Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.
This week we are joined by Andrew McCormack, one of the founding partners at Fintech-focused Valar, which was founded in 2010 and has raised north of $2B. Before starting Valar, Andrew worked closely with Peter Thiel at Clarium Capital, Thiel Capital, and Paypal.
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About Andrew McCormack:
Andrew is a founding Partner at Valar Ventures. Andrew’s career in technology has included business and corporate development roles at eCount (acquired by Citicorp) and Yahoo!. He joined PayPal in 2001, where he worked closely with Peter. After PayPal’s sale to eBay, Andrew helped launch Clarium Capital and later founded a restaurant group in San Francisco.
In 2008, Andrew rejoined Peter at Thiel Capital, where he led various international initiatives for Thiel Capital and Peter personally. Andrew received his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.
In this episode we discuss:
01:47 Andrew’s journey into the technology world and working a Clarium
11:38 Valar’s early investment thesis
18:49 Valar’s fundraising journey
21:15 Benefits of smaller portfolios with more ownership
25:42 Career prolonging investing vs return maximation investing
31:09 How Valar’s model has worked in the down market of 2022
34:30 What was wrong with the 2021 valuations
37:26 The strategies that Andrew thinks will be successful in the Venture market moving forward
41:39 Lessons from some of Andrew’s misses
46:35 The career lesson he learned while he was operating a restaurant group
I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Andrew. 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.
Valar Ventures Andrew McCormack on running concentrated portfolios with higher ownership vs. larger portfolios, learnings from working with Peter Thiel, and thoughts on valuations today