Viswanathan: NewView and NEA support controlled secondary liquidity for founders
Ravi Viswanathan · 20VC: Raising A $1.35Bn Fund I, The Emerging Secondary Opportunity For Early Stage Managers and Founders & What It Takes To Win The Best Growth Deals Today with Ravi Viswanathan, Founder & Managing Partner @ NewView Capital · Apr 6, 2020 · at 28:35
Ravi Viswanathan, founder and managing partner at NewView Capital and former partner at NEA, discusses firm practices regarding founder secondary share sales.
0:00 / 0:12exact quote · 12.4s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“On the one hand, if they want to sell a small percentage of their stock to get some liquidity, and it's more of a pressure release mechanism for them personally, we actually encourage it. And we've done that in the past, both at Newview as well as at NEA.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ravi Viswanathan
Viswanathan: Massive influxes of capital degrade overall asset returns
“Any time you have an influx of capital into any asset class, just a sheer volume of capital coming in much more by a multiple, usually what you see is returns degrade.”
Viswanathan: Most venture capital firms' operational 'value add' is hot air
“Yeah, I think you're spot on in terms of most of what's out there is hot air.”
Viswanathan: SaaS companies now need $200M ARR to go public
“So before, 1015 years ago, SaaS companies with a hundred million, you can go public. Now, it's actually more like 200.”
Viswanathan: Overactive, micromanaging boards cause startup failures
“I find that where companies start failing is when boards get overactive and start micromanaging or vice versa, and that's when you see deterioration, but it's really pretty simple, at least in our approach.”
Viswanathan: Portfolio companies degrade when VCs take over operations
“Whenever that happens, usually the companies degrade pretty quickly.”
Viswanathan: Venture capital fails if private companies do not provide liquidity
“The other way to think about it is, at the end of the day, you can stay private longer, but you really do need to figure out a way to give liquidity to your investors, your venture and other investors, and even your employees. Because if you don't do that, ven…”