May 13, 2019 · 32m · 20vc
20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The 20 Minute VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid about the strategy behind the firm's $600 million fund, Series A valuation dynamics, founder-investor relationships, and startup scaling challenges.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 34.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.7 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 0.5 Harry pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 11:28 Series A valuation reframe
Mamoon mildly counters standard VC assumptions by declaring that Series A valuations are banded and price sensitivity ultimately matters far less than obtaining conviction in the right company.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 19:35 Challenging round timeline compressionHarry directly challenges the trend of compressed round timelines, questioning how VCs can make sound 10-year commitments when diligence and relationship building are forced into weeks.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 11:28 The dirty secret of Series A pricingMamoon reframes the entire pricing debate for Harry, pointing out that whether a Series A check is written at a 30 pre or 45 pre valuation has minimal bearing on long-term fund returns.
Harry holds his own ▶ 8:45 Harry referencing the 37-page pitch deckHarry showcases deep industry research and preparation by pointing out specific elements from Kleiner Perkins' 37-page internal fund deck to steer the discussion on portfolio strategy.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mamoon Hamid's Journey into Venture Capital | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Harry opens with warm gratitude and asks Mamoon to share his background entering venture capital. Mamoon walks through his career trajectory from Xilinx and HBS to USVP and Kleiner Perkins in an entirely collaborative, narrative style. | |
| Kleiner Perkins' 'Back To The Future' Fund Thesis & Portfolio Strategy | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Harry demonstrates strong preparation by citing Kleiner Perkins' 37-page fund deck and asking targeted questions about portfolio construction. Mamoon explains the 'Back To The Future' thesis and sector specialization strategy. | |
| Series A Valuations, High-Conviction Pricing, and Reserve Allocation Strategy | 4 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Mamoon offers a contrarian industry insight, stating that Series A valuations are banded and don't matter as much as ownership. Harry probes deeper into edge cases where pricing stretched beyond normal bands and asks detailed follow-ups about reserve allocation mechanics. | |
| Founder-VC Relationships, Sounding Boards, and Managing Compressed Round Timelines | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | Harry challenges the trend of compressed round timelines, questioning whether VCs can build genuine relationships or conduct thorough diligence in short windows. Mamoon explains that pre-existing relationships and a 'prepared mind' mitigate this issue. | |
| Navigating Organizational Scaling Challenges and Executive Growth | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Harry asks a specific question on behalf of a founder regarding when to retain early leaders despite doubts. Mamoon educates on the nuance of giving internal executives room to scale rather than impulsively replacing them with big-tech VPs. | |
| Building High-Performing Venture Teams: The Basketball Analogy | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Mamoon lays out his basketball team analogy for venture firm building, followed by a lighthearted and friendly quickfire round covering books, food, board members, and recent investments. |
Statements from this episode (11)
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins' $600M fund will strictly focus on Series A
“We want to focus on early stage, which is really truly series A and be the first partner to a great founder and then help them on that journey, which is typically a multi-year, if not a decade plus long journey.”
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins' fund focuses primarily on enterprise and consumer
“Sector-wise, broadly speaking, our focus areas are Enterprise, consumer, fintech, and hard tech, and there's split across those sectors, enterprise being the biggest one, consumer being the second biggest”
Hamid: VCs should leave 20% of their strategy open to serendipity
“Part of, like, I'd say, 20% of the time, you don't want to have a strategy, because there is so much Serendipity in what we do, and so much luck involved in what we do.”
Hamid: Kleiner Perkins invested $10M for 10% in Google's Series A
“I think the Kleiner check was Ten million dollars for like 10% in the Google series A.”
Hamid: Series A valuations jumped from $10M to $30M in ten years
“Valuations at the Series A are banded, and I remember doing investments 10 years ago when a Series A was 10 pre, and now a Series A is 30 pre, and you just have to write bigger checks now to get to the same level of ownership, and that has a, has had a true im…”
Hamid: Kleiner allocates over half of $600M fund to initial checks
“But yeah, in that six hundred million, there is a substantial amount that is reserved for following rounds. But I would say more than half of the dollars are allocated to the first check that we write.”
Hamid: VCs must build relationships with founders a year before Series A
“So you have to have known the founder to have a true relation prior to that and way prior to that, not just like a couple of weeks prior to that, maybe a year prior to that. So part of our job is to actually identify and meet with people way, way, way before t…”
Hamid: Four-week fundraising cycles conflict with ten-year VC board commitments
“You're deciding on investing in a company in a four-week cycle and getting to know people in a four-week cycle, and you're about to go on a ten-year journey with them. Those are, like, two very conflicting timescales, and, you know, we force ourselves to make …”
Hamid: Organizational scaling is the biggest operational challenge post-product-market fit
“I'd say the biggest challenges that companies hit are along the organizational building. The people side of it is scaling of early employees, early leaders, To people who can help hyperscale and double down on what's working. It typically, that is where things…”
Hamid: Startups should promote early internal leaders over hiring external executives
“And the same applies to some very passionate leaders you may have who may not have seen company go from a hundred to a billion in revenue, but they've been really great leaders along the way. And I've actually seen it myself where There's folks that you doubte…”
Hamid: Viz.ai reduces stroke triage time from three hours to five minutes
“A process that would typically take three hours takes now five minutes, and we help save lives, and even worse, actually, is people who get paralyzed because they don't get stented quickly enough. We get that time from hours to minutes and get them stented and…”