Over the last few years, I have been wanting to make a programmatic biology investment. At a high level, programmatic or synthetic bio uses new techniques combining biology and engineering to make new or living things and materials. Think about less expensive malaria drugs being grown from modified yeast…This area…

Many emerging managers fail to communicate why they are special. I recently heard Chris Douvos (tier 1 LP) on Capital Allocators relay his disinterest in the “PM who got into X hot company and is now raising a fund.” This tells Chris nothing about the manager’s differentiation or reason to…

After 8 years in venture, I generally find myself gravitating towards 4 types of early stage deal profiles. In no particular order: Deal type #1 No brainer. You have a relationship with a proven operator, someone you would back regardless of “what they do next”, you just want to be…

Lets talk about Frequency. There are a few business characteristics that translate across industry and across business model. One of those is frequency — the level of occurrence at which transactions happen within a business. …

A new generation of experience businesses. — NEW YORK -- Earlier this week, The Information’s Cory Weinberg did a nice job covering Airbnb’s experiences business. It’s clear that this is a business line being taken very seriously at the company. While top-line metrics pale in comparison to the core home…

NEW YORK — You’ve no doubt been seeing and hearing a lot about APIs, Application Programming Interfaces, and there’s a reason for that. …

NEW YORK — Over the last two years, e-commerce sales, as a percentage of total retail sales in the US, have risen from just seven percent to an underwhelming nine percent. …

A brilliant young investor once walked me through his “pick and shovel” investment thesis. To give you a sense of portfolio, we are talking Stripe, Twitch and Unity, to name a few. If you’re unfamiliar, “pick and shovel” refers to the California gold rush, where proprietors of the physical tools…

I thought it would be prudent to develop at least a glimmer of an investment track record prior to blogging about my experiences. I also do not think you can “force” a blog, therefore, I have waited for something personal to coincide with my professional life in an attempt for…