How VCs vs. Angels Invest with Ed Zimmerman and Caitlin Strandberg

Ed: Startup/VC Lawyer @ Lowenstein Sandler and Caitlin: VC @ Firstmark

We kicked off our 2018 After Hours with a bang! Special guests Ed Zimmerman and Caitlin Strandberg gave us the behind the scenes insights into what Venture Capitalists and Angels look for when they invest.

Have you ever wished you could pick a VC’s brain without the pressure of a pitch meeting? That’s exactly what Cornell Tech alums and their guests got. First, Ed and Caitlin shared their stories. Later in the evening, guests asked questions ranging from how they should generally approach VCs to specific cases applying to different companies at different stages.

About each of our guests:

Ed Zimmerman

Ed represents growth companies and startups, as well as the venture capital, growth and private equity funds that invest in them.

Ed has worked at Lowenstein Sandler since joining the firm as a summer associate in 1991. He co-founded Lowenstein’s Tech Group in 1998. Dow Jones ranked Lowenstein among the five most active law firms in America for venture capital and private equity deals (2013).

Ed has been an Adjunct Professor of Venture Capital at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business since 2005. He has personally invested as an angel investor in more than 100 startups and more than 30 venture funds. Ed has published more than 75 columns on tech startups and growth companies (and sometimes wine), mostly on the Accelerators page of The Wall Street Journal, where he currently serves as a WSJ expert panelist.

Ed co-founded and runs VentureCrush, which also includes VentureCrushFG (formerly known as FirstGrowthVC, which Pando Daily called “New York’s best Accelerator”) and VentureCrushAV.

Learn more about Ed here and here, follow him @EdGrapeNutZimm, and check out his WSJ articles here.

Caitlin Strandberg

Caitlin is a Vice President at FirstMark where she focuses on the sourcing and due diligence of new investments, as well as supporting the FirstMark Platform. Caitlin previously worked on the investment team at Flybridge Capital Partners and at two NYC start-ups, LearnVest (acquired by Northwestern Mutual) and Behance (acquired by Adobe).

Caitlin is a graduate of Cornell University, where she received a major in History with a concentration in Science & Technology Studies. She holds an M.B.A from Harvard Business School.

Learn more about Caitlin here and follow her @strandby.

[January 2018, Kind Regards]