The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Top Tier never backs first-time fund managers without an investing track record
“While we might invest in first-time funds, we won't invest in first-time investors, so there must be a track”
Top Tier has refused to re-up with top-performing venture funds
“And we've done this, it could be that we're evaluating and doing our compare and contrast, as we call it, and there might be a One of the best performers in our portfolio, and we don't re-up, and the numbers would tell you all day long, you know, with your eye…”
Lisa Edgar: Top Tier managed two VC fund-of-funds with no J-curve
“We had two fund-to-funds that didn't even have a J-curve. I mean, think about it. Venture capital only, fund-to-funds, no J-curve.”
Lisa Edgar always responds to pitch inquiries sent via warm introductions
“If it comes from somebody I know, i.e. A warm introduction, I always answer. I either take a call or meeting, or I turn it over to someone on my team”
Top Tier's average U.S. venture fund commitment is $20 million
“Our average commitment is twenty million, that's because that's kind of what ours is in our main kind of U.S.”
Edgar: Globalization is the biggest shift in venture capital over 20 years
“It's changed, obviously, dramatically from a very small cottage industry that was really Silicon Valley in Boston, so it was really US-based, and I would say the biggest change that we see today is really the globalization, and sitting in this room, you know, …”
Lisa Edgar prefers conversational pitch meetings over deck presentations
“I cannot go through a pitch deck. I just don't have, I don't have the capacity. I think I'm ADD. I don't know what it is. So I like to have a conversation.”
Initial LP meetings assess context while second meetings examine portfolio details
“First meeting, it's more context. Who are you? What are you doing? Why is it different? Second meeting is generally drilling a little bit further into companies because you probably have some, a track record of some sort.”
Top Tier Capital Partners added secondaries and co-investments to shorten J-curves
“So we really added secondaries and co-investments to our portfolio construction so that we could really reduce and shorten the J-curve for institutional investors.”
Top Tier Capital commits to GPs who maintain persistent post-meeting follow-up
“Some of these people have been very good at continuing to keep in front of us, and they are the ones that we've ended up Committing to, because they're doing things, you know, they said they're going to do something, they're giving us more information, and so …”