Ravi Viswanathan
Founder & Managing Partner, NewView Capital. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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Ravi Viswanathan founded NewView Capital in 2018 with an inaugural $1.35 billion fund focused on portfolio secondaries and growth-stage investments. Previously, he served as a General Partner and COO at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), leading investments in enterprise software and fintech companies.
2shows
2appearances
52statements
8resolved
8supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
2said about them ↓ Everything Ravi Viswanathan said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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.”
Venture secondaries are only 0.3% penetrated, representing a $100B opportunity
“Venture is 0.3% penetrated. So in that market, our estimation, we've done some analysis, 50 to a hundred billion, just In what we're doing.”
Traditional venture operating partners lack full status and check-writing power
“Probably the biggest difference is they're not full partners, and sometimes they're not in the full partner meetings, and they don't have the check writing capability in that if there's a follow-on or some financing, they have to go back to the partner group o…”
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…”
Viswanathan: Investors should let tired founders drive company exit decisions
“A lot of it really is in close consultation with the founding team, because you may want to hold, but if the founding team and the management team really are closest to the field, obviously, if they see a market transition or if they are getting tired and they…”
Traditional venture capital operates on an 'IPO or bust' ethos
“Since the dawn of venture capital, it's been IPO or bust. You're going to have these, we call them needle movers, these iconic companies that really define venture capital and define venture capital firms. The quest is about that versus we've got really good c…”
Orphaned mid-stage portfolio companies represent a dislocation across the VC industry
“I tested this with a lot of my peers and found that this was not just unique to NIA. This was really, this dislocation was happening across venture, which also made sense.”
Unlike VC, buyout private equity thrives on multi-tiered secondary sales
“On the flip side, if you go to the buyout world, it's this evolution of man, the lower middle market folks. Get companies, and they sell to the middle market folks, sell to the large cap folks, and you have that virtuous cycle. And actually, you have situation…”
Early venture secondary LPs expected steep discounts for high-quality assets
“Two pushbacks from new LPs. One, this was such a foreign concept. They'd never seen such a big venture secondary that wasn't a closeout fund or something else. That was one. The second is they were trading in discounts that were far greater than the discount f…”
Scaling past $10M ARR requires replacing hero sales with operational machinery
“Where you really need to institutionalize. You're going from a hero sale to more systems and processes. You probably need a CRO or a COO. Need a lot more metrics focused, and you need that machinery and that instrumentation layer to get formed.”
NewView underwrites growth investments to 3x to 5x returns
“You underwrite to a three to five X. You have a lower loss ratio to compensate. Maybe the upside isn't as a true power law early stage franchise.”
CEO and board alignment is the best hedge against secondary friction
“What we try to do really is make sure we have a really good relationship with the CEO. It's blessed by the CEO. It's blessed by the board. They see the value add capabilities. And that is the best hedge against any friction in us being able to transact.”
NewView avoids bidding at 80% discounts to protect VC GP relationships
“We won't go and say, we'll do it at an 80% discount. It just doesn't make sense for us because we'd rather not engage on that particular company because it Could be insulting to the GP.”
A 5% secondary discount can be more valuable than a 50% discount
“Discount is important, but I can show you a five percent discount on a company that's far greater than a 50%.”
Financial sponsor M&A will be a vibrant VC exit channel
“We've exited by financial sponsor M&A. That's going to be a very vibrant area over the next decade. And these folks like Vista, Tomo Bravo, and others are arming themselves with tens of billions.”
VC fundraising deadlines create a massive secondary market opportunity
“I would say that a real opportunity is just the explosion of venture firms realizing, okay, I have a fundraising calendar in 23 and 24. I need to do something about it, and that probably is the biggest opportunity, I would say, that's really emerged.”
NewView Capital spun out from NEA in 2018 with 30 companies
“So that's what we did in 2018. We orchestrated a spin-out from NEA with thirty-odd companies, and that's how NuView was formed, which when we closed the fund in late 2018.”
Viswanathan: Venture investors are price-takers for top early-stage companies
“Largely in this business, we are price takers for the best companies. And I think that's generally been the case in the last 20 years of venture with maybe one or two extreme examples.”
Viswanathan: Late-stage venture investing requires much higher valuation discipline
“So price does matter in the later stage because you're not really thinking about, you know, when you're thinking about a hundred X, 500 X, thousand X, whatever it is, those extreme early stage wins. If you pay 50% off for Two, three X off doesn't really matter…”
The other half of the tape: Ravi Viswanathan's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 2 times in 2 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Zach Perret 1Harry Stebbings 1
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tap a year for its mentions
20VC 2
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Ravi's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder & Managing Partner, NewView Capital | 1 | 26 | 100% 3/3 | full record on 20VC → |
 CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Founder & Managing Partner, NewView Capital | 1 | 26 | 100% 5/5 | full record on Capital Allocators → |