nominees and the before and after performance (revenue, EBITDA, EBITDA margin and stock price). Note especially the direct relevance of each Starboard nominee to the industry or some aspect of the value creation plan. How often do you see this level of relevance on public company boards?

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May is when many private companies finalize mid-year comp plans 💵 Need a reliable 409A valuation? Or has it been over a year since your last? We've got you covered! Scalar's 409A valuations keep you compliant, protect employees from tax penalties, and come with a team that supports you all the way through an audit. https://lnkd.in/gs_CtPNS

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