Episode 17: The Woman who runs the largest Seed Fund in World History (Ming Yeh)

To subscribe to my podcast on Venture Capital in NYC via #iTunes https://itun.es/i6S78vQ or Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/venture-studio

I learned a lot from my recent conversation with Ming Yeh. Ming is a long-time veteran of venture capital and is now co-founder and managing partner of CSC Upshot Ventures, the largest fund dedicated to financing seed-stage startups, ever.

This launch was a big deal indeed. CSC Upshot is a $400MM venture fund created to invest primarily in US seed-stage technology startups via AngelList. It’s biggest LP is CSC Group, one of China’s 3 largest private equity firms, with $12B under management.

Now that the words “$400MM” and “AngelList” have sunk in, lets dissect this a bit. Earlier this month, you learned about the Angel List’s Syndicates product in our interview with Dustin Dolginow of Maiden Lane. Today, we dig further into the massive opportunity. Some stats: as of October 2015 (when CSC Upshot was announced), AngelList Syndicates had helped over 650 companies raise $205MM from 4,400 individuals and Maiden Lane’s $25MM vehicle. Now, CSC Upshot joins the Syndicates ecosystem with a fund nearly double the size of all Syndicate activity to date.

In this episode Ming and I talk about CSC Upshot, the need for more liquidity at the seed stage, the difference between Chinese and US entrepreneurs, and whether we’re seeing the great unbundling of VC or just a natural evolution of the venture financing market.

Episode 16: A Deep Dive into AngelList Syndicates (Dustin Dolginow)

To subscribe to my podcast on Venture Capital in NYC via #iTunes https://itun.es/i6S78vQ or Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/venture-studio

We recently welcomed Dustin Dolginow to Venture Studio. Dustin a co-founder of Maiden Lane Ventures, the first institutional venture fund built for AngelList Syndicates.

Here’s an excerpt from Maiden Lane’s AngelList page: "Raising seed capital is unnecessarily complicated. Great angel investors have always helped founders cut through the noise. Maiden Lane's mission is to make partnering with world-class angels more impactful. To do that, we use capital and software to rethink the workflow of seed investing."

Seems pretty logical, right? Maybe even a bit boring? Well, not really. Syndicates and funds like Maiden Lane have been called, progressive, disruptive, cute and fraudulent, and everything in between. Today, we’ll learn why.

Dustin and I discuss the facts behind Syndicates, the massive opportunity for individual investors and founders that Syndicates presents, and the support, critiques and criticisms from others in the venture capital industry.

We also talk more broadly about how thought leaders like like Chris Sacca, Brad Feld, Paul Graham and Mark Suster have approached innovation and unbundling in venture capital.

This episode is just the first installment of our series on AngelList Syndicates. We'll soon catch up with Ming Yeh, Founder and Managing Partner of CSC UpShot Ventures, a $400 million venture fund formed to invest in startups on AngelList.

You can find Dustin on AngelList (obviously) and on twitter and Medium under @dolginow.