20VC: What LP's Want In VCs with Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures

Beezer Clarkson is Managing Director @ Sapphire Ventures where she leads Sapphire’s investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Prior to joining Sapphire, Beezer managed day-to-day operations @ DFJ’s Global Network, which had $7 billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide. She has also spent time at Omidyar Network created by Ebay founder, Pierre Omdiyar, Hewlett Packard and Morgan Stanley. Beezer also runs the incredible openlp.com which is really opening up the world of LPs and if you have not checked that out, it really is a must! In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How did Beezer make her way into the world of limited partners? 2.) How do LP's find a new and talented fund manager? Is it a similar referral process as in startups with? How does the sourcing element of the LP world work? 3.) How do GPs raising a fund differ from startups raised their round? What are the similarities and differences in the processes? 4.) What does the investment decision making process look like for Beezer? Are their commonalities in the process of great LP’s processes? What do you at Sapphire focus on when investing?? 5.) At Sapphire you have extensively researched the formulas of what makes a great VC, what have been your findings? What are the commonalities amongst the great VCs? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode: Beezer's Fave Blog: Term Sheet, Strictly VC, The Information Beezer's Fave Book: The Tale of the One Way Street As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Beezer on Twitter here! If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here! The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  This is the 20 Minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings, who you can find on Snapchat at H Stebbings. Now, this week is a very special week on the 20 Minute VC, as we always focus on the VCs themselves, but we often forget that VCs themselves have to fundraise. So where do they get their money from? And that's where the mysterious world of LPs come into it. So this week we'll be featuring two of the most prominent limited partners in the business, the money behind the money, so to speak. So joining me today, I'm delighted to welcome a good friend of mine in Beza Clarkson. Now, Beza leads Sapphire Ventures' investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. And prior to joining Sapphire, Beza managed day-to-day operations at DFJ's Global Network,

• 0:42Harry Stebbings?

  which had seven billion under management across 16 venture funds worldwide. She's also spent time at Omidyar Network, created by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Hewlett Packard and Morgan Stanley. And Beza also runs the most incredible LP blog, OpenLP, which is really opening up the world of LPs, and if you haven't checked that out, it really is a must. Again, that's openlp.com. But before we jump into the show with Beza today, did you know if your partner snores, scientists have estimated that you will lose an average of 83 minutes sleep per night? In which case, there are either two options: demote your partner to the sofa bed, or ensure the remaining sleep is as high quality as possible, in which case you'll need a Lisa

• 1:23Harry Stebbings?

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• 2:07Harry Stebbings?

  and I'm delighted to welcome Beza Clarkson at Sapphire Ventures.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:20Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Beesa, it's absolutely fantastic to have you on the 20 Minute VC. Thank you so much for joining me today.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:26Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd love to start today by finding out how you came to be an LP, essentially the money behind the money.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  I came at it in a probably slightly circuitous path, but driven by a love for technology and coming from the directing side, the direct investing side, actually. So, post-business school, I joined a, one of the early venture funds slash incubators in New York in 2000. Prior to business school, I had a fairly stereotypical career of investment banking and strategy consulting. But I was consulting in the Bay Area in the late 90s. Fell in love with technology and when I was at business school, spent all my time trying to work with startups, understand what technology was doing and get really embedded in their world. And then came out and joined this VC in New York in 2000,

• 3:15Speaker 02

  which was a great experience in the sort of the first iteration of what was happening in venture in New York. And then during the downturn in 2001, I left and joined Hewlett Packard and spent a number of years there in a group that was responsible for putting the software on the laptops and desktops to do everything from productivity, search, internet connectivity, games, music, the whole nine yards. We tested software, we looked at the UI, we developed business models, negotiated deals, so it was a really fundamental tech understanding, as well as how to learn and manage a group, which was wonderful. And then from there, went back into the direct and indirect investing side. I joined a firm called Amidiar Network, which was founded by Pierre Amidiar, who started eBay.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Today would be called an impact investing firm, but I was doing investing in mostly technology and emerging markets and was doing both direct venture investing, investing in funds that then went on to invest in venture in emerging markets or into microfinance entities, as well as nonprofit grants. And this was typical of everybody on the investing team. You had to write those three different kinds of checks.

• 4:21Harry Stebbings?

  See, I'm really intrigued then. What made, what was the catalyst behind you wanting to be a sole LP then and move away from writing three different types to more funding people and funds themselves?

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Well, the great part about doing all three was that I got to really test what I liked, as well as the different kinds of checks and how they move through the ecosystem and how different kinds of companies think about capital as a resource and how it gets leveraged within firms. And that's where I started my first entree into being an LP and fell in love with that side of the world. And then followed that passion to DFJ, which is a Sand Hill Road venture fund. But at the time when I joined, I was running something called the DFJ Network, which was an association, loosely speaking, of about 18 funds throughout the world. And I joined during a period of very rapid expansion. So I spent all my time working with VCs in the US and internationally, helping to launch them, helping to fundraise,

• 5:15Speaker 02

  helping to grow them, helping to develop business development practices, recruiting, the whole nine yards. It was a really excellent education in what it means to be part of a venture firm and grow a venture firm. So while not technically an LP, it was a really great background. I met venture capitalists around the world, LPs around the world. And then from there, left and joined Sapphire Ventures. And I joined to help launch our LP product at Sapphire Ventures.

• 5:42Harry Stebbings?

  I'm intrigued. What was the biggest takeaway of running the DFJ Network? That must have been an incredible experience with the 18 different entities. What was the takeaway for you?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  It confirmed for me that innovation does occur everywhere. So you have that sort of plasticity of where things can occur, married with how really very quite hard it is to build and run a venture firm itself when you think of it as its own business. And how do the two interchange and work together, which has a multitude of forms. It's ever-evolving, and that's the part that was always fascinating.

• 6:15Harry Stebbings?

  I want to dive into now. We're going to break the episode firstly into a couple of segments. So we're going to discuss the LP pitching, raising, and selection phase. And then I'd love to address what VCs need to think about when raising this year.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Sounds super.

• 6:29Harry Stebbings?

  Okay. So let's start with the process itself now. And as an LP, how do you approach the funds that you want to invest in? I mean, is this very similar to the process VCs go through with startups?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I think there are probably more similarities than dissimilarities. We at Sapphire focus on early-stage firms, US, Europe, and Israel, predominantly folks with Series A exposure. So much like someone who's focusing on a certain sector of companies, you can go out and build a database of everybody that currently exists. There are probably even fewer funds than there are firms than there are startups. So that database doesn't, it's hundreds, but it's not thousands. Of course, there's always the new set of folks coming on that you then have to go out and find. But you actually can start with a known quantity and start getting to know them and build your sense of who you're interested in based on understanding the universe.

• 7:19Harry Stebbings?

  And you said about going and finding them there. What does your, how should we put it, fund manager sourcing look like?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  It comes in multiple forms. I think one of the core tenants that we have at Sapphire is getting out and about and understanding the ecosystems that we invest in. We're based in the Bay Area, so there is a very easy, in-your-own-backyard sense. But we invest throughout the United States and again, other geographies. So we spend a fair bit of time traveling because we want to understand and see what the entrepreneurs and VCs are seeing. And as part of that, we then meet a huge number of people and that becomes part of our sourcing. People introduce you to folks. We get referrals in from entrepreneurs, GPs, LPs, lawyers. Everybody in the ecosystem then becomes part of your resource and your network. And it's great. So we get sourcing from all those different areas.

• 8:08Harry Stebbings?

  I'm intrigued. Is it typical for, for funds like Sapphire to be geography agnostic like you are?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  I do think LPs do tend to invest in multiple geographies. I wouldn't say we're agnostic. We are targeted. The US, Europe and Israel, there are plenty of other areas that do have venture activity that we are not investing in, say Asia, India, Latin America. And LP, other LPs are. But I do think folks at some point have to decide where they're focusing and then there's always the exceptions that make you break your role.

• 8:38Harry Stebbings?

  And I want to know about, I'm very intrigued by kind of competitive elements within startups and funding. And so is there the same competitive element between LPs for the best funds as there is with the best startups fighting to fund the best VCs, sorry? Vice versa, you know what I mean?

• 8:55Speaker 02

  I know what you mean. And it is similar. It's, it's It's sort of like turning, you know, the the Rubik's Cube over one one one notch. So there are certainly funds that are harder to get into than others. There are some that have the proverbial twenty year waitlist to get in. And I don't know if companies have a twenty year waitlist to to fund them. They tend to raise capital more quickly.

• 9:17Harry Stebbings?

  I've got a twenty year.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  In a multitude of forms. Pardon me.

• 9:20Harry Stebbings?

  I've got a twenty year funding process for the twenty minutes. That's that's why we're holding off, Beza.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  I sure I'm sure you will one day, Harry. Just be patient. So there is competition, right?

• 9:36Speaker 02

  But so there are competition. Um, so funds raise loosely speaking every two to four years, which is right away a difference. Companies typically tend to raise more frequently. And even within that, there could be secondaries, there could be extensions. So I would presume if you were VC and you really want to get into a company, there's all sorts of ways to get in. There's fewer ways for an LP to get into what we call allocation constrained funds, which is code for there's no room at the end for new LPs. And even existing LPs don't always get the same check size between funds. That said, my experience is nothing's ever written in stone. And if there is a fund you really want to get in on, you reach out to the manager, you express it, you continue to express it, you stay persistent.

• 10:21Speaker 02

  There is inevitably changes in an LP base over time because the world just changes and opportunities come up. And it's about trying to be there when the opportunity presents itself. And we've been successful sometimes and unsuccessful other times. And that's that's how it goes.

• 10:37Harry Stebbings?

  We said about the funds raised by by the GPs themselves there. What if a GP says that they're going to have a four year investing period? And for whatever reason, their cadence is much quicker than they expect and they go through it in two years. What does that look like for you as an LP? And how does an LP respond to that inconsistency in terms of the investment cycle?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Well, the first thing I'd say is hopefully it's not new news. You you really hope that you don't wake up one day and say, oh, my gosh, it's been two years and and all of a sudden the fund's gone, that there's. I don't know of a time when there hasn't been communication along the way. And then I'm going to underscore the importance of that because as an LP, you see, you get your quarterly reports and you see the money being invested. So you know the fund is getting invested faster. The original commitments, right, are not going to take four years, they're going to take two years. So I would then encourage there to be a dialogue about that. So you also know before the two years are out. And this is why annual meetings exist. And LPs do try to check in and GPs reach out.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  And these conversations exist so that the why of that pacing difference has been discussed so that you know as an LP what to expect. And if they're going to come back to market, which is code for fundraising again at a different pace than what was originally anticipated, you know when you're prepared because LPs have portfolio construction just like VCs. And if you're going to shift things around, you need a heads up. So my takeaway is always just give the information necessary so everybody knows what's going on. And then people can make choices as they need to.

• 12:10Harry Stebbings?

  And we mentioned the sourcing there. So in terms of the actual pitching process itself, again, drawing the comparison to VCs and startups, is it a similar pitching process? Do you know, do GPs come to you with a slide deck and a mission and a thesis and the plan and the roadmap? Is that very similar?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  It is very similar. As I said, there is a lot of things that are, I think a fundraising process is a fundraising process, regardless if you're a company or a VC. There are obviously some differences. Overall structure is similar, there is usually a deck. There is usually a discussion of who you are, why you are, what the ultimate goals are, which are pretty similar amongst funds, but how they go about it is different, the market they're targeting. The same guidance that VCs give entrepreneurs about managing the process is similar, right? You want to be, as a VC, you want to do your homework in advance. You want to have a list of funds, you have LPs that you're targeting. To the extent you can do homework in advance and know who they are based on,

• 13:09Speaker 02

  do you have an existing LP base, much like having an existing board of directors or venture investors, leverage them, have them reach out on your behalf, figure out where people are at, what they're allocating, all those things. There's direct parallels to all of that. Having a timing of it, being aware that legal docs always take longer than anybody ever wants them to, but that's the nature of the beast, so timelines have to flex, but having a timeline is very helpful.

• 13:33Harry Stebbings?

  And in terms of the pitch itself then, you said about the decks there and what, you know, you should have one generally speaking, is there anything that generally works and doesn't work in the VC pitching process for you?

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Well, for us, I ask the same question all the time. I fear I sound like a broken record. I always want to know why you, because for me that captures the, have you thought about who you are as an investor, what you want to invest in, and why the entrepreneur is going to pick you versus all the other sources of capital that are available in the market? And that sort of encapsulates it. And so being as prepared as possible and your thoughts around that is always compelling for us. Now, it's hard to speak for everybody out there. LPs are like snowflakes and everyone's a bit different, but we find that understanding the why you is a very big part of what we do.

• 14:20Harry Stebbings?

  That's, what is it, GP market fit, would we say? I'm trying to coin something from this episode. Eric Riesling startup star, but okay. And then pitching done, it's time for the judgment call. So in terms of the investment decision making process, what does it look like for you then at Sapphire? You know, is this the same for all LP bases, do you think?

• 14:43Speaker 02

  At a very high level, yes. Typically, an LP will have a team that does the diligence, the referencing, the sourcing, and then there is a investment committee. Again, you'll see the continued parallels between this and a venture fund. Not everybody on the investing team votes on the investment committee, but there is a voting group that is the investment committee and they make the decision. And then you go back to the GP and you say, we have a commitment to do X number of dollars. I would be surprised if anyone doesn't have a structure similar to that. There's always variations. Investment committees can be bigger or smaller. Sometimes if you are an endowment or a pension fund, there can be. Board of Advisors on that. I mean, it can take different permutations, but typically the structure is the same.

• 15:26Harry Stebbings?

  And when you look at the LP ecosystem as a whole, and you know, potentially looking back over time now, are there commonalities when you when you witness the great LPs that have managed their funds exceptionally well?

• 15:37Speaker 02

  The things that I've noticed, because we study the venture ecosystem and what the great VCs have done, as well as the great LPs, a couple of things stand out. One is a commitment to the asset class over time. The timing of the market doesn't seem to be something anybody suggests. And instead, it's the you have to invest consistently over time, year after year after year. So the great LPs and the great VCs do the same. It's also a being open to the new and the different. And I say this because if you look at some of the industry research reports, Cambridge Associates does some great research on this, you will see that what is considered emerging managers, and these are venture funds that are on their first through fourth fund cycles, are always represented in the

• 16:22Speaker 02

  best and the worst performing managers. And then the established funds, the ones who are vintage five, six, seven, and on and on, play within all of those. And the takeaway that we have from that is you have to have both. You can't ignore any one section. So that means being open to the new and the different when new funds come to market, and being open to the fact that even established funds will have succession and change. And over 15, 20 years will look different. And just always be mindful of that and open to it. That seems to be how it works best when you observe the great investors.

• 16:55Harry Stebbings?

  And I want to talk about, talking of great investors, I want to talk about Sapphire Ventures more particular now. So as an LP, you're very product conceptual and centric. So how does that differ then from other LPs? And what do you think the benefits are of having this kind of product centric thesis?

• 17:13Speaker 02

  Well, we had this crazy opportunity. We decided four years ago in 2012 to launch the LP side of our business. We have two sides of our business. We have a growth fund that does direct growth investing into software companies, and that has a 20-year legacy. But in 2012, we launched this LP pool of capital. And we could sit down and say, much like the venture capitalists do when they want to rethink what it means to be a venture capitalist, we got to sit down and say, what does it mean to be an LP? What does it mean to be a great LP? What are the qualities? What are the attributes? And then we got to make up who we were. And it's just privilege of being new to the party. I mean, there's challenges, obviously, with being new to the party as well. But one of the great strengths that we found is that we could look at it and say,

• 17:55Speaker 02

  here's the three things we want to be and build a product, as we call it, that reflects that.

• 18:00Harry Stebbings?

  In terms of being new to the party, a lot of VCs I speak to reference branding and kind of individuality within that being new to the party. In terms of LPs, that seems to be completely paradoxical, being kind of the brand and out there. Would you agree with me? And would you say that this is potentially an evolving thesis within the LP market?

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Potentially. I think it's interesting. I haven't thought about it quite that way. I think because many of the LPs that have been so successful have been around for decades, their brand has been established through that persistence and perseverance and presence, I guess is the best way of saying it. We think about branding because we're newer and we want to make sure that our name is known for this, which is very similar to anyone. You know, I think you see some of the newer VCs approaching the market slightly differently as well, partially because of the making sure people know that they exist.

• 18:52Harry Stebbings?

  And I want to finish today, then, on things that VCs need to know going into raising a fund. So say I'm raising a fund. What should I know going into today's environment with regards to communication with LPs?

• 19:04Speaker 02

  Well, 2016 is a really interesting year. It's been something we've called the year of the haves and the have-nots, and it's still far from played out. But you see just an incredible amount of money being raised very quickly in the first quarter of the year. Over 50 funds raised something to the tune of $11, $12 billion, which is just fast when you think the last two years had closer to $30 billion raised. So you didn't quite raise half of a whole year's worth in the first quarter, but you made pretty good headway. And when you dive into the nature of the funds that did the raising, significantly larger number of over five hundred million dollar fund sizes. And the names themselves were all predominantly the established names. Which is, this just goes to why we called it the haves and the have nots.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  Usually there's a fairly interesting number of new funds coming to market every year, a significant number of sub one hundred million. And that's been skewed so far. Whether or not that evens out during the year, we're going to be tracking. But I can tell you in April, the same trend has continued. And you've seen a number of familiar names coming back to market like GGV, Menlo, Mayfield, Felisa, Union Square. All that was just April.

• 20:11Harry Stebbings?

  And this is so unfair of me to finish on this before we dive into a quick fire round. Is that not indicative of kind of GP's awareness that we are potentially moving into stormier environments? And they want to raise before the storm happens?

• 20:24Speaker 02

  Oh, I would think so. I mean, I think there's a number of forces at play. The stock market was wobbly, to say the least, in the beginning of the year, which causes its own dynamic in the industry. And all investors appreciate the buying low, selling high thing. So LPs as well as GPs want to put money to work when valuations are shifting downwards. Of course, the flip side of that, if you're an LP, is that you also, and for GPs, looking at the portfolios constructed in the last few years and wondering what valuation shifts might be occurring there for the unrealized investments. So it gives and takes, right?

• 20:58Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to dive into a quick fire round now. So I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts. Sound good?

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 21:05Harry Stebbings?

  So what's your favorite book and why? I need to do some more reading.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Well, you know, one of my favorite books is actually by a British author named Joan Aiken. And it's called The Tale of the One Way Street. And I read this years and years and years ago, but it stuck with me because it's this crazy story about this boy who lives in a world where you have to do things only one way. And everything's gray and drab and dreary. And then one day, being the entrepreneur that he is, he turns around and walks the wrong way on the one way street. And the world explodes into this kaleidoscope of colors and possibility. There's pink cats and red horses. And you can do, everything he was told you can only do one way, you could do a million ways. And I reread it fairly consistently to remind myself about the possibilities that emerge when you question the status quo.

• 21:46Harry Stebbings?

  Open LP, talk to me. Why did you start Open LP and what's the aim with it?

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Open LP kind of gets at what you were talking about with the marketing and branding around the LPs, because what was happening for us over the last year plus is that we were getting a huge number of questions about what is an LP, you know, the reason why you're doing this podcast, who are they, where are they, what do they do, what do they say? And at the same time, we studied the venture market, and you know, 10, 15 years ago, the same questions were being posed to venture capitalists, and you saw the response and the level of transparency and engagement and discourse and the strengthening of the ecosystem because now VCs and entrepreneurs are engaged in just much more active dialogue, and it's present, right, in Twitter, on blogs, and in the newspapers. And we just felt like you could marry the two, and it just felt so logical that we could

• 22:33Speaker 02

  launch Open LP, which is a website, it's very simple, we work with simple first principles. It's a website that has collected all the postings that we could find of LPs in the last, call it, 18 months. So if you want to read it and know what LPs are saying, you just go there, and there it is, and it's us and it's others. And then we created a hashtag, #openlp, because similarly, some LPs tweet versus writing, and we just wanted to collect it. So when people come to us and say, who is saying what, and who are they, we can say, check out these two resources, they're there, and try to amplify the voice of others so that we can encourage more LPs to come to the discussion. We think there's room for a lot more, and we just welcome it and want to do what we can to help be participatory and amplify.

• 23:15Harry Stebbings?

  And links for Open LP can be found in the show notes, and on iTunes, just to let you know. And then, what's your favorite blog or newsletter? What are the must reads?

• 23:24Speaker 02

  I read a lot, so I don't know if I could say just one, but I'd say my typical morning involves reading everything from Term Sheets, Strictly VC, PE Hub, Information, Full Ratchet, The Skim, Trusted Insight, Tech EU, I try to stay up on what's going on, harder to read Hebrew in Israel, but I try. So yeah, I read the whole calendar.

• 23:45Harry Stebbings?

  You have a busy morning. Thank you for giving me the time for the interview, wow.

• 23:50Speaker 02

  I drink a lot of coffee.

• 23:52Harry Stebbings?

  This is true, actually, you're very early mornings, yes.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  Well, and I would also say that I found this is a bit of a plug for our friend Jonathan Abrams. Nuzzle is very, very helpful. I do use readers and other tools to help aggregate the must reads, and Nuzzle is my first go to.

• 24:09Harry Stebbings?

  Nuzzle is one of those ones where you think, I don't know how I live without it. Yeah, no, definitely. And then what's the most challenging aspect of your role today? If I had a magic wand, what could I do for you?

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Oh, easily saying no, and I'm sure this is a pain point that GPs experience too. The LPs have to say no a lot, just like GPs, and it's never any fun.

• 24:29Harry Stebbings?

  So how do you say it at the moment? And how have you developed a framework around it or attempted to?

• 24:35Speaker 02

  Well, a lot of times the no is because things are out of scope and because we do have a fairly focused area of work. So a lot of things are really interesting, but they just are not something we'd invest in. And sometimes it's interesting and in scope, but we still don't have capacity in our portfolio because it's similar to something we already have, or we have a fair bit of allocation to that geography or something of that nature, or we're worrying about over or under capitalization. Almost every case, if I can be helpful, I try to be because I do think part of the role of an LP is to know other LPs. So I try to make introductions when possible and to be additive in that level. So I try to say no with a, but how can I help?

• 25:14Harry Stebbings?

  And I have to say, Beesa, being in the VC ecosystem full time for me, everyone is just always saying what incredible value ads you have, and it's so true. So, so thank you so much for all you do. And then, but finally, we're going to finish on no names, obviously. But what was your most recent investment decision and why did you say yes to it? Sorry.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  The most recent investment decision we made is to a fund that sits smack in our sweet spot. So it's a Bay Area based Series A fund. It's sub 200 million, so we kind of falls into that right sized number because they also have a, only a couple of the GP. So if you look at dollars per GP, the count works out well. They're experienced investors that were trained at some of the top leading funds in the Valley, but they have left to do their own fund and rethink how they want to approach the market. This is not their first fund, but they're still considered an emerging manager. They're going after the consumer space. They want to expand. I think they could. They have really great product acumen and then business operation acumen.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  And in our discussions with entrepreneurs, people really resonate to that. So we're excited. The LP base they have constructed is full of people we respect. So all of that seems to be coming together nicely.

• 26:29Harry Stebbings?

  Well, Beza, thank you so much for unravelling the world of LPs today. And I'm absolutely delighted to say that you will be joining us for quarterly updates in the future. I've just roped you into that. So that is fantastic. But thank you so much for sharing your story with us today.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Oh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

• 26:47Harry Stebbings?

  And again, I'd like to give a huge hand to Beza for coming on the show today. And I want to say a huge thank you for all she's done for me in terms of guidance, support and introduction. She really has been absolutely fantastic and I'm very, very grateful. And do not forget to check out openlp.com for all the best LP resources. Really is my go to place now. Likewise, if you want to stay in the world of the 20 minute VC, then you can follow me on Snapchat at H Stebbings or sign up to the newsletter on the20minutavec.com so you never have to miss an episode or an update from us. But before we leave you today, the 20 minute VC is brought to you by Lisa. Lisa are like the Toms or the Walby Parker of the mattress industry. Why? Well, having created an awesome online end to end mattress buying experience,

• 27:32Harry Stebbings?

  replacing the worst ever experience of buying and testing a mattress in the showroom, that still isn't enough for them as they like to give back, which is why for every 10 mattresses Lisa sells, they donate one to a shelter. These mattresses are also not just any mattresses as they're engineered to perfection with three unique layers, including two inches of memory foam and two inches of latex light foam, designed to keep you cool. And not only are they engineered to perfection, but all Lisa mattresses are made in the UK and the US and can be shipped for free to the US, UK and Canada. They also have a 100 night trial so you can make sure that the mattress is perfect for you. So head over to leesa.com/vc and enter the promo code VC75 at checkout to get a cool $75 off.

• 28:17Harry Stebbings?

  As always, I'm so grateful for all your support and I look very forward to welcoming Chris Duvos to the show on Wednesday. Stay tuned.