EVCA Newsletter | March Edition - The Latest VC Jobs, News, and Events
The enthusiasm for Generative AI across VC investors seems to have reached a state of exponential acceleration. The excitement rests in the vision of a new AI-driven economy, where AI systems outcompete humans across even the domains of creativity—from writing best-selling books to producing award-winning movies—because not only are they faster in their outputs but significantly cheaper. Prompted by the economic opportunity unleashed by this vision, VCs last year poured a record-breaking $1.37B into Generative AI startups.
Yet little did VCs know, the U.S. government would hold that artistic ingenuity was something to be kept sacrosanct from the tides of AI automation. Last month the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that AI-generated images were “not the product of human authorship” and therefore not copyrightable. What does this mean for the future of Generative AI? An image created by a Stable Diffusion model or a best-selling novel produced by some future AI incarnation can be reproduced without violating copyright laws, eliminating the economic incentive to build AI systems that monetize on the creation of unique artistic works. That is, if no one may claim ownership over AI-generated works because they are not copyrightable, then those business models that seek to monetize on such works are now in question. For us as VCs, perhaps we should take it as a humbling lesson—that there are certain things in life like artistic creativity that are just too valuable for the sake of society to be monetized and automated away.
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this edition of the EVCA newsletter!
Spotlight Feature: Meet Timothy Wang, Managing Partner at The Westly Group
We had the chance to interview Timothy Wang, who is Managing Partner at The Westly Group. Timothy shares his origins story—from starting his career in startup operations to investing in early-stage startups as a venture capitalist. In this interview, he also shares his thoughts about life and career.
Featured Investors
This month we highlight Jill Chase of CapitalG and Asif Moosani of Gradient Ventures as our featured investors of the EVCA community.
Jill Chase is a Partner at CapitalG where she leads the fund's investments in AI/ML. Her most recent investment was in the AI code generation company Magic.dev. She has spent the past few years working with senior Googlers and industry experts to round out her AI/ML thesis and has had the fortune of working with several tremendous founders and technologists in the space. Prior to CapitalG, she was the CEO of a PE-backed technology company and founded a YC-backed startup. Jill graduated magna cum laude from Williams College with a dual degree in Economics and Psychology and was captain of the women’s basketball team. She came out to the West Coast to earn an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, but she was born and raised in Boston where she had the opportunity to cheer on the most impressive era of professional sports a city has ever experienced (Go Patriots). She lives in the Bay Area with her husband where they spend weekends doing as many outdoor activities as possible, such as pickleball, tennis, hiking, and running.
Asif Moosani joined Gradient Ventures in 2019 and serves as a Principal on the investing team, focusing on early-stage enterprise SaaS companies globally. He has led rounds in and covers companies including Mural, Gigs, Contractbook, Mage AI, Syrup.tech, Sona, Weflow, Payload CMS, PopSQL, Zowie AI, Labelbox, and others. Prior to Gradient, Asif worked in Technology Mergers & Acquisitions at Lazard Frères & Co where he advised leading technology majors, participating in 14 transactions totaling $100+ billion of aggregate deal value. Before Lazard, Asif co-founded Evolutionary Technologies, where he provided predictive analytics software serving clients in education and real estate. Earlier, he was a software developer at IBM focused on cloud services products including Tivoli and WebSphere. Asif graduated with a B.A. in Business Economics from the University of Texas and M.S. in Finance from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas.
EVCA Leadership Spotlight: Mid-Atlantic Chapter Lead, Evan Cannon of Osage Venture Partners
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.
Evan Cannon is an analyst at Osage Venture Partners, an early stage B2B software firm based in Philadelphia investing primarily in the future of work and the future of education. Prior to joining Osage Evan worked in Decision Analytics for ZS Associates, a healthcare consulting firm, and worked on go-to-market strategies for Amicus Therapeutics, a rare disease biotech company. Evan grew up in Galway, Ireland and attended the University of Galway for his undergrad degree in Biomedical Engineering and the University of Notre Dame for his Master’s degree in technology entrepreneurship. During his time in college, Evan was the CTO of Free Feet Medical, a MedTech startup focused on developing assistive technology for Parkinson’s patients.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
2023 State of Fintech - Capital Team at F-Prime Capital, discuss the lessons they've learned about how public markets view the fintech sector and reveal new ways to explore the industry via the F-Prime Fintech Index
How to Think about LP Construction - David Zhou of Cup of Zhou, answers the questions of who do you take money from and how do you manage those relationships?
Breaking orthodoxies in venture capital - Sar Haribhakti of On Deck Ventures, chats with Lee Edwards a General Partner at Root Ventures
The Big Enterprise SaaS Squeeze - Philip Reynolds of Dogpatch labs, shares the case for vertical enterprise SaaS
Gender Diversity in Tech— Positive signals yet slowed down progress - Carl Fritjofsson of Creandum, analyzed 59 portfolio companies (a total of 13k employees) to measure gender diversity across within the Creandum Diversity Index
Events
How Technology is Innovating (and Improving) Global Financial Markets | March 7 | Hosted by Austin Forum
State of Fintech: 2022 Year in Review | March 9 | Hosted by F-Prime Capital Team
New York Chapter Breakfast | March 9 | Hosted by EVCA New York Chapter | If interested contact Dylan Itzikowitz, Melissa Demma, Ali Schleider
Getting Started with ESG for VC Workshop Series | March 9, 16, 23 | Hosted by NVCA
Community Dinner w/ Andrew Beebe from Obvious Ventures | March 15 | Hosted by EVCA Mobility Vertical | Please RSVP in the EVCA #mobility slack channel
IoT Day Slam 2023 Internet of Things Conference | March 16 - 17 | Hosted by Internet of Things Community
500 Global Demo Day - Spring 2023 | March 23 | Hosted by 500 Global
Discussion of "Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology" | March 23 | Hosted by Austin Forum
Founder and VC Happy Hour | March 16 in NYC | Hosted by Tau Ventures | If interested, please contact: contact@tauventures.com
Jobs
Investment Principal Role in San Francisco, CA at Afore Capital
Investment Associate Role in San Francisco, CA at Conductive Ventures
Analyst Role in North America or Europe (Remote) at At One Ventures
Associate Role in North America or Europe (Remote) at At One Ventures
Investment Analyst Role in San Francisco, CA or New York, NY at Fin Capital
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, and Isaac
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