Melanie Nabar
Principal, Volition Capital. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investoranalystLinkedIn ↗volitioncapital.com ↗
She focuses on growth equity investments in software and tech-enabled businesses at Volition Capital. Prior to joining Volition in 2022, she was an investor at Summit Partners and an analyst at Aeris Partners.
1shows
1appearances
17statements
3resolved
2supported
0contradicted
67%fully supported
Everything Melanie Nabar said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Large funds trap growth firms into drifting toward buyout check sizes
“I think a lot of firms fall into the trap of they're really good at a certain stage. That's why they raise funds. That's why they raise multiple funds. But then because they raise such large funds, they have to start to think about, okay, now we're actually ed…”
Excel and PowerPoint skills will become redundant within five years
“I learned skills that will be redundant, like Excel and PowerPoint. Not gonna matter in five years, but we're very helpful in the first 10 years of my career.”
Early-stage VC loss rates will exceed the past decade's average
“I think the loss rates in companies that are early stage will be higher than they have been over the last 10 years, just like they were after the dot-com boom.”
Maturing debt refinancing will drive up private equity loss rates
“And I think that given the anxiety in the market, it will be harder to Get debt facilities if you have balloon payments coming up to replace, and that will actually increase the loss rate for the private equity firms.”
AI-native startups will displace traditional SaaS incumbents
“So that hasn't changed, but what has changed is I think we are going through a shift where there will be haves and have nots on the transition into being AI native. There will be companies that were originally, you know, a typical SaaS platform and do a great …”
Volition Capital builds concentrated portfolios of 15 to 20 companies per fund
“We are investing in 15, maybe 20 portfolio companies. So, more diversified than a founder, but about as aligned as we could get while also having LPs be willing to have us invest their capital.”
Summit Partners and TA Associates created the growth equity category
“Summit and TA were the two kind of first growth equity firms to create this category”
Volition Capital evaluates industries that other VC firms refuse to touch
“We did an exercise where we all reached out to folks. We had, you know, connections, friends that work at other firms, and we asked them, you know, what industries are you not touching right now? Like, you can't bring it to investment committee. Like, you just…”
Volition Capital writes checks between $15M and $80M
“So we'll do series A or series B. It sometimes just depends on whether the company has bootstrapped the business. You know, it could be a series A with a thirty million dollar check. You've never raised any capital before, or it could be a series B with the sa…”
Volition Capital made four hardware-enabled software investments in five years
“We made four investments in hardware enabled software over the last five years.”
Volition Capital always leads its minority investment rounds
“We always lead rounds. Yep. We're minority investors, but we lead the minority round”
Volition targets minority investments in companies with $4M to $25M ARR
“It's always been growth equity. Same stage, same strategy, same thesis, the whole way through. So the check size has increased a bit, so that means, you know, we tend to own a little bit more of the company than we once did, but still staying in that minority …”
Volition Capital reserves 20-25% for follow-ons and has a $200M sidecar fund
“We usually set aside 20%, 25% of our fund for follow-ons. We also have a side vehicle fund, a two hundred million dollar fund, in addition to our core fifth fund, that can invest across all of our funds and do follow-on investments where, where it makes sense”
Volition Capital's typical diligence-to-close period is 30 days
“The process is typically, once you agree on a valuation and terms, 30 days to close where we're doing confirmatory diligence, but more importantly, we're trying to get up to speed on the business so that we can be helpful post-close.”
Volition Capital rarely co-invests on growth equity deals
“We co-invest on rare occasion. We typically look to partner ourselves, but of course, when folks have investors already on their cap table, they could take the pro rata.”
Volition Capital spun out of Fidelity in 2009
“The firm actually spun out of Fidelity during 2009, kind of after the financial crisis.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Melanie's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 INNOVATORS & INVESTORSLEDGER | Principal, Volition Capital | 1 | 17 | 67% 2/3 | full record on Innovators & Investors → |