The Basics of Venture Capital
Venture Capital is an exciting industry! You’re always meeting new people, learning about new problems, spaces and ideas, and supporting the best and the brightest. Before starting the VC recruitment process, we recommend you brush up on your VC knowledge. This article discusses the bare bones of VC, starting with three recommended readings:
- Venture Capital 101 (Fund Types, Generation of Funds, Fund Lifetime)
- Coding VC (Fund Structure, Fundraising, Investor Relations)
- VC Funds 101 (Team Compensation, Fund Metrics and Reporting)
VC Fund Structure (source: VCpreneur)
Where VC fits into the Financial, Tech, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
(source: How Venture Capital Works)
What are types of VC + how do they differ
Investment theses vary greatly and VCs can be:
- industry-specific (i.e. Edtech)
- a branch of another firm (i.e. Accenture Ventures)
- stage-specific (early vs. late)
- personnel-specific (Rough Draft Ventures)
- entirely agnostic
From Nikhil Basu Trivedi’s piece on the VC landscape of Agglomerators vs. Specialists
What’s the Implication?
Depending on the firm, your role as an analyst can be sourcing heavy (which will involve a lot of cold calls, pitch books, and research about the specific industry/vertical) or have a connections/client-based model
Types of Ventures Capitalists (source: Venture Capital 101)
“A domain expert is someone who’s deep into a certain field and knows everything going on in this industry. An operator, or a growth expert, is someone who has a track record of growing and scaling a company. A networker is someone who can make important intros to domain experts, operators, or your next investor.”
How Venture Capitalists Spend Their Time (source: How Venture Capital Works)
This was written by Ayushi Sinha and David Babikian
