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Guo: Conviction will not reserve capital for follow-on investments

Sarah Guo · Sarah Guo: On Her New $101M Fund; How AI Impacts Inequality; AI Startups vs Incumbents | E1007 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Apr 28, 2023 · at 48:25

Sarah Guo explains the fund architecture of Conviction to 20VC host Harry Stebbings, detailing why her early-stage firm refrains from maintaining capital reserves for follow-on rounds.

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“Like we are going to invest in the early rounds of a company and we're going to leave money on the table in the later rounds. And it's an explicit decision, but what it means, it's like very focusing, right? Like we make the bets we make with them. We're aligned with the entrepreneur and we're not going to grow our ownership from there, but we're also not going to be distracted by this question of like, You know, like, how do we be constantly underwriting our own portfolio?”

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