Show notes
Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week I’m excited to bring you my conversation with Eurie Kim of Forerunner Ventures, which without a doubt is one of the world's top VC firms formed over the last decade. Forerunner invests in entrepreneurs who are redefining culture and consumer experiences in today’s digital world and has invested in companies such as Jet, Birchbox, Warby Parker, and Curology. It currently has over $2B in AUM, and they recently closed a $1B fund. This was such a treat for me as I’ve known the Forerunner team since their launch of Fund 1, and it was fun to go back in time to relive the evolution of Forerunner. About Eurie Kim:Eurie joined Forerunner Ventures in 2012 and has invested in a wide array of lifestyle and health-focused companies. She sits on the Boards of Oura, The Farmer’s Dog, Curology, Attabotics, Eclipse, and Juni, among others, and was featured on the Forbes Midas Brink List in 2020. Eurie is also a founding member of the female mentorship collective, All Raise, and champions women in the technology industry.Prior to joining Forerunner, Eurie founded MAVN, a luxury accessories brand, and worked with Bain & Company. She got her MBA at Wharton and her undergrad at Berkeley.Our sponsors:At Brex, we build financial software and services to help startups scale faster. We understand that founders need to focus on building, not banking. So we’ve reimagined traditional financial systems to enable greater speed and productivity — no matter where founders and their teams are working.We offer a smart corporate card, business account, and mobile app that are easy to use from day one. No manuals needed here. Within minutes, you can deposit funds, send free wires and ACH worldwide, separate investor funds from operating expenses, earn great rewards, automate expenses, and more. Everything we do at Brex is to help founders spend less time managing expenses and reporting on your runway — and more time building your business.Get started at brex.com/ventureWhy does signing up for Robinhood take 2 minutes but investing in private funds takes hours? Meet Passthrough. The subscription document process is a nightmare. Investors receive 100-200 question questionnaires, answer the wrong questions, miss ones they're supposed to answer, and spend hours on revisions.How can you effectively manage your raise when you don't know where your investors stand?Passthrough takes any subscription document and builds a custom workflow so that your investors only see the questions that matter to them, shrinking the time to completion to minutes instead of hours. 80% of investors don't even require revisions. Plus, you can see where your investors are and coordinate them, your law firm, and fund admin to close capital quicker.At Allocate, we have used Passthrough for our various funds, which has significantly increased the efficiency of our closings while providing our investors with a delightful user experience.Go to passthrough.com/samir to learn more about how to simplify fund closing.In this episode we discuss:03:01 The creation of Forerunner and why she jumped into venture capital full-time06:45 How she saw the obvious opportunity in dommerce when most investors were still skeptical 11:04 Overcoming early objections from LPs when raising early funds21:32 Hiring the initial team and firm building28:48 The most effective tactic for building a cohesive culture of success33:51 Why deal attribution can be a hindrance to firm growth37:22 Looking back at the inflection points that changed Forerunner42:03 How the last few years have changed the market47:46 Advice for smaller fund managers competing at early stages50:55 Why having a strong, but nimble point of view is so important in investing 52:48 The most impactful career advice she’s receivedI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Eurie. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com