#1 - High Heels on the Job Site

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Welcome to the first episode of the Tech Optimist Podcast. I'm Mike Collins, the founder and CEO of Alumni Ventures. The Tech Optimist Podcast covers topics at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital. In this first episode, we have 3 blocks for you. In block 1, I interview one of our founders, Jana Wansalak. I'll tell you a little bit more about her company Bundle in just a moment. In block 2, I talk to one of our young principals, Naren Ramaswamy, on 3 things that VCs and entrepreneurs are talking about. Finally, in block 3, I get an update from Laura Rippy A leading VC who talks about the status of women in the venture ecosystem. Enjoy the show. As a reminder, the Tech Optimist podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not personalized financial advice, and it is not an offer to buy or sell securities. For important additional disclosures, please see the text description accompanying this episode. In this block, I chat with the CEO of AV portfolio company Bundle, Jana Wansalak. Her startup, which she founded with a Stanford Business School classmate, is working to bring tech-powered buying solutions to small builders. She's still at the seed stage, but the Bundle team has made some real progress. Hi, Jana. Um, where does this find you today?

Yeah, I'm calling in from Oakland, California, actually about to go interview someone down the street, um, and then head into San Francisco for a meeting this afternoon. So, popping around, but Bay Area.

Great. Excellent. And, uh, tell our listeners about Bundle. What's your, what's your genesis story? What do you guys do? Yeah,

totally. So Bundle is an end-to-end procurement platform or a digital procurement platform that makes it easier to buy, sell, or manage construction materials. We're really focused on the SMB residential space, and we've seen that when builders are using Bundle, they're able to run their purchasing process at 10x speed and also find between 10 to 20% cost savings on products. So, super cool, really addressing the problem that almost every construction project, 98% of construction projects finish over time and over budget, and that results in almost $400 billion in spend annually in the US. As a result of procurement issues, and so myself and most of our team have come from the construction industry, really seeing the challenge real time. How old school and sort of antiquated a lot of processes are in design and construction. I think for me personally, before coming out to the West Coast for business school, had very much been feet on the ground in design and construction. Had project managed the headquarters of the company I was at, and. Had really built a cool project at the end of the day, but finished way over time, way over budget, and opened my eyes to how antiquated and fragmented so much of design and construction really is and how much we really need to step upstream and rethink how some of the processes happen to unlock better building downstream.

Yeah. So just to play it back from my own brain, it's, you know, this is a small builder that's building what, dozens of homes a year and they're keeping track of All of the stuff that goes into building a house, what, on spreadsheets and, you know, file cabinets? Do they, do they typically have a person that does this or they're doing it themselves or?

Yeah, great question. And exactly right. A lot of this is pen, paper, spreadsheets, phone calls, emails, sometimes faxes, the dreaded fax machine. Um, and they often will have someone managing the process. For a small builder, they're often pulling someone off of a job site, which can be a challenge, that person has something else that they could be doing. I would say if you're looking upstream at a bigger builder, they have the money to throw at a purchasing team who are negotiating relationships further up the supply chain. They have volume so they can negotiate some of those relationships. You're exactly right. As a smaller builder, you don't have that money to throw at the problem necessarily, and a lot of your projects are different from one to the next. And so you're needing to call, you know, tens to hundreds of suppliers on every project, figure out Pricing, lead times, basically run a bid process, then handle payments with all those guys, and then figure out where all your products are on their way to the job site. So Bundle allows you to do all of that in one platform. I would say the other value that we bring, hence our name Bundle, is that we're essentially aggregating small and medium builders together, or small and medium projects together, and giving that access further up the supply chain, almost like a buying group, in that we're getting them Hopefully better pricing, lead times, availability, maybe even just better return policies or more direct communication to a manufacturer or to a wholesaler than they've been otherwise.

Cool. So tell us a little bit about the, you know, the company. Where are you in your journey? Uh, you have a co-founder. How'd you guys meet? You know, that part of the story.

Yeah, definitely. So, uh, met my co-founder Edison at business school. Uh, he had been an architect for about 5 years before coming to business school. So, I'd seen very, very similar challenges in the industry, but from a, a different angle. Um, we've been around now for about 2 and a half years, which is wild. Time flies. Um, but we had raised about a million-dollar pre-seed end of 2021. Um, closed about a $4 million seed round last February, so about a year ago. And we're now—

How far was it from zero?

Team of 11 with some contractors beyond that. Um, Churning away, kind of solid early product, early customer base. And 2024 is a hopefully big year of growth for us, really focused on solving some of the go-to-market questions. You know, we've obviously sold to a bunch of customers so far. Where's the unlock there, whether it's kind of market angle or also just how do we have a rinse and repeat process to really grow fast and through?

Tell me a little bit about, you know, when you bring technology to maybe an industry or a customer base that, you know, hasn't had a lot of it yet. Even, even if it's clearly a better way to do it, you know, you run into just change and people are busy and they don't— this is the way we've always done it. How have you guys thought about kind of addressing that kind of roadblock that all businesses like yours face in their journey?

Yeah, definitely. I would say 2 different things. One is, I really think having a team that comes from the industry goes a really, really long way. People that can talk the talk and sort of see around corners, people who have experienced the exact pain points that our customers have, really, really helps in those early sales conversations. But even beyond that, I would say the other big thing is, it's an interesting time in construction tech right now because we are often convincing people to go from You know, spreadsheets, no software into software. But a lot of the builders we talked to have actually tried out some sort of software at this point, and many of them have been burned. Yeah. And so I would argue it's almost more complicated than just getting them to try it because there's often been software that either was overpromised to them or took so much time to onboard. Again, they're small teams. If they've spent a ton of time getting everyone up to speed for a solution that doesn't really work, They're much more cautious of doing that again. And so one of the things that I think even differentiates us in the industry is that we've built a tool that is almost zero onboarding. Like, we honestly go from demo call to, you know, send us a list of products, you're onboarded essentially. And it's a really, really simple and streamlined process to get things moving. Part of that is we're trying to take the workflow from you. So we aren't a product that works that need you to sit in. Every day, it's a little bit more like you wake up in the morning, go to work, log into Bundle, do your couple tasks, and then you're out. Hopefully, you know, 10, 20 minutes max. Um, and with that, we really focus on sort of shaping an experience that's really lightweight for the builder to really address something like that.

How has it been as a, you know, as a woman in what I'm guessing was a very male-dominated Construction business. Is it oh they remember me because I'm a woman, or is it you know does it make it more challenging? What's what's been your experience on on yeah real life?

Yeah, it's a great question. I think it very much depends on who we're selling to. The industry is definitely changing for sure. I think being memorable is great. I actually wrote a blog at some point that was basically like I'm memorable because I. walk across a job site in high heels, and that's not typical. I do think, I mean, I've definitely picked a sales team that looks a little bit more like the industry for selling to some of those customers, and sort of dropping by a job site definitely goes a long way, I think, when you can establish credibility, and some of that is looking the part. But I do, we actually work with a lot of different, I would say younger kind of new generation type builders and designers. And so it's actually been nice to have a pretty diverse team to kind of cater to a lot of different customer types as well. And it's an interesting time in the industry which has sort of created this boom in construction tech in that a lot of people are retiring out of the industry that— Do you see? Fit more of that old school mold and not enough new people coming in. And so the people that are family businesses or in the industry a little bit younger are really looking for solutions to bring the businesses forward. But also there's not enough labor. And so it's an interesting kind of like time to be innovative tech. We have a solution for you. Sometimes we market ourselves as your outsourced purchasing team. And kind of with that, people are sometimes looking for something new or kind of different from industry as usual. So our business has a unique role.

Take a step back. I mean, you know, you're a strategic thinker. What do you see as kind of in construction tech? What are kind of some of the big big trends that just, you know, are tied to the macro things hitting the industry right now?

Yeah, definitely. I think digitization is the last 5 to 10 years. Wi-Fi on a job site is huge, just something that really unlocked a lot. For us directly, COVID was massive also. I think builders were already thinking moving to software and digital world, or at least a lot of them were. But the supply side was still pretty resistant. They benefit a lot from—

Yeah, the supply chain got so screwed up, they were almost forced to change.

Exactly. And, you know, to sell product, you had to not just be brick and mortar. So big push there. But that's a couple years ago trend. Now, I would say I've seen some interesting things in AI generally. I think a lot of the AI in the industry, in my opinion, is searching for a problem. We're trying to leverage it as much as possible. internally to make things smarter, better, faster, easier for our builders. But we're already solving a big problem with a little bit more of an old school kind of tech approach. Yeah. The other really, really big trend and tailwind is labor generally. Like I mentioned, a lot of people are leaving the industry, not enough are coming in. And while we, I mean, we do directly impact that, we aren't just solving labor first and foremost, but we do kind of take the place of a purchasing team in some regards. We need someone to operate the software. So if you have a purchasing person, you're really empowering them to do their job better, faster, more easily, run into less issues. But actually an interesting customer story, our, one of our oldest customers, so it's been around with us for about 2 years now. They actually were piloting with us and lost their procurement person. Hmm. And they were thinking, do we even need to hire someone? Let's just use Bundle. And that's what they've been doing for 2 years now. They have their designers and construction team. plug into the software where they need to, whether that's from a job site or to actually order something, but they don't actually have that in-house purchasing team. We actually just finished our 2023 year-in-review with them and showed that we're saving them the equivalent of 1.5 full-time employees every year, which for a small business is huge.

Huge.

Not to mention the cost savings with products and sort of getting them that bulk buying power, at least in some product categories. So, definitely interesting on the labor front, and I think we'll continue to see some more of that too.

What are you most excited about for Bundle in 2024?

Yeah, I'm excited that we have a really strong product, really strong team. Uh, I think we've proven now, we did a couple million in GMV last year, doubled GMV and revenue, and so have a little bit of a roadmap to what we can do to keep growing this year. And I'm excited. We just grew the sales team. Another salesperson started yesterday, just kind of putting more fuel on the fire and really seeing what we can do with this, how many customers we can really help solve some of these problems for. And one of the big pushes for us over the last year has been growing our supply side of the business. And so last year, we went from about 8,000 products in our system to 50,000. And that continues to grow every day. And so we're really starting to see More of the connections happen across what we think of as a managed marketplace, sort of powered by, or sort of, uh, a managed marketplace that we build on top of that with workflow tools on either side. Mm-hmm. Um, what's interesting about our business is that, well, I joke that my next company is just gonna be a software company because we have basically built a software product for our builders and a totally separate product for suppliers, and it only works if everything is working well across the middle. Typical marketplace dynamic. Um, but we're starting to see enough of those relationships, a solid enough product to really start seeing that marketplace hopefully tape off a little bit. Um,

yeah, I mean, those two-sided marketplaces are hard and they take a long time, but if you can, if you can do it, like TikTok was really powerful and a huge moat. And then you start getting into really powerful flywheels, like You know, just, you know, stuff that's good is really hard. It takes a long time for sure. So, um, any, yeah, tell me, give me an ask for our, how can our investors, people who've invested in your company, people who are just fans of, you know, cool companies, entrepreneurs, how can they help you? What's your ask for our audience?

Yeah. So one of my favorite parts of the industry is that almost everyone I talk to is either directly related in construction or has a brother, cousin, friend of a friend, XYZ, who is in construction and can kind of relate to some of the problems that we're solving. And so my ask is I would love to talk to any and all of those people, both from a learning perspective, but I think the go-to-market in an industry like this is the hardest piece of, you know, a lot of direct selling, a lot of network effects and referrals and things like that. So would love to talk to any of those people. Feel free to email me, jana@bundle.build. Yeah, Jana.

J-A-N-N-A at bundle.bills.

Yep.

Excellent. Okay. Any questions for me, Jana?

Uh, how are you doing today? What's up?

I'm doing great. Actually, I, um, you know, spring is in the air here in New Hampshire and, uh, days are longer and, uh, you know, super busy. The venture industry, you know, has had a bit of a You know, backlog of deals and companies kind of putting off getting funded. And now it seems like, you know, everybody's closing a round. And so super busy, but that's always fun.

Yeah.

Um, yeah. Well, thanks for your time today, giving us an update on Bundle, and we'll talk again soon.

Take care. Sounds great.

Have a good one.

Bye.

Just a brief interruption to tell you a bit about Alumni Ventures and our Doctors Innovate Fund. Alumni Ventures enables individuals to invest in startups shaping the future. We build diversified portfolios by co-investing alongside renowned lead investors. Today, we serve over 10,000 investors who have invested more than $1.3 billion. From transformative healthcare services to groundbreaking diagnostics, our founders are paving the way for a healthier future. If you're curious about diversifying your portfolio and helping to drive the next wave of medical breakthroughs, visit us at av.vc.

Thanks, Jana. Sometimes the best businesses are hard and grindy and take a long time, but bringing technology to a sector that has been slow to adopt it can be hugely rewarding and valuable. If you can crack the code. Bundle is off to a promising start, and we wish them continued success. Our community often asks me, what are you seeing, hearing, thinking about? I thought others in the audience might find this interesting as well. In this segment, I picked 3 things that I recently talked about with fellow entrepreneurs, VCs, or others in the ecosystem. This segment, it's an experiment. Let me know what you think. Hi, Naren. Why don't you introduce yourself?

Hey there. My name is Naren. I work as a principal on the Spike Ventures Fund for Alumni Ventures, and I cover enterprise AI and deep tech. Mike, excited today to talk about what's on the mind of VCs. So why don't you tell us, what are 3 things on your mind With regard to the market right now?

I think the Oprah special about GLP-1 drugs is getting a lot of buzz. You know, everybody talks about AI appropriately as kind of a huge transformational technology. But I think there's a lot of folks that think this class of drugs, given that such a huge percentage of the population struggles with obesity, And that we have a lot of our economy is really driven about, you know, cheap food and dealing with exercise and weight loss and body image and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, and it's happened before, you know, that Oprah has kind of created a waypoint in societal conversations with mental health, Equal pay, literacy. You know, she moves her superpowers. She moves the conversation, and you know, she has been very open about her own struggles managing her weight. And you know, kind of America has followed that journey alongside her for forty years. And when she comes on and says, you know, this is a big deal. And we now understand more that this is a chronic disease and that there are now the beginnings of a class of drugs that are fundamentally empowering many patients to address their disease in a way that has never been done before, where you can really decide what your ideal weight is and you can get there without You know, people testing your character, willpower, or or something that really does not do justice to the fact that this is a chronic disease. So, you know, I think I think it's a seminal moment in our discussion of obesity as a society. And then with you know as a venture capital. person, you know, everything's, everything's a nail. So, you know, venture people are thinking about, okay, what is the investing opportunity? What is the investing horizon if we have, you know, this drug out there? I mean, our job is to be thinking 3 years ahead. Clearly, there are issues about availability, cost. Insurance companies, incredibly, insurance companies not covering this drug. I guess they'd rather someone have a heart attack or treat— be treated with diabetes for 15 years. But money will talk and that will get addressed. And if you look at the pipeline of other drugs, drugs in pill form, drugs that are addressing Kind of other receptors. It is a very robust pipeline. So again, I think the way the world's going to be 5 years from now based on this technology is transformative. And I do think, so I would say the Oprah moment for GLP-1 drugs would be kind of number one on what people are talking about this week. I think If there was a second point in the rain, I would say stuff going on with Apple and AI is also getting a lot of buzz. I think kind of a long-anticipated lawsuit by the Justice Department is hitting. I think that is within the climate of a very different kind of regulatory environment where big tech is really kind of in the crosshairs and a lot of M&A being chilled by a much more aggressive regulatory environment is getting talked about. I also think there is a lot of buzz about what is Apple's strategy when it comes to AI. And rumor talks with Microsoft and Google. Again, smart company, they know they have to play, they lean into privacy, chips on your phone, AI on your phone. I think that is also clearly something that a lot of people are thinking about, talking about, and well, what's Apple's play in the whole AI world going to be? So I think that's That would be number 2. And number 3, I hear a lot of people talking about Lex's interview with Sam Altman. And, you know, great interviewer, one of the great innovative minds of our generation. Clearly lots of good nuggets, perspectives, tidbits on AI, where ChatGPT is going, what ChatGPT-5 might look like, where it will AGI, how do you define it, where it's going? But for me, the very human part of that conversation where he talks very personally about the weekend when he's fired and the emotional rollercoaster, the fact that to this day, it has impacted trust and the way he thinks about his board and trusting his board. Lessons he's learned about governance, the fact that as an entrepreneur, literally, I was also struck by the fact he's fired at 10:00 a.m. and by 6:00 p.m., he's thinking about his next startup. And again, there was so much of the personal side of Sam's conversation with Lex about that weekend that Again, I think just a lot of entrepreneurs and board members can relate to and learn from. Yeah. So, for me, those are kind of the 3 things that I'm hearing, I'm talking about, I'm personally thinking about that are kind of going on this week.

That's great. Thanks for sharing. I'd love to double-click on those. So, starting with GLP-1's Oprah moment.

Yeah.

Where do you think the ripple effects are for VC investors to really see where the puck is going and invest accordingly?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's 2 parts to that. I think you have to, one, have a prepared mind. And so if you envision that that can be the future, if you're getting pitched from A couple of entrepreneurs, I think you're prepared to fold that into the reality of the future that they're building their company in, in the same way you need to think about that in the world of, you know, through the AI lens. So, part of it with a VC is you don't have to come up with all the ideas or all the areas, but you just need to hear when someone has nailed it and be prepared to back their journey. I think there is a lot more thought that we all need to give to, and this is trite and flippant, but like, what does a skinny America look like? Because that is not, we have an obese America today. And from how people eat, how they exercise, how they interact with each other, Nareen, some very smart hedge fund guys with public equities have had the Ozempic trade kind of paired trade in place for a while now, which is to simplify, I'm short McDonald's and I'm long Lululemon. Or because again, somebody goes from being 100 pounds overweight to what they what they were when they were 30. That changes buying behavior, eating habits, exercise. You need fewer hip replacements. You want to travel more. There is all kinds of very interesting, very thoughtful, very deep ideas out there. And so, I think there's flavors of the Ozempic trade that VCs need to think about. And invest behind. And one of the things that was even in the Oprah special in the Reign was just a brief but powerful interaction with the CEO of Weight Watchers. And I think a company like Weight Watchers or the new companies that are going to be in that space need to be thinking not so much about like, I am going to provide the framework and tools to help you lose weight. But I'm going to be your partner to deal with all of the other things that are going to go into you being 100 pounds lighter, which is, you know, the psychological part of it, the exercise part of it, the healthy part of it, the how do your relationships change. You know, it— there is a lot that goes into, unfortunately, how people look and how people their energy levels. So I do think, I think that's an example of just one little slice is I think there's a whole new generation of people that are going to help partner with people through this journey beyond just the drug is going to make it an order of magnitude easier to lose weight and keep that weight off.

Absolutely. And you alluded to this, but Morgan Stanley reports that up to 25% of Americans have expressed interest in GLP-1 drugs. And right now, it seems like it's only 1 or 2% of the population that is actually using them. So we are on the cusp of a large consumer trend here.

Yeah, no, I was joking with somebody. I was talking to somebody in Hollywood actually yesterday. And it's like, if you look at the early adopters of these GLP-1 drugs, disproportionately Hollywood and the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And, those people, they're losing that excess 20 pounds. They're not the people that are— there is a big class of people that need this that it's too expensive, they're not confident, their doctor isn't educated enough. Yeah. No, we have not hit the big part of that curve at all yet. And so, yeah, there's more ahead for sure. We're in the first inning.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, switching topics to AI, you've previously talked about AI in your pocket as an investment thesis, how AI is going to become more and more ubiquitous. And Apple seems very well positioned with their tech prowess as well as their distribution. If 40% of Americans own an iPhone, How do you see this playing out over the next 5 years?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's going to— I don't think there's one size fits all. I think there's going to be corporate solutions. I think there's going to be public solutions. There's going to be open source solutions. And then I think, and this is again where I think the buzz is, I think Apple, because of the intimate relationship they have with you and your phone and strategically or philosophically leaning into privacy and all kind of the biometric security that is already in Apple phones. I have no inside information, but I just think it's a natural marriage that they're collecting information about from my watch about my walking. You know, it is a very intimate piece of technology with all of us. And I think there's a lot of issues that people have with AI and sharing a bunch of personal stuff. Just take health information, for example. You know, do I want that up in the cloud? Do I want that on some website? Or do I want that in a very private, locked-down, secure place? Where my personal AI gets to know me and my habits in a way that I feel is safe and secure, is giving me advice. You know, I think that AI in your pocket that is very personal, that grows with you as you grow over years and years and years, I just think is a natural. And I think Apple is either going to make or buy and you know, is going to be a player in this space. I think that's inevitable. How and why, you know, the execution of it, you know, I trust that they're going to figure it out. But I think it's a space, very, very interesting.

Yeah. And that's a good segue into Sam Altman talking about this in his interview with Lex about how, about the ubiquity of AI. And he alluded to the fact that OpenAI will be releasing another new model this year. And that GPT-5 is going to be miles ahead of GPT-4 with the infinite context length and models like Sora, which help convert text to video. So definitely a lot of activity there. How do you sort of see AI playing into the physical world?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think one of the takeaways from Sam, who's dealing with things that are probably 2 years away from us seeing, What he's working on and seeing and knows that is reality, he looks at what ChatGPT Turbo or whatever is the latest release and thinks it's awful. So, and all of us that are kind of dealing with the public versions of this say, hey, this is powerful already. So, I just think it gets a sense listening to him of the slope that we are still on. That this is, that we are still on the steep part of this slope. And I think it was very exciting for him to talk about where he sees the crossover between robotics and AI being just a natural marriage that, you know, we're gonna bring all of these great innovations that are going on in robotics right now. Yeah. Married with all the great innovations going on with AI, I think it is again inevitable, and I think that that is going to be a very powerful enabling technology that'll again kind of take the most dangerous, the most repetitive, the most mundane. Jobs in our society and replace them. And I think that is a good thing. And so, if you just take the most dangerous jobs, right? Those are jobs that I think are going to get attacked first. And again, I was looking at a startup that was doing things in picking fruit, Which is a very kind of fine motor skill, but repetitive, tough job, right? And again, combination of needing a physical tool. Somebody has to actually grab the plum or the apple and pull it from the tree, but you have to pick the right one at the right time, the right way. Those are all machine learning AI systems. And again, I just, I think it is so exciting and such a golden age to be at these companies or be investing behind these kinds of management teams. So yeah, again, I think the trajectories of both of those and just again, a little inside baseball. We obviously have an AI fund that I think is on its 4th vintage here at AV. And I think for our next fund, which will be in the spring of 2025, we're probably, it's going to be AI and robotics. We're probably going to merge those. those investing areas together as just a personal statement that we think that there's just groundbreaking work in both and they're related. They're different but related enough that I think investors will want a portfolio that covers both.

Absolutely.

Good.

And definitely agree. Very exciting time to be an investor. Thanks for your thoughts.

Yeah. And we'll talk again in a couple weeks. Thanks, Naren.

Hi everyone, I'd like to take a quick break and tell you a bit about Alumni Ventures and our AI fund. Alumni Ventures offers smart, simple, and accessible venture portfolios for individual investors. We build diversified portfolios with low minimums, co-investing alongside established lead investors. It's a strategy that has mobilized over $1.3 billion from our community of more than 10,000 investors. With our AI fund, you will have the opportunity to invest in startups focused on advancement in AI, including areas such as machine learning, natural language models, speech recognition, machine vision, and more. AI has the potential to revolutionize multi-billion-dollar sectors such as healthcare, education, and transportation by improving efficiency, accuracy, and productivity while also potentially solving complex global challenges like climate change and disease outbreaks. So if you're interested in a portfolio of companies focused on revolutionary AI advancements, visit us at avi.vc.

Thanks, Naren. A powerful thing within the venture capital ecosystem is cross-generational learning and collaboration. I just hit 60. But I really love spending time and learning from the next generation. It energizes me, and I look forward to many more conversations with young people in the business. In this block, I chat with Laura Rippy, one of our managing partners, about the state of play of women in the venture ecosystem. Bringing together women VCs, founders, and capital has never been done at the scale that Laura and her team plan to do it.

Laura, welcome to the Tech Optimist podcast. Let's just kick things off. Tell the audience a little bit about yourself and your role at Alumni Ventures. What do you do, day job?

Yeah, thanks, Mike, for having me on board. So, I wear a few hats here. So, today we're talking about the Women's Fund, and I am so excited to share more about it. But my other hats at Alumni Ventures I run 2 of our flagship funds, I think, the Green D Fund for Dartmouth alums and the Yard Ventures for Harvard alums. And I'm also on the board here and just a longtime fan of what we're building at Alumni Ventures. So, couldn't be happier to be joining you today.

Excellent. So, yeah, today we're talking a little bit about kind of the women in the venture ecosystem. What's the state of play? I mean, you know, there's women founders, women investors, women VCs, kind of where are we in spring of 2024?

Yeah, there is a funding gap. And that to me means an opportunity. So at this point, about 25% of venture-backed startups are led or co-led by women, but it only gets about 15% of Hmm. So, what's the flip of that? That means 75% of all startups are only male founders, and it means 85% of venture dollars go to all-male leadership teams. That, I think, is an opportunity because if you actually unpack the female leadership of those startups, you learn that female-led startups tend to be more capital efficient and they exit sooner. So if you combine that data with the fact that most partners in venture firms, call it 90%, 90-plus percent of decision makers are male, you realize that we have discovered an opportunity here that really should be addressed by the investors that come into Alumni Ventures and the Women's Fund.

Yeah, it seems that, you know, we've made Somewhat more progress with the number of women entrepreneurs. You know, again, I'm an old-timer.

And, you know, if you look at just the startups at the pre-seed, seed round, that ratio is improving and much more diverse along a lot of dimensions than it was, you know, 15 years ago.

Correct.

But it seems a lot bigger lag when it comes to really the other parts of the ecosystem, which are people like yourself who are investing professionals, VCs, and the funding gap is still, you know, and as you point out, a business opportunity, really, there's gender arbitrage, frankly. Yeah. And, you know, I think the other interesting thing is really The capital side of this equation, right? I mean, we're all, I think, familiar with women controlling more and more capital in our society, which is probably— and we have this huge generational wave coming that is just mind-boggling. Right. in trillions, tens of trillions of dollars that is going to be passed on from the wealth accumulated by baby boomers to the next generation.

And that wealth transfer is going to be gender even, frankly.

That's right.

So, it's like for me, there's 4 buckets. There's entrepreneurship and women starting businesses. Women controlling capital to invest in those businesses.

Correct.

And women partners at venture firms and LPs. And again, then just women writing checks. And I think we're making some progress, but it's uneven and it's still a huge gap.

Well, I see that in my own career, candidly, Mike.

Yeah.

So, when you were hearkening back to times where there were fewer female founders, I can share a personal story. I'm in the process of moving, and I found this publication of an investment bank where I was one of the presenters when I was a CEO. So, this publication had all 75 of the teams that were presenting at this conference. And to date myself, it was back when, uh, before Salesforce was public. So, Marc Benioff was one of the presenters and I was a presenter as a CEO. In this document, they had not just the CEO, but the top 5 executives of each company. Yeah. I went through this book page by page, 75 companies, and my name was the only female name on the mastheads.

Yeah, crazy.

Not just the only CEO, but the only executive. So, I do think we've moved forward. And I do think you're right in terms of improving on so many fronts, starting at seed, moving along. I also think your point about this particular moment and the way that Alumni Ventures comes into the opportunity hits those elements, right? So, we are investing in female founders. We are an all-female team of VCs. But more than that, we empower, because it is Alumni Ventures, the individual accredited investors who want to address that funding gap to put their capital to work in these really high-quality deals that we fund. So, we stir that pot. We bring it together. It's the women and the allies who have been very successful in their careers. They know that the female leaders that they admire and look up to have met and that they want to support are fiery and they're capital efficient and they're very ambitious and they want to put their capital to work in those. And we enable it with the Alumni Ventures Women's Fund by investing in those amazing female founders and giving the investors an opportunity to put their capital to work in it.

I mean, to my— I think it's incredibly exciting. I mean, it's— I think it's the only situation that I'm aware of In the whole venture ecosystem where we're talking about really women capital, women VCs deploying it in women founders. I mean, there are people that have a slice of that, but this is, I think this is the most vertically integrated community capital source. Yeah. So the AV Women's Fund, I think, is really going to break. ground. And I think there's tremendous flywheels in that kind of vertical integration, if you will. Do you want to talk a little bit about how our community really gets involved with all of our funds in sourcing and helping portcos and things like that?

Yeah, absolutely. So, the Women's Fund has a suite of scouts. that is helping us to surface more opportunities. So, those— I'm really flattered. Many of those are our Portco CEOs. So, the Women's Fund at Alumni Ventures starts from this position of strength. We have 357 companies that are either founded, co-founded, or led by women that are already in the portfolio. Wow. These companies went through our rigorous process, all of the diligence, all of the scrutiny that we do, We weren't even really looking at whether or not the CEO was a woman, whether it was co-founded by women. They came into our portfolio because they were really quality deals. Mm-hmm. So, some of those women have now stepped up to be venture scouts for us. So, that to me is incredibly special that they care about this mission. They've seen what Alumni Ventures does as an investor, and they want to encourage other female CEOs to work with us so that we can invest and put our capital to work on their cap tables. So that's one piece of it. I think the other part is the community. So for instance, yesterday I was speaking to an investor who's coming into the Women's Fund. She has been a CFO, I think she said like 20 times, for PE-backed companies. So she comes in and turnaround situations. This woman is a powerhouse, right? And she says, I know how women lead, and I know that I can help some of these women with my capital. But give me a call, Laura. If any of them are raising money, let me know. Maybe I can help them with their pitch deck. Maybe I can help them open a door or give them some counsel and advice. So that virtuous cycle that I was talking about, where it's the investors who are fueling this Alumni Ventures Women's Fund with their capital, helping us to invest in these amazing founders, leveraging the fact that we have venture scouts who are opening some of those doors. And then, of course, the team you mentioned— myself, Mira, Sophia, Brittany— we are excited to compose this portfolio and to be those, those, you know, female investors that folks can turn to and understand the portfolio as it comes together.

Yeah, you touch on, you know, the fact that, you know, Alumni Ventures is in Backed 350 plus companies with women in leadership positions, and yeah, the fact is that was we invested in the company because we thought it was a great investment opportunity led by a top-tier VC firm who happened to have a women a woman founder, and so. It's such a position of strength, I think, to launch this community and this fund. It's really, really powerful. And are there— I know we all struggle with loving all of our children equally, but just to give listeners just a sample of the kind of companies that we invest in here, And their lead investor and kind of the, you know, the kind of problems that our founders are working on and building a new venture. Just any little— Yeah.

Happy to share some of those stories because they're so dear to my heart. And I hope you've got a few hours for me to tell all the stories. But so, one that comes to mind is KerryFirst. So, this is a gaming and payments platform in Africa. So, the round that we joined, Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, was doing double their pro rata. We followed the leading gaming VC into the round. And that kind of quality deal, how did we get access to it? Female founder. And specifically, because we're alumni ventures, we followed the alumni thread. In this case, it was a Dartmouth female founder, and that was the entry point into the deal. Another example is Kindbody. So Kindbody is a fertility platform led by the indomitable Gina Vartesi. When we invested back, I think it was about 2018, it was the Series A. And I remember distinctly that the lead VC from RRE was a woman. My team was all female at the time, and obviously Gina's team was all women. And that was a Series A. If you fast forward to today, that company's valuation in the most recent round led by JPMorgan Health is a $1.8 billion valuation. So, that belief in where the company is going and getting in early is a piece of what we do. So, I think those are 2 examples I can come up with. I love those.

Yeah.

The analogy of this is where we created Alumni Ventures around community and that we could do better together than any of us could do individually. And there's just in our society, there's affinity. We're both Dartmouth people and it's just, there's a school connection that just made a lot of sense. And that's a powerful— Yeah. connection and flywheels and value added.

It is. It gets us into places. I'll give you another example, a cybersecurity company called, um, Acto. So their round was led by Accel. We are the only institutional investors besides Accel in the round. And the only way we got in is because the female CEO went to Tuck, which is the business school, obviously, at Dartmouth. And that was our entrée. So, you know, I think the other piece to keep in mind in terms of listeners is that the categories in which we invest are indeed the categories of venture. So cybersecurity, machine learning, robotics, those sorts of things. And so it's really exemplary to think of the female founders in these deep tech categories, right? And that they have succeeded in securing impressive venture capital leads, you know, everything from a16z to— you know, Accel to Sequoia to Bessemer, those sorts of top-tier VCs. Those are the kinds of deals that we really hunt our way into.

And I think it's really important to underscore, at the end of the day, that's really what it's about. I mean, it is about getting in, getting access to really fantastic companies. And, you know, there is a funding gap for women, but the great companies, those deals are still very competitive. And if you're an entrepreneur running a great company and you're considering who are you going to bring into your financing, there has to be a value add. And especially in our role as a co-investor, And I think what we've tried to do through the alumni affinity and what we're going to build with the Women's Fund is, yes, we'll write a check on the same terms and conditions as your lead, but we can help you disproportionate to our check size.

That's right.

That's right, Mike. I've been very proud of how we've done that. I just think the promise of that to a female founding CEO to say,

yeah, you got, you know, you have Benchmark as leading your A round. We'd like to do 15%. And we have this tremendous network, both of alumni connections, but now we're going to have other female entrepreneurs. We have 350 of them. We have this source of capital that is women with with people who have written a check because they want to make money, but they also want to lean into deploying their capital into something they believe in and want to help.

And many of them now are in positions of power and expertise where that, again, just empathizing with a CEO, that sounds pretty good to me.

I'm on board as well, Mike.

Yeah. So, just, we'll wrap this up, Laura. Thanks for your time today. But for any listener out there that wants That this sounds like, you know, this makes sense to me and they want to, you know, listen to more content, find out about the companies we're investing in, potentially take a look at investing in our funds.

How do they— how can they help? How can they—

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the website is av.vcfunds/womens. I think if it's a particular email address that you're looking for, it's womens@av.vc, and we can start the conversation there. But overall, you know, we also have a LinkedIn page, you know, reach out to us. We're building a community here and we succeed because of the strength of that community and really stirring the pot between our founders and our venture partners and our investors. So we really welcome, welcome the participation. And I'm so glad to have this opportunity to talk to you, Mike. And I hope that indeed that inspires some folks to join us for the AV Women's Fund, because as you say, it's both things. It's great return potential and you get your money, putting your money to work backing fiery female founders.

Yeah. Excellent. Thank you, Laura.

Thanks, Mike. Hey everyone, I'd love to take a moment to tell you a bit about Alumni Ventures and our Women's Fund. AV offers the opportunity for individuals to invest in startups shaping the future. We build intentionally diversified portfolios Co-investing alongside established lead venture investors. Today, we serve over 10,000 individual investors who have invested over $1.3 billion. With our Alumni Ventures Women's Fund, you'll have the opportunity to help us invest in fiery female founders. We're starting from a position of strength. AV has already invested in over 350 startups founded, co-founded, or led by women. We see the Women's Fund as a great opportunity. PitchBook reports female-led startups are more capital efficient and exit faster, yet only receive 15% of all venture capital dollars. Join us to invest in female-led startups innovating in sectors like cybersecurity, machine learning, space, femtech, AI, and robotics. Join us in the Alumni Ventures Women's Fund to put your investing capital to back a diversified portfolio of female-led, high-velocity startups as they change the world. If you'd like to learn more, visit us at av.vc/funds/womens.

Thanks, Laura. I haven't been this excited about a new AV community and its potential since we started our first alumni fund almost a decade ago. I think Laura, backed by her team and our community, is going to create the most powerful women's fund in the world. I hope you consider supporting them and getting involved. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Tech Optimist Podcast. If you share an interest in technology, entrepreneurship, and venture investing, please subscribe. And send us your comments. In a capitalist system, VC and entrepreneurship is the tip of the spear. We look forward to talking to phenomenal VCs and entrepreneurs who are solving problems and building companies. Join us.

Thanks again for tuning in to The Tech Optimist. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you give us a rating. On whichever podcast app you're using, and remember to subscribe to keep up on the weekly episodes. The Tech Optimist welcomes any questions, comments, or segment suggestions, so please email us at info@techoptimist.vc with any of those, and be sure to visit our website at av.vc. Thanks again. Until next time.