EVCA Newsletter | October Edition - the latest VC news, jobs, and events
The venture capital community is cheering after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by half a percentage point, the first reduction in four years. For all the doomsday talks of potential industry implosion over the last year, it’s a simple rate cut—with the promise of additional ones coming soon—that forms the palliative to generalized industry-wide anxiety. Why the change in spirits now? Lower interest rates mean cheaper borrowing costs, which generally encourage capital allocators into riskier assets like venture capital that can yield higher returns. This spells a potential boon for startups, as they benefit from higher levels of capital available for fundraising. As we’ve seen with past rate cuts, such as during the pandemic, this can spark heightened valuations and greater deal activity in the venture ecosystem. It also raises the question: are we nearing the much-coveted “soft landing” that the economic bulls have been touting or are we merely in a state of ignorant bliss?
And with that bit of introductory fanfare, welcome back to this month’s EVCA newsletter!
Meet Kleida Martiro, Partner at Glasswing Ventures
We had the chance to interview Kleida Martiro, who is a partner at Glasswing Ventures, an early-stage AI-originalist venture capital fund investing in founders reimagining the future of the enterprise and security industries. Kleida shares her story—from moving to the U.S. from Albania, working as Head of Data Science at a startup, and investing in cutting-edge startups as a venture capitalist. Kleida also shares her thoughts on life and career.
Featured Investor
This month we highlight Caleb Appleton of Bison Ventures as our featured investor of the EVCA community.
Caleb Appleton is a Principal at Bison Ventures where he has led investments in Vivodyne, Cobot and a stealth AI drug discovery company. Prior to investing at Bison, Caleb was an investor at Innovation Endeavors, where he focused on frontier technology investments and left to join portfolio company TuneIn, as Senior Vice President and GM leading its $50M subscription business. Caleb began his career at Bain & Company and has a degree in engineering. He also sits on the advisory board for the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory. When not investing, Caleb can reliably be found on two wheels trying to outrun the San Francisco fog. He is also way too particular about his coffee: roasting his own beans and constantly tinkering with his latte art.
EVCA Leaders: AI/ML Vertical Co-lead, Connie Wang of Montage 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.
Connie Wang is a VP at Montage Ventures, backing technical founders at the early stages (Pre-seed through A) in AI applications across financial services, commerce, and built world verticals. Before Montage, Connie held GTM operating roles at a variety of startups from Series A to Enterprise stages, across construction software (PlanGrid, acquired by Autodesk) and SMB fintech (Karat Financial). She started her career in investment banking and is a USC grad. Outside of works she loves doing Barry’s, making ceramics, and being a Frenchie mom.
LP Spotlight: Lucas Fernandez, Senior Vice President, Venture Capital, Talipot
This month we highlight the work of Lucas Fernandez, our featured LP for the month.
Lucas Fernandez is an experienced private markets investor across buyouts, growth equity and venture capital. At Talipot, Lucas is focused on investing across the venture asset class, including emerging managers. Prior to Talipot, Lucas worked with pre-seed and seed companies at Simplexity Venture Studio Fund and supported the Venture Capital and Growth Equity investment team at StepStone Group (NASDAQ: STEP), focusing on building and monitoring customized private markets portfolios for pensions, family offices, endowments, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds.
EVC List Thesis Briefs
The EVC List recognizes the top emerging VCs across the industry. In partnership with Terra Nova, the EVCA publishes research insights from our EVC List winners. Below are this month’s Thesis Briefs from our 2023 EVC List Honorees.
The ‘Unlockable Potential’ in Lending, Investing, and Insurance - Kevin Zhang, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, assesses technological tailwinds for emerging players in this category, as well as areas for innovation that extend beyond vertical tech for financial services.
The Next Wave of Vertical Software Adoption Will Be driven by ‘Subterranean’ Industries - Paraj Mathur, Vice President at BIP Ventures, explores the many ‘hidden’ industries that are poised to drive Wave 2.0 of vertical software adoption.
What We’re Reading
Here we share our favorite content produced from EVCA members across the world:
Lending 2.0: How Verticalisation Will Change Lending Forever - Sheng Wang of Illuminate Financial, delves into the drivers that are causing the verticalization of lending fintechs and what verticalization actually looks like for startups
Where Returns Lie in Venture Capital - Kevin Zhang of Stealth, explains why he believes non-consensus picking remains an under-appreciated source of alpha
Inverted crossing the chasm problem in cybersecurity: what founders and investors need to keep in mind - Ross Haleliuk of Venture in Security, unpacks what crossing the chasm is, why it matters, and what it means for founders and innovators looking to build the next generation of cybersecurity products
Mo' Money, Mo' Problems - Kyle Harrison of Contrary, examines the math behind venture fund AUM
Events
➡️ 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
VC Associate at Allegis Capital, email stuart@allegiscapital.com with your resume if interested
Part-time data science intern at Terra Nova, email adam@terranova.vc with your resume if interested
Connect with us: EVCA, Sam, Adam, Isaac, and Beatris
Do you have something to share with the EVCA community? Submit your writings, announcements, events, and asks for future newsletter publications by clicking on the button below!
Thanks for reading EVCA’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.