The Venture Brief — May 2020
It has been a while since we last released a brief to our audience. We have been working ferociously on bringing high quality content to our recently announced podcast, and today we’re happy to share with you our newest episodes. We have been honored to have had conversations with some brilliant venture capitalists and accomplished entrepreneurs. We’re even more excited about what is yet ahead and the amazing people that we will be talking to soon! Below you can find more information on the amazing individuals we have spoken to and the links to their respective episodes!
#5: Stuart Angert — The Story of RSA and Its Remarkable Culture
Stuart Angert is a serial entrepreneur, former banking executive at Marine Midland Bank (HSBC), and a MBA graduate from Wharton. He co-founded Remarketing Services of America (RSA), the largest independent provider of lease services to the automotive finance industry, which was acquired by Daimler-Benz in 1996. He is a brilliant entrepreneur who received several awards and recognitions throughout his career (e.g. Entrepreneur of the Year). Today, Stuart is serving on the board of several non-profits, lecturing at colleges, and supporting early stage startups. Stuart had a remarkable career with an abundance of lessons learned on how to build a company culture that is maximized for success.
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Items Mentioned:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-angert-67470b6/
- Email: stuart.angert@roadrunner.com
- Books: Getting to Yes, Getting Past No, and Getting Together
#6: Gautam Gupta — Building NatureBox with a VC Perspective
Gautam Gupta is an accomplished entrepreneur and investor at M13. During his studies at Babson College, he joined General Catalyst and stayed with the firm after graduation for over 7 years, eventually leaving as a principal. After leaving General Catalyst, he co-founded Naturebox, an online delivery service that home-delivers all-natural snack foods on a monthly basis, which is backed with +$70MM by leading investors (e.g. Plug and Play, General Catalyst, Softbank Capital, Canaan, GFC). After building Naturebox for +6 years, he joined M13, a consumer-focused fund consisting of operators and entrepreneurs, as a partner in 2018. His investment track record speaks for itself, having led investments in +30 startups, of which 5 are valued at +$1B and 10 at +$100MM (e.g. Pill Club, Pilot, Grammarly, The Honest Company, etc.).
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Items Mentioned:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gautamgup/
- Email: Gautam@m13.co
- Books: Who — The A Method for Hiring
#7 Ben Wiener — Building a Micro-fund and a Vibrant Startup Ecosystem in Jerusalem
Ben Wiener is an entrepreneur and Managing Partner of Jumpspeed Ventures, a micro-fund based in Jerusalem, Israel. Ben graduated with a JD from Columbia Law School and began his career law as a clerk on the Israel Supreme Court and a practicing corporate lawyer, then co-founded his first software start-up in 1999. He has co-founded and managed a number of startup ventures and also served as VP of International Business Development at IDT Corp. (NYSE: IDT) where he led M&A transactions and was part of IDT’s Venture Services group. Ben founded Jumpspeed Ventures, a Jerusalem-based micro-fund, in late 2013, and has since played a major role in developing the startup ecosystem of Israel, that has recently done extraordinarily well.
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Items Mentioned:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwiener/
- Books: Crossing the Chasm, and Traction
#8: Sebastian Stammler — Scaling Blockchains and Building a University Spin-out
Sebastian Stammler is a mathematician and cryptographer by training, entrepreneur at heart and a co-founder at Perun. Sebastian graduated with a Master in Mathematics from Cambridge University and is currently finishing up his P.hD. in Computer Science at Darmstadt University, focusing on cryptography research. Previously, he worked in quantitative finance at EY and as a consultant in software development. He started out his entrepreneurial path as a co-founder of Blocksource, a startup that focused on building blockchain-based technologies for the defense industry in Israel. Today, he is a co-founder and lead developer at Perun (funded by the Ethereum Foundation, DFG, and the German government), a blockchain startup that is building “off-chain” protocols that solve the scalability issues that many blockchains are facing (e.g. the Ethereum and Bitcoin blockchain).
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Items Mentioned:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebstar/
- Email: Seb@perun.network
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SebasTemas
- Books: Black Swan — Improbable Robustness Fragility
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