Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.
This week we have Alda Leu Dennis, General Partner at Initialized Capital. Founded in 2011, the firm has been an early backer of companies such as Coinbase and Instacart and describes itself as the “Honey Badger” of venture capital. Founded in 2012 with a sub $10MM fund I, they currently ~$1B in AUM.
Prior to joining Initialized, Alda was a managing partner at 137 Ventures (a firm co-founded by past VU guest Justin Fishner-Wolfson). At 137, she led investments in Planet Labs, Wish, Coupang, CourseHero, and Work Market. Alda also has held various operational roles including COO at Airtime, and General Counsel at Founders Fund, and at Clarium Capital. She did her undergrad at Stanford and received her Law Degree at UCLA.
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In this episode we discuss:
01:35 Alda’s journey from being a lawyer into becoming a full-time investor
03:17 Why she decided that investing was a better fit for her
04:44 Why the Initialized ethos was so compelling to her
06:45 Winning today as a generalist early stage investor
09:00 How they have adjusted to the current market framework
13:13 Most common traits she sees of successful founders
14:58 How Initialized gets to ‘Yes’ on complicated and non-obvious companies
16:31 Portfolio construction and follow-on decision making
17:54 Why Initialized decided to move reduce portfolio size for their more recent funds
19:33 Despite the growth of dollars going into VC, the disturbing trend of decreasing funding of female-led companies in 2020
21:00 How Alda wants to increase investments companies lead by women and underrepresented founders
24:42 Navigating embedded biases in the investing community
27:43 How the diversity movement is specifically changing the investing community today
29:22 Alda’s experience of joining Intialized many years after it was founded and how other firms can learn from her experience of integrating new partners
31:29 How a deal meeting at Initialized typically works
34:09 The way Initialized promotes independent thought and decision making within the firm
34:53 The most counterintuitive things she’s learned as an investor
36:31 The most challenging thing about building a durable firm
37:23 The investor that has made the biggest impact on her
Mentioned in this episode:
I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Alda. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.
Initialized Capital's Alda Leu Dennis on building the proper culture for decision making, finding ways to win in today's market, and her concerns with the drop in diverse founder funding.