EVCA Newsletter | June Edition - Tons of New VC Jobs, Events, and Features
EVCA Newsletter | June Edition - Tons of New VC Jobs, Events, and Features
After nearly two years of a gravity-defying bull run, the general tide of market sentiment has taken a pessimistic turn. More increasingly over the last few weeks, the internet has been percolating with no shortage of ominously-titled stories proclaiming such things as the “Boom Times Are Over” and “The Good Times are Over for Startups.” Prominent venture firms, including Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital, have sounded the alarm, sending their founders warnings of an anticipated winter in venture capital investing and offering guidance to plan for the worst. Crypto assets also have witnessed a proverbial bloodbath, with the market capitalization of cryptocurrencies dropping by over half since November and the recent implosion of the stablecoin Terra sending shockwaves across the whole industry.
While no one can predict the fate of the economy, the general state of affairs isn’t looking good. More likely than not, winter is coming to the venture capital ecosystem. Rather than fret about this hardening reality, the best we can do is strive to maintain some semblance of zen. That’s because with every historical market bull run, a bear has inevitably followed. We may be heading for a rocky next few months, but once we accept that we’re simply experiencing historical forces in replay, stomaching the prospects of economic turbulence hopefully becomes a lot more palatable.
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this edition of the EVCA newsletter!
He Was a Former Partner at Storm Ventures and Co-founder of BLCK VC. Today He is Helping Lead the Early-stage VC Fund at Wellington Management. Meet Frederik Groce.
We had the chance to interview Frederick Groce, who helps leads investments for the early-stage venture capital fund of Wellington Management. Frederik previously was a partner at the B2B-focused venture capital firm Storm Ventures and is a co-founder of BLCK VC, the premier nonprofit organization for empowering and advancing Black venture investors. In his interview, Frederik shares his origin story and thoughts about life and career.
Featured Investors
This month we highlight Sara Eshelman of Spero Ventures and Shaun Chaudhuri of Westly Group as our featured investors of the EVCA community.
Sara Eshelman is a principal and founding member of Spero Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that backs mission-driven founders. She leads investments in health and bio platforms on behalf of the firm, holding the core belief that individuals will assert their agency and take more ownership of their health and wellbeing. Prior to Spero, Sara was a principal at Omidyar Network and began her career as a management consultant at Monitor Group. She received her BA from Northwestern University and MSc from the London School of Economics.
Shaun Chaudhuri is a Senior Associate at the Westly Group, a sustainability focused venture firm that invests in energy, mobility, buildings, industrial technology, and cybersecurity. Prior to joining the Westly Group, he worked at Apple on the iPhone team, leading the worldwide iPhone forecast and served on Apple’s leadership boards for Women@Apple & Accessibility@Apple. He did his undergraduate work in Economics and Gender Studies.
EVCA Leadership Spotlight: FemaleFunders Vertical Co-Leads, Kira Noodleman of Bee Partners and Natasha Sharma of True 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.
Kira Noodleman is a partner at Bee Partners, where she relishes working with new and disruptive technologies across cultures, discovering young companies, and nurturing the careers of passionate Founders. Her background in working internationally with software giants preceded a Haas MBA where she developed a deeper interest in startups and investing.
Natasha Sharma is a principal at True Ventures. Having grown up in the Bay Area, Natasha witnessed the burgeoning of Silicon Valley’s technology scene and now applies that lens in her role at True Ventures when investing in some of today’s most imaginative founders. She aims to bring empathy to the VC-founder relationship and demonstrate a culture of conscious leadership among founders, teams, and boards. During her past five years at True, she’s volunteered with All Raise and been a liaison for the True Ventures Fellowship, which pairs college students of all backgrounds with True portfolio companies to help create more pathways for careers in technology.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Demystifying the Modern B2B Go-To-Market Tech Stack - Rajeev Dham, Demi Obayomi, and Aditya Reddy of Sapphire Ventures; share their perspectives on the Modern Go-To-Market (GTM) tech stack for B2B software companies
5 lessons from 5 years in venture capital - Maarten Hemmes of HH Ventures, reflects on his first 5 years in venture capital and share some of the important lessons he learned along the way
The Future of Crypto Native Consumer Products - Mercedes Bent of Lightspeed Venture Partners, shares a few areas where crypto-native consumer behemoths may emerge; ranging from more established to newer emerging categories
Quild Memo #2: Data platforms - Kenn So of Shasta Ventures, dives into the shift of data to the cloud and provides observable data platform themes
MLOps: Market Map & Thesis - Rachit Kansal of Picus Capital, breaks down the Machine learning operations industry and share why it might be one of the most exciting spaces in enterprise SaaS to invest in
3 Technologies That Are Going To Change Everything - Caleb Naysmith of United States Army Reserve, provides a primer on 3 emerging technologies that are gaining traction and starting technological gold rushes
Events
SuperReturn International Private Equity Event | June 14-17 | Hosted by Informa Connect
RSA Conference | June 6-9 in San Francisco | Hosted by RSA
Women in Tech Global Conference 2022 | June 7 - 10 | Hosted by WomenTech Network
Digital Edge EMEA | June 14 | Hosted by Similarweb
Stabilizing and Decarbonizing the Texas Grid with Computation and Bitcoin | June 14 | Hosted by Austin Forum
LP Perspectives on Venture – Macro Uncertainty and the Opportunities it Creates | June 15 | Hosted by NVCA
Innovating to Adapt to the Cybersecurity Landscape | June 16 | Hosted by Target Tech
M&A Update: Deal Term Trends & Tech Sector Insights | June 16 | Hosted by NVCA and SRS Acquiom
CVC Syndication – Strategies and Outcomes | June 28 | Hosted by NVCA CVC Mentor Studio
Discussion of "This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends" with Hugh Forrest of SXSW | June 30 | Hosted by Austin Forum
Jobs
Partner track Principal Role in San Francisco, CA at SineWave Ventures. If interested, reach out to Vivek Ladsariya at vivek@sinewave.vc
Investment Associate Role in Seattle, WA at Argonautic Ventures
Analyst Role in Baltimore, MD at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Associate Role in Baltimore, MD at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Manager Role in Washington, DC at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Senior Associate Role in Baltimore, MD at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
Associate Role in New York, NY/Hybrid at Primetime Partners. If interested, email Ray Jang at Ray@primetimepartners.com
Vice President/Principal Role in New York, NY/Hybrid at HC9 Ventures. If interested, send cover letter that explains why you are passionate about healthcare and about venture investing and your CV to hr@hc9.vc
Associate Role in San Francisco, CA or New York, NY at LDC Innovations
Head of Investor Relations in Portola Valley, CA at G2 Venture Partners
Summer Associate Role in San Francisco, CA/Remote at Urban Innovation Fund
Principal/Director Role in Salt Lake City, UT at Mercato Partners
Associate Role in San Francisco, CA at Generation Investment Management
Senior Controller / VP of Finance Role in Fulton, MD at DataTribe Foundry
Associate Role in Chicago, IL at Sandbox Industries. If interested, contact hctrecruiting@sandboxindustries.com
Senior Associate Role in Palo Alto, CA at Emerson Collective
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, and Isaac
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