Leo Polovets of Susa Ventures - Venture Unlocked 008

Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

Leo Polovets is one of the Founding Partners of Susa Ventures, which launched in 2012. Over the last 8 years, Susa has established itself as one of the premier seed funds in the world, and have made more than 80 investments in companies like Robinhood, Flexport, Andela, and Expanse (recently purchased by Palo Alto Networks for $800MM).

Leo began his career as a software engineer, first at LinkedIn when it was a start-up, and later at Google and Factual.

I always enjoy speaking with Leo as he’s always introspective, insightful and stays highly curious about all aspects of venture (check out his great blog, “Coding VC”).

In this episode, Leo and I discuss the following topics:

* Why Susa had 4 partners for a $25MM fund.

* Leo’s acronym for building a venture thesis: C.A.S.H. (Constraints, Actionable, Special, Helping).

* Can VC firms truly differentiate, and if so, how?

* The importance of being helpful to founders and building those relationships early.

* Portfolio construction: Going all-in on one investment vs. many small investments.

* When to grow fund sizes, and how to think about this.

* The role of opportunity funds and why they raised one alongside Fund III.

Mentioned in this episode:

* Susa Ventures

* Leo’s blog Coding VC

* Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s podcast, Invest Like the Best

I’d love to know what you took away from my conversation with Leo Polovets. 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.

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