Jul 13, 2017 · 28m · mad
VC Fireside Chat // Rebecca Lynn, Canvas Ventures (FirstMark's Data Driven)
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In this DataDrivenNYC fireside chat hosted by Matt Turck, Rebecca Lynn of Canvas Ventures shares her career journey, founder evaluation criteria, and strategic insights on investing in AI, healthcare, and deep tech startups.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Matt holds 17.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Matt as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 3.6 Guest disagreement 1.4 Matt pushing back 1.0
speaking balance: gold is Matt, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 6:24 Dismissing AI hype
Rebecca skepticism-checks market enthusiasm by lightheartedly redefining AI as merely algorithm involved.
Hardest push from Matt ▶ 12:02 Horizontal vs vertical threat thesisMatt directly challenges horizontal investments by arguing tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon inevitably dominate that space.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 25:53 Tort law and AI liability breakdownRebecca leverages her legal background to educate the audience on tort law, common carrier law, and how legal liability frameworks will assess autonomous vehicle decisions.
Matt holds his own ▶ 12:02 Strategic categorization of AI startupsMatt demonstrates sector expertise by articulating the nuanced debate surrounding horizontal platforms versus specialized vertical AI tools.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Matt as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Matt pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Overview of Canvas Ventures and Fund Focus | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | Matt opens by highlighting Canvas Ventures' fund size and key portfolio companies before asking about Rebecca's background. Rebecca shares her career journey from chemical engineering and nuclear research to product management and venture capital. Matt adds light banter around her JD/MBA not being a true sabbatical. | |
| Lending Club Investment and Market Timing | 2 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Matt learns for the first time about how Rebecca was introduced to Lending Club founder Renaud Laplanche. Rebecca educates the host on her investment thesis during the 2008 financial crisis when banks stopped lending to prime borrowers. | |
| Evaluating AI Hype and Voice Technology | 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | Rebecca offers a skeptical perspective on AI hype, defining AI facetiously as algorithm involved. She explains practical applications in voice interfaces and details how CaseText automates legal research and shepardizing for litigation briefs. | |
| Horizontal AI Solutions and CrowdFlower Training Data | 5 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Matt frames the venture debate between vertical vs horizontal AI platforms, noting that incumbents like Google and Facebook often target horizontal software. Rebecca explains Canvas's picks and shovels approach with CrowdFlower and human-in-the-loop training data. | |
| Healthcare Data Applications: Doximity and Vuics | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Matt guides the discussion to healthcare applications, asking about Doximity and Vuics. Rebecca explains Doximity's network effects among physicians and notes how 90% of actionable electronic health record data resides in lab results. | |
| Venture Investment Criteria and Founder Characteristics | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Matt asks what founder characteristics Rebecca evaluates in AI companies and whether technical expertise is mandatory. Rebecca reframes the question away from pure technology, warning against engineers gone wild and advocating for problem-first founders. | |
| Deep Tech Investing and the Luminar LiDAR Story | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Matt asks about Canvas's investment in Luminar. Rebecca recounts how her associate sourced the deal from a young founder running a optics lab, illustrating how top deep-tech exceptions break standard hardware avoidance rules. | |
| Comparing New York and Silicon Valley Tech Hubs | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Matt opens the floor to audience questions covering CaseText, insurance applications, and AI in consumer retention. Rebecca delivers a lengthy legal analysis on liability, tort law's reasonable person standard, and ethical thresholds for AI errors. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Rebecca Lynn claims NexCard was the first online credit card company
“That was NexCard, so the first online credit card company”
Lending Club had 20 employees and $100K in loans at evaluation
“He probably had 20 people at the company at that point in time, done, you know, a hundred thousand-ish, you know, dollars of loans.”
Lynn: Recessions freeze bank lending for 3-5 years, creating prime credit opportunities
“Because in any recession, like, there's always a pocket of prime borrowers to lend to, and the banks weren't going to free up for another three to five years to do anything on that front.”
Lynn: Voice interfaces are definitely the platform of the future
“So Siri, the voice is definitely the platform for the future.”
Lynn: No attorney should file a brief without checking CaseText
“So, you know, if I was an attorney today, there's no way I would go to court or file a brief without checking it through case text, because as an associate, it makes you look like a rock star to your partner.”
Lynn: 80% of Procter & Gamble marketing staff are engineers
“At Procter & Gamble, the marketing, 80% of the marketing people are engineers, right?”
Lynn: About 73% of U.S. doctors are on Doximity
“And they have about, I think it's like, 73% of all the doctors in the U.S. Are on their platform today.”
Lynn: 90% of useful electronic medical record data is lab data
“90% of the useful information is actually your lab data. And all the other stuff is kind of noise.”
Lynn's investment bar: wanting to found or join the startup herself
“So I actually look for the company that I look for and I'm like, damn, I wish I would have thought of that. Right? It's so smart. I wish I would have done that. Or I would go work for this company. So if, you know, let's say I didn't have my venture job anymor…”
Lynn: LendingClub founder demanded she take board seat before signing term sheet
“And when we handed him the term sheet, he's like, I'll sign it, but only if Rebecca's the board member.”
Lynn: Luminar founder Austin Russell ran a laser lab at age 15
“At the age of 15, he was running a laser lab at the Beckman Laser Institute, and never graduated from high school or college, and Stanford pulled them into their applied physics program, and he dropped out as like one of the first Teal Fellows, right?”
Lynn: Building a tech startup in New York is currently an advantage
“I actually think maybe being in New York is an advantage at this point because the noise levels are reduced, right?”
Doximity excels at acquiring hard-to-reach doctors using data science
“I would say Doximity does an amazing job of acquiring, engaging, and retaining the doctors on that platform, because doctors are probably the hardest customer out there to actually acquire, and the way they have applied AI, and they just constantly tune their,…”
Rebecca Lynn: AI will probably outperform all but the top 10% of doctors
“You could imagine a case where, you know, maybe the top five percent of physicians, you know, you're not going to get better then, right? Maybe not the top 10%. But as you get down that stack, you know, AI's probably going to do a better job, right?”