Counterpart Ventures

We just announced our first batch of speakers joining us at Counter V on September 26th in San Francisco. In the countdown to CVC's biggest event of the year, we'll be highlighting the prominent institutional and corporate investors taking the stage.    First up, Promod Haque, who has had a prolific career with Norwest Venture Partners. In his more than 25 years of VC experience, Haque has invested in more than 70 companies that have produced more than $40 billion in exit values. Some of his most notable deals include Apigee (acquired by Google in 2016), Palerra (acquired by Oracle in 2016) and cybersecurity company FireEye (Nasdaq: FEYE).    Promod will be joined on stage by Nagraj Kashyap, Co-Founder and General Partner of Touring Capital. Nagraj previously founded and served as Global Head at M12 (Microsoft’s Venture Fund), was a founding partner and Global Head of Qualcomm Ventures, and most recently a Managing Partner at SoftBank Vision Fund. Nagraj’s notable investments include Zoom, Outreach, Livongo, Kahoot!, Waze, Fitbit, Airvana, Loggi, and Innovaccer.   Corporate investors, head to the events page on counterclub.vc to register for Counter V and see more information about the multi-day event on September 25-27th.    #CounterClub #CVC #CorporateVenture Mikey Kailis, Patrick Eggen, Tanvi Narain, Joe Saijo, Abbie Wolf

Looking back at our discussion in London dissecting the nature of a VC's relationship with CVCs. We dug into the tradeoff of speed and strategic value and the implications of a CVC joining a round. Thank you to the corporate voices who joined the table, Erik Johansson of Volvo Group Venture Capital and Anish Patel of Yamaha Motor Ventures. Tosin Agbabiaka of Octopus Ventures and Daniela Raffel Torrebiarte of Dawn Capital brought the institutional perspective. Dawn Capital was kind enough to host our event at their office. Richard Bull of DLA Piper joined us as a moderator. If you are a corporate investor, log into counterclub.vc to access all our event summaries and register for Counter V on Sept 26th! #CounterClub #CorporateVenture #CVC

Congratulations to Soulside CEO and Co-Founder Surabhi Bhandari for getting accepted into the prestigious 2024 UCSF Rosenman Innovators cohort!

The other week in London, we dug into what a strategic and financial orientation mandate means, particularly when it comes to buy-in from the mothership over extended time horizons. Thank you to our speakers: Jon Koplin who leads strategic investments in the EMEA for Cisco Investments and Megumi Ikeda who leads Hearst Ventures in Europe. Peter Votkjaer Jorgensen, former partner of Maersk Growth, moderated the discussion.    All CVCs onboarded into the Counter Club are asked to rate themselves on our 10-point strategic to financial scale. Check out this summary article for more bites and context from our State of CVC Report.   Corporate Investors can find more resources and register for Counter V on September 26th at https://counterclub.vc/   #CounterClub #CVC #CorporateVenture  

Taking a look back at a few of our sessions from our first CVC Summit in London. First up, “Reflections on Going Independent and Spinning Back Inside.”    Manuel Silva Martinez talked us through the ins and outs of taking Mouro Capital independent in 2020 and rebranding from Santander Innoventures. Michael Sim chatting about the opposite process, the reasoning behind spinning back into the Fidelity International brand (Fidelity International Strategic Ventures).   Through picking apart motives for the switches, it came down to stability: while a corporate balance sheet offers steady capital, independence can remove dependency and ensure longevity—two sides of the same coin. For more conversations around the inner workings at a CVC, join us at Counter V on September 26th in San Francisco. Corporate Investors can register counterclub.vc Emily Havers, Jitendra D., Anya Maine, Mikey Kailis, Patrick Eggen #CounterClub #CVC

We brought an intimate group of founders together around Snowflake’s Data Cloud Summit… we love settings where we can sit down and learn more about founders beyond just a Zoom call or happy hour. We started this concept in 2018 with our Lazy Lunches and haven't looked back. Thank you Wells Fargo and TriNet for co-hosting such a lovely evening with us 🍝✨ Tanvi Narain, Patrick Eggen, Abbie Wolf

A few weeks ago, our Co-Founding General Partner & expert HR tech investor Joe Saijo sat down with Remofirst's Co-Founder and CEO, Nurasyl Serik, and CRO, David Hughson. Entrepreneurs and investors worldwide tuned in to for an inside look at the past and present HR Tech landscape. We invested in Remofirst's 2022 Seed round and their Series A earlier this year. In their effort to simplify international payroll, they have built an all-in-one Employer of Record (EoR) platform available in more than 180 countries. In the webinar, Joe broke down how AI is impacting the HR landscape into three categories: 1. Sourcing: AI can deeply profile candidates by looking at various data points and bringing better matching between candidates and recruiters. 2. Skill assessment: AI can discern the candidate's skillset for both hard and soft skills. 3. Onboarding: AI can streamline the various workflows like contracts, signups for the HRMS, compliances and more. Remofirst lives in the onboarding category as they are making it affordable and accessible for companies of all sizes to hire internationally. Around Counter V this September, Remofirst will be co-hosting a Fintech Happy Hour bringing founders and investors together. Check out the article and video below for more details and key takeaways. https://lnkd.in/g-6wGuDQ

Thank you to all who turned out last week in London for the inaugural Counter Club London CVC Summit! Here are a few photos from the event at Dawn Capital. Look forward to seeing everyone in September for the big Counter V Conference in San Francisco. Sign in to your Counter Club account and sign up now, we have an exciting jam packed 3 day program! https://counterclub.vc

We took the #CounterClub on the road to London last week. It was fantastic to establish relationships with many new investors and see some familiar faces. From conversations throughout the week that Patrick and Mikey had with local investors, there is clearly a need to share knowledge from CVCs in the SF Bay Area where the majority of startups are still based. The first image here of Navina Rajan and our friends at PitchBook presenting at the London CVC Summit articulates the gap. Other sessions that were particularly insightful were hearing from Michael Sim of Fidelity International Strategic Ventures and Manuel Silva Martinez of Mouro Capital on how they spun-in and spun-out their respective funds. Both had interesting perspectives on the advantages several years on since the events took place. Michael's journey to create FISV stems from the roots at Eight Roads, while Manuel's journey was a carefully planned years-long execution that gave Mouro its wings and independence. It was also great hearing from our friend Alexander Trewby on a founder's perspective working with CVCs from his time as Co-Founder at Divide™ (acq Google). Alex recapped his journey, including the meetings with Google execs and up's and down's of a founders journey, sharing a perspective postmortem that many CVCs needed to hear! We look forward to returning next year to London and seeing everyone in September for Counter V. Don't forget to fill out our annual CVC survey if you have not already: https://lnkd.in/g_bdunB3