Notre Dame endowment has not backed new VC funds in two years
Semil Shah · 20VC: Semil Shah on How To Raise An Institutional Venture Fund, Why LPs Mostly Have Reserve Allocation Theory Wrong & Why IPOs and Acquisitions Are Severely Constrained · Oct 23, 2017 · at 6:32
Semil Shah, founder of Haystack, discusses why first-time seed fund managers struggle to secure commitments from elite university endowments like Notre Dame.
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“Notre Dame may not have invested in a new fund in about two years, considered one of the most selective university endowments out there.”
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More from Semil Shah
Shah: Seed valuations do not matter to multi-stage mega-funds
“The pricing, when you just have three people and they've got a prototype doesn't really matter right now. So if they want four on 20 or four on 25 or four on 30, it just doesn't matter. We can deal with that later.”
Shah: Future Haystack funds will remain capped under $100 million
“Our next funds, by the way, will modestly grow, but I still think, you know, for what we do, it's gotta be under a hundred million dollars.”
Shah: Forcing Haystack to lead every deal lowers portfolio quality
“If we tried to lead everything, we would lower the I think the quality of the portfolio that we're in.”
Shah: Scaling seed funds to $100M+ breaks collaborative syndicate dynamics
“If I had a hundred, fifty million dollar fund, that whole collaboration layer of how we work would change, which would then set off a chain reaction of how the deal flow would change and how we would have to operate with the companies would change.”
Shah: Raising institutional capital requires organic industry chatter and name-checking
“I think that like, if you're not getting name checked by institutional LPs and other people aren't talking about what you're doing, it's almost impossible to raise institutional capital, whether it's a three million dollar check or thirty million dollar check …”