Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner at Summit Peak Investments, advises emerging venture fund managers against selling management company equity to anchor LPs.
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“Giving up a piece of your management company, it makes that LP very expensive. And ultimately, I think, as a GP, you come to resent that.”
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More from Apurva Mehta
Disclosure
Summit Peak committed $80M to investments before securing an anchor LP
“We committed the entire fund before we had even lined up An anchor investor. So we had nearly eighty million of company investments as well as fund investments by summer of 2018, right when we launched, and the reason for that was all of the GPs we wanted in t…”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 12:5820VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Summit Peak conducts 30 to 50 founder reference calls per new manager
“In any new fund, we are doing anywhere between 30 to 50 reference calls with portfolio company founders.”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 7:0520VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Seed-stage founders care progressively less about institutional VC firm brand
“I think entrepreneurs, at least from our understanding, and when, as I mentioned earlier on reference calls, entrepreneurs care less and less at the seed stage about brand.”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 10:1820VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
Disclosure
Summit Peak halves allocation sizes for fund managers who raise funds annually
“So in our own fund, we know that some managers are going to come back every year with a new fund, or every -- And so instead of a normal sized allocation, you cut it in half so that we can have the capital to go back fund after fund after fund.”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 27:3320VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
Disclosure
Summit Peak tracks follow-on investments from top VC brands like Benchmark
“Look, I would be bullshitting you to say that it's not important to us. Those brand names do matter, whether that's Benchmark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital. They are great funds, and they're great investors at various stages, and you want to se…”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 29:2720VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
Insight
Founder references are the most important metric for evaluating early-stage GPs
“In early stage venture, the most important piece is references from founders.”
Apurva MehtaAug 17, 2020▶ 7:0020VC: Why Entrepreneurs Care Less About Firm Brand at Seed, How LPs Should Think About GP Commit & How The World of LPs and Fundraising Will Change Post COVID with Apurva Mehta, Managing Partner @ Summit Peak Investments
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