On this week's podcast, we're joined by Minn Kim, Partner at On Deck, Board Member at the EVCA (Emerging Venture Capitalists Association) and was previously a VC at Bloomberg Beta for 4 years.

What an amazing show we have in store for you today. Minn talks about:

• Life before Bloomberg
• The different paths to venture
• Ecosystem comparison - west coast vs east coast
• What is Seed vs Series A
• The origin of Bloomberg Beta and how the firm invests
• Venture careers, how responsibilities change over time
• Thoughts on fundraising seasonality
• What is the future of work? What is workflow automation?
• The relationship between machine learning and innovations in industry

Minn Kim is a Partner at On Deck and previously a San Francisco-based investor at Bloomberg Beta, a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on the future of work. Before Bloomberg Beta, she worked on Bloomberg LP’s Strategy and Corporate Development team in New York.

Bloomberg Beta is an early-stage venture capital firm with $225M under management, capitalized solely by Bloomberg. The fund exists to expand Bloomberg’s horizons by investing in companies that are creating profound change in the way business operates, with a focus on machine intelligence and the future of work.

• Bloomberg Beta: Bloomberg Beta
• GatherRound: https://gatheround.com/
• On Deck: https://www.beondeck.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minnkim/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/minney_cat

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/motypes
• Email: mo@metapair.com

On this week's podcast, we're joined by Chris Yin, Investor at Scale Venture Partners, a $600 million fund.

Chris has been deeply embedded in the B2B, Enterprise, RPA, and automation space both as an investor and as an operator for many years. I'm excited to share this episode, Chris drops a wealth of knowledge:

• Journey into venture capital
• Investment thesis and how to evaluate investment opportunities
• The Scale Venture Partner investment process
• Enterprise vs B2B vs B2C businesses
• The future of automation and cognitive applications
• Product led growth vs top-down sales approach for B2B companies
• GPT3 copilot and its impact on enterprise

Chris is a Principal on Scale’s investing team, focused on investments in intelligent business software, vertical AI companies, and data-first businesses. He helped source Scale's investment in Archipelago (2021), Flatfile (2021) and Spruce (2020). A veteran Product Manager, he has held senior roles at several successful startups. Before joining Scale, Chris was VP of Product at Rainforest QA, a QA automation platform where he built and led the product, design, support, and community teams and developed the company’s product strategy and roadmap.

Chris was also Director of Product Management at Coupa Software, helping to grow the company from a startup to a publicly-traded company. He started his career at Xpenser, an expense management product that was acquired by Coupa.

Scale is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital investment firm with $1.3B under management. We were early investors in SaaS pioneers like Bill.com (NYSE:BILL), DocuSign (NASDAQ:DOCU), HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS), JFrog (NASDAQ: FROG) and Root (NASDAQ: ROOT). Today we’re focused on the next generation of enterprise software companies building Cognitive Applications like Comet.ml, Observe.ai, Techsee and Viz.ai. Learn more at www.scalevp.com.

Scale is an early-stage venture capital firm focused on intelligent business software with a Scaling Platform that has helped companies like Box, Bill.com, Hubspot, Docusign, JFrog, and WalkMe move from founder-led growth to a repeatable go-to-market machine. Learn more at scalevp.com.

• Scale Venture Partners: https://www.scalevp.com/

• Web: https://www.scalevp.com/team/chris-yin
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisyin/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/chriseyin

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/motypes
• Email: mo@metapair.com

On this week's podcast, we're joined by Jeff Farrah General Counsel at the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) where he advocates before Congress, the White House and agencies for pro-entrepreneurship policies and leads in-house legal matters for the association, including management of the NVCA Model Legal Documents.

Jeff shares a wealth of knowledge on proposed changes to acquisitions, the effects on the startup ecosystem and immigration policy. We also cover a whole host of topics including:

• The journey from Capitol Hill to Venture Capital
• What is the NVCA and why it's an important
• How policymakers work and how they make decisions
• The Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act (CALERA)
• Differences between Amy Klobuchar & Josh Hawley's bills
• How democrats and republicans view mergers and acquisitions
• The rise of venture capital ecosystems
• Immigration during the Trump administration
• Why it's challenging to make changes to immigration policy
• What is the international entrepreneurs rule & why it's a big deal
• L visa, O visa, H-1Bs & how they relate to the new rule

Successful advocate for entrepreneurship as General Counsel at the National Venture Capital Association. Jeff has been featured in publications like the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and TechCrunch on topics such as foreign investment, immigration, antitrust, and how public policy impacts startups. Jeff regularly speak at conferences, present to investors, and counsel investors and companies on policy strategy and regulatory compliance.

Previously, Jeff served as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation where he advised Chairman Thune (now Senate Minority Whip) on telecommunications, technology, and Internet policy. Jeff also served as General Counsel and a policy adviser to U.S. Senator Scott Brown.

Before Senate service, Jeff was an attorney at a leading Washington, DC law firm for international trade matters. His private sector legal experience includes international trade investigations (antidumping/countervailing duty), administrative reviews, and sunset reviews in market and non-market economy cases. He has also counselled businesses on World Trade Organization (WTO) Dispute Settlement, NAFTA Binational Panel Reviews, customs matters, and appeals before the U.S. Court of International Trade.

The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) empowers the next generation of American companies that will fuel the economy of tomorrow. As the voice of the U.S. venture capital and startup community, NVCA advocates for public policy that supports the American entrepreneurial ecosystem. Serving the venture community as the preeminent trade association, NVCA arms the venture community for success, serving as the leading resource for venture capital data, practical education, peer-led initiatives, and networking.

• NVCA (National Venture Capital Association): https://nvca.org/
• Techcrunch article "Restrictions on acquisitions would stifle the US startup ecosystem, not rein in big tech": https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/19/restrictions-on-acquisitions-would-stifle-the-us-startup-ecosystem-not-rein-in-big-tech/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-farrah-5343853/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/jefffarrah

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohammedjalil/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/yo_jalil
• Email: mo@metapair.com