EVCA Newsletter | May Edition - the latest VC news, jobs, and events
The days are finally getting longer and the warmth of spring is settling in. The debate still rages on about the state of the economy, but the megafunds like Norwest Venture Partners, General Catalyst, and Andreesen Horowitz continue to raise ever-growing war chests of capital. Crypto is hot again, AI investing maintains its momentum, and the gaming sector flourishes amid an investment renaissance. Whether you’re an economic bull or bear, you feel it from the tips of your fingers to your toes—the landscape of venture capital is shifting as we speak. This forms the backdrop against which the EVCA community will come together tomorrow at our third annual EVCA Summit in Napa. The theme of the Summit, The Next Cycle in Venture, is intended to encapsulate this feeling of transition, evolution, and, most of all, opportunity. We across the EVCA Leadership team look forward to seeing you there.
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this month’s EVCA newsletter!
Meet Ilya Strebulaev, Author of the Upcoming Book The Venture Mindset and Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business
We had the chance to catch up with Ilya Strebulaev, who is a Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and author of the upcoming book The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth. In the Venture Mindset, Ilya provides a transformative playbook for VC decision-making, which is based on his two decades of his research. In this interview, Ilya also shares his thoughts on life and his career.
If you are interested in learning more about the Venture Mindset framework for VC decision-making, you can pre-order your copy of The Venture Mindset, to be released by Penguin Publishing Group on May 21.
Featured Investor
This month we highlight Taylor Oliver of Cervin Ventures as our featured investor of the EVCA community.
Taylor Oliver is a Principal at Cervin Ventures, a Pre-Seed through Series A B2B generalist enterprise tech fund. Taylor prides himself on generating more qualified leads for portfolio founders than any other investor. Before joining Cervin, Taylor successfully helped launch and close two separate first-time funds, a $25.5 million Plug & Play Supply Chain Fund, and Tenacity Venture Capital, a $60M pre-seed and seed stage fund, before the age of 25. Taylor can be found skiing in Lake Tahoe, grinding on the golf course, playing intramural sports, and consuming all Warriors, Giants and 49ers content. As of April 10, Taylor became the youngest alumni in UC Santa Barbara history to join the Board.
EVCA Leaders: Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) Vertical Lead, Rachel Zhao of PayPal Ventures
This EVCA Leadership Series is intended to help the broader community get to know what's going on behind the scenes at the EVCA and highlight the contributions of the over 50 leads across the venture capital industry who make the EVCA possible.
Rachel Zhao is a Principal at PayPal Ventures. Rachel has been focusing on Enterprise and Fintech investment. She is passionate about helping tech companies that are at the forefront of innovation. She joins PayPal Ventures because this is a great platform that can enable her to connect the dots and helps founders, and be supportive from the early days of their entrepreneurship. She is excited to work with founders and VCs in the infrastructure, vertical SaaS, cyber, e-commerce enablement, application AI, and payments ecosystem.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Beyond Deployment: The Critical Tools for Kubernetes Day 2 Operations - Justin Yue of Geodesic Capital, outlines the different tooling that supports this phase of Kubernetes adoption, the use case of each technology, and the companies and open source projects that are providing a solution.
Parallel Tracks: observations from the Jade Empire (Part 1) - Kevin Zhang of Stealth, delves into how China and the US are running parallel technology races with different win conditions and shares some of his observations on technology and economic trends from his trip to China
Green concrete market overview: A multi-billion-dollar opportunity, with Europe at the forefront - Iris ten Have of Extantia Capital, analyzes what makes the cement and concrete industry ripe for trillion-dollar market opportunities
Ada Ventures Framework for Investing in AI-first Companies - Francesca (Check) Warner of Ada Ventures, shares why Ada Ventures thinks Generative AI is still a relatively nascent market in the wider economy and why they believe there’s a lot of value to be built and captured in the space
The Future of Healthcare - Divya Yerraguntla of Syneos Health, interviewed several leading venture capitalists and Angel investors to gain their unique insights into the healthcare industry's emerging trends
Events
Brands2Life x SVB Capital NYC AI Happy Hour | May 1 | New York, NY
VC in DC x Industry Ventures: Spring Mixer sponsored by Fidelity | May 1 | Washington, DC
DC Investor Breakfast & Fireside Chat | May 2 | Hosted by LOVC, MMM, & EVCA
Unleashing Business Potential - Happy Hour | May 2 | New York, NY
SVB Investor Breakfast & Panel Discussion | May 8 | Boston, MA 02109
➡️ For all EVCA events, which are private to EVCA members, please check the Slack community or your inbox for our monthly Member’s Digest.
Jobs
MBA Summer Associate at Mirae Asset Global Investments. To apply for this role, please email your resume to careers@miraeasset.com and include the job
position in the subject.Investment associate at OMERS Ventures. If interested, please send your resume to mmoore@omersventures.com.
Summer Associate at The Urban Innovation Fund in San Francisco, CA.
Accounting and Operations Associate at Mission BioCapital in Cambridge, MA.
Investment Associate, Cybersecurity & Privacy at Munich Re Ventures in San Francisco, CA.
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, Isaac, Ani, and Mane
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