EVCA Newsletter | April Edition - The Latest VC Jobs, Events, and Content
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EVCA Newsletter | April Edition - The Latest VC Jobs, Events, and Content
The tech ecosystem is still coping after the collapse of SVB, the go-to bank for tech startups, after a whirlwind run on the bank last month. The chronology of the ordeal can be summed up as follows: rising interest rates by the Fed resulted in unrealized losses in SVB’s books; VCs, seeing this hole in the books, urged their founders to transfer their deposits from the bank; and founders, driven by the panic of potentially watching their life’s work evaporate before their eyes, rushed to pull out their money. Many of the accounts of the SVB collapse lay blame on a type of self-fulfilling hubris of the tech ecosystem. While a handful of bad actors played a role in inciting the panic-induced bank run, such accounts underestimate the complex psychology of a bank run, where participants are motivated to save themselves from being the last one holding the metaphorical “hot potato.” It’s a tragedy to the first degree, but one that we must share collectively as an industry.
Today SVB is back in operations, and, with the FDIC insuring 100% of the bank’s deposits, the bank is now technically one the safest places to keep one’s money. While the future remains unwritten, we hope to take this experience as an opportunity to reflect on the resilience of our community and its ability to come together in moments of crisis. For decades, SVB filled a hole in the market as a top lender to venture-backed startups and has operated as the life blood for fostering connections across the tech ecosystem. Since the beginning of the EVCA, SVB has operated as an integral partner to the growth of our organization—a fact for which the we across the EVCA leadership team will remain eternally grateful.
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to the April edition of the EVCA newsletter.
Spotlight Feature: Meet Astasia Myers, Partner at Quiet Capital
We had the chance to interview Astasia Myers, who is a Partner at Quiet Capital. Astasia shares her origins story—from working as a researcher at Stanford University, operating on the startup side, working in equity research, and, most recently, investing in enterprise startups as a venture capitalist. In this interview, she also shares his thoughts about life and career.
Featured Investors
This month we highlight Vivian Cheng of CRV and Joe Botsch of RTP Global as our featured investors of the EVCA community.
Vivian Cheng is a Principal at CRV where she helps lead consumer and SMB investing. She's spent the last five years partnering closely with companies like Current, Homeward, and Truebill, amongst others, and is particularly passionate about tech that makes consumers' lives better. Prior to CRV, she was an operator at Uber working in payments & product, having helped scale the company to 16,000 people from 200 when she joined. Vivian graduated from University of Southern California with a B.A. in Business Administration and is a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship.
Joe Botsch joined RTP Global in 2021 focusing on early-stage enterprise software, specifically startups in AI/ML, infrastructure, and vertical software. Prior to RTP, Joe was responsible for expansion stage software investments at OpenView. Before OV, he served as the Head of Research and Analytics at MassChallenge, a Boston-based network of accelerators, monitoring startup performance and sourcing as well as helping to implement pilots between corporates and startups. He also has spent time as a local director of Founder Institute helping early enterprise software and robotics startups run corporate pilots. He spent his early career as a data scientist and product manager in Boston and holds a BS in Computer Science from Brandeis University. In his spare time he can be found complaining about Boston sports, at an open mic, or cooking overly ambitious food for his very understanding girlfriend.
EVCA Leadership Spotlight: Climate Tech Vertical Lead, Thomas Englis of Clearvision Ventures
This EVCA Leadership Spotlight Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA, as well as highlight the valuable contributions of the roughly 50 individuals across the venture capital industry who make the EVCA possible.
Thomas Englis is a Principal at Clearvision Ventures, a multi-stage investment firm focused on category leading software companies relevant to energy and sustainable infrastructure. He has lead investment thesis exercises on carbon accounting, carbon credits, SAF, 5G, and smart cities resulting in investments in startups such as Zūm, Persefoni, Viridios, Sitetracker, Aclima, and Assaia. Thomas also contributed to investments in ChargePoint (NYSE: CHPT), Claroty, and Tomorrow.io. Prior to joining Clearvision Thomas was an Analyst at GE Ventures, the VC arm of General Electric (NYSE: GE) that invested and incubated businesses across energy, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, aviation, and digital infrastructure. Thomas grew up in Connecticut and attended Vanderbilt University where he majored in Economics and Chinese.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Building the next decade of consumer finance - JC Bahr-de Stefano of Better Tomorrow Ventures, shares some of the key insights discussed at Fintech Meetup’s panel discussion called building the next decade of consumer finance by leveraging real-time data and cash flow forecasting
GPTs are GPTs - Kenn So of Smartsheet, delves into the three criteriums that allow a technology to be considered as a General Purpose Technology (GPT)
A path to Partner in VC: what I wish I’d known - Henrik Sanchez of Playfair Capital, explains the 5 lessons he learned along the way to his path as a Partner
Making Sense of Generative AI in 2023 - Eon Mattis of Inovexus, provides a primer into the current market trends of Generative AI
3 reasons why we need Gen Z startup builders - Sebastien Michaud proposes that idea that Gen Z founders bring much more value than you may think
The Food Tech Anti-Thesis - Brett Brohl of Bread and Butter Ventures, shares the areas that he doesn’t think are venture backable right now
Events
Supply Chain Vertical Dinner in NYC | April 12 | Hosted by EVCA Supply Chain Vertical | If interested reply to the post on EVCA #events Slack Channel
How Close/Far Are We from “Her” - Movie + AI Panel | April 12 | Hosted by Austin Forum
Innovation Incoming: An expert panel on technology and the future | April 18 | Hosted by Royal Academy of Engineering
New York LP Summit | April 19 | Hosted by Portfolio Summits
VC Human Capital Survey: Launch & DEI Workshop | April 20 | Hosted by NVCA and Salesforce Ventures
Austin AI Ecosystem Meetup | April 25 | Hosted by Austin Forum
2023 Emerging VC Summit | April 28 | Hosted by EVCA Leadership Team
Jobs
Venture Capital Platform Analyst Role in Washington, DC at Route 66 Ventures
Growth Equity Investments Associate Role in Menlo Park, CA at Adams Street Partners
Senior Associate Role in Philadelphia, PA at Touchdown Ventures
Senior Associate Role in San Francisco, CA at Touchdown Ventures
2023 Summer and Fall Associate Role in New York, NY or Chicago, IL at Distributed Ventures
Investing Team Associate Role in Chicago, IL at Jump Capital
Investment Associate Role in Boston, MA at Brewer Lane Ventures. If interested, email jobs@brewerlane.com a resume, cover letter, and responses to the following questions: What excites you about this opportunity? What do you find as the most exciting space within fintech and insurtech today? What is an incumbent or non-tech company in financial services or insurance that you admire and why?
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, and Isaac
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