20VC: Benchmark's Peter Fenton on The Single Question That Defines The Art of Early Stage Venture, Marketing Timing Risk, Why The Oversupply of Capital Is Good & His Biggest Lessons from 12 Years On The New Relic Board
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 03/29/2021
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
is the Co-Founder & CEO @ , the company that moves info between your web apps automatically, so you can focus on your most important work. Post YC in 2012, Wade raised $1.4M for the company from Bessemer and Threshold but since that round, he scaled the company to $140M in ARR and a $5Bn valuation with Sequoia and Steadfast buying out some early investors earlier this year. In Today’s Episode with Wade Foster You Will Learn: 1.) How Wade made his way from email marketing manager to founding one of YC's most successful alum in the form of Zapier? Does Wade agree with the "fake it...
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is the Founder & CEO @ , one of the world's largest and fastest-growing fintechs offering everything from personal to business banking, providing a better way to manage your money. To date, Nikolay has raised over $905M with Revolut from Ribbit, Index, DST, Balderton and Bond Capital to name a few. Nikolay has scaled Revolut to over 2,000 employees across 4 continents. Before changing the world of neo-banking, Nikolay spent 8 years as a derivatives trader at both Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse in London. In Today’s Episode with Nikolay Storonsky You Will Learn: 1.) How Nikolay...
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is the Founder and CEO of , one of the world's leading global payments solutions providers and one of Europe's most valuable private companies. Guillaume founded Checkout.com in 2012 and bootstrapped the business until its record-breaking $230M Series A led by Insight and DST in 2019. Since, Guillaume has raised a further $600M for Checkout from the likes of Coatue, Tiger, Blossom, GIC and Greenoaks. As part of this process, Guillaume has scaled the team to over 900 people around the world and Checkout as one of the category leaders in payments with a reported $15Bn valuation. In Today’s...
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is the Founder & CEO @ , the company building the next generation of tools for DevOps teams. Prior to their incredibly successful IPO in 2019, Olivier raised over $147M for the company from Index, ICONIQ, Meritech, IA Ventures, Amplify and OpenView, to name a few. Prior to founding Datadog and changing the world of devops, Olivier was a VP with Wireless Generation for 8 years leading an engineering team of close to 100 of the best developers in NYC. In Today’s Episode with Olivier Pomel You Will Learn: 1.) How Olivier made his way into the world of startups and what was the a-ha...
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is the Co-Founder and CEO @ , the place where your organization and your community come together. To date, Linda has raised over $50M with CommonRoom from the likes of Danny Rimer @ Index Ventures, Sarah Guo @ Greylock, Dylan Field @ Figma, Dick Costolo and of course 20VC Fund. Prior to changing the world of community though, Linda spent close to 3 years at Amazon as a Senior Product Manager on AWS and Alexa. Before Amazon, Lida was on the other side of the table in venture as an associate at Madrona. In Today’s Episode with Linda Lian You Will Learn: 1.) How Linda made her way into...
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is a General Partner @ , one of the great venture firms of the last 3 decades with a portfolio including the likes of SNAP, Twitter, eBay, New Relic, Stitchfix and many more. As for Peter, he has led deals, sits or has sat on the boards of Elastic, New Relic, Digits, Docker, Optimizely, Yelp and Zuora to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Peter was a General Partner @ Accel Partners in San Francisco. As a result of his incredible track, Peter has been on the Forbes Midas List more times than I have done podcast episodes! In Today’s Episode with Peter Fenton You Will Learn: 1.) How a round...
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is the Founder & CEO @ , one of the fastest growing digital banks in the world with operations in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia. To fuel this growth, David has raised over $1.5BN for Nubank from some of the best in the business including Doug Leone @ Sequoia, Micky @ Ribbit, Thrive, Founders Fund, DST, Tiger and more. Before changing the world of LATAM finance, David was a Partner @ Sequoia where he was responsible for all LATAM investments. Prior to Sequoia, David was the co-founder of General Atlantic's South American investment programme. In Today’s Episode You Will...
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is a Partner @ , one of the leading venture firms of the last 2 decades with a portfolio including the likes of Pinterest, Shopify, LinkedIn, Yelp, Twilio and many more. As for Jeremy, five of his early-stage investments—LinkedIn, MindBody, Pinterest, Shopify and Yelp—grew into billion-dollar publicly traded companies. As a result of his incredible portfolio, he has featured on the Forbes Midas List for several years running. In Today’s Episode with Jeremy Levine You Will Learn: 1.) How Jeremy came to make one great decision and make one big mistake all in one rainy afternoon in...
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is the Founder & CEO @ , the project management and team communication tool trusted by millions. Over an incredible 22 year journey, they have scaled to over 3.5M accounts and in 2020 they went back to being a multi-product company with the launch of . Jason is also the co-author of the widely acclaimed, ReWork and has also made several angel investments in the likes of Intercom, Gumroad and Hodinkee to name a few. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Jason Fried made his way into the world of startups and came to found one of the leading project management and team...
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Simón Borrero is the Founder & CEO @ , the startup that has become a cornerstone of the Latin American mobile ecosystem, coined as "the next Everything Store of Latin America". To date, Simon has raised over $1.7Bn for the company from the likes of Sequoia Capital, a16z, Softbank, DST Global, Y Combinator and more. Prior to Rappi, Simon was the founder of multiple former companies including Imaginamos, a software studio he grew to over 300 people. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Simon made his way into the world of startups and came to found "the next Everything Store of...
info_outlinePeter Fenton is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the great venture firms of the last 3 decades with a portfolio including the likes of SNAP, Twitter, eBay, New Relic, Stitchfix and many more. As for Peter, he has led deals, sits or has sat on the boards of Elastic, New Relic, Digits, Docker, Optimizely, Yelp and Zuora to name a few. Prior to Benchmark, Peter was a General Partner @ Accel Partners in San Francisco. As a result of his incredible track, Peter has been on the Forbes Midas List more times than I have done podcast episodes!
In Today’s Episode with Peter Fenton You Will Learn:
1.) How a round of golf led to Peter Fenton leading the New Relic Series A? What did the deal look like both in check size and valuation? What does Peter think that round would be in today's market?
2.) How does Peter create an environment of safety with entrepreneurs where they feel they can be vulnerable with him? How does Peter approach building relationships of trust in compressed fundraising timelines? In what way has Peter seen relationships go bad? What can been done to mitigate that and optimise the Founder <> VC relationship?
3.) How does Peter assess market timing when making investments today? What does Peter mean when he says, "you have to understand whether you are unlocking consumption"? What does unlocking consumption look like in reality? How does Peter think about positive or negative externalities that could impact the business?
4.) Does Peter agree with Bill Gurley that the biggest challenge today is the "oversupply of capital"? Where does the oversupply of capital become a real challenge? What does Peter advise growth-stage founders do to prevent this from damaging them? How does Peter think about capital efficiency in the companies where he is on the board?
5.) What were Peter's biggest lessons on what it takes to be a great board member from his 12 years at New Relic? How did he see his style of board membership change? On the founder side, how do the very best founders manage and navigate their board? What do most boards misunderstand or mismanage?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with Peter Fenton
Peter's Favourite Book: Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
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