20VC: Why Young VCs Must Have Cheque Writing Ability & Why Corporate VC Is The Best Training Ground For New VCs with Nagraj Kashyap @ Microsoft Ventures

Nagraj Kashyap is the Head of Microsoft Ventures, the early stage investment arm of Microsoft. They have made investments in the likes of Cahoot, CloudSimple and Outreach just to name a few from their fantastic portfolio. As for Nagraj, prior to Microsoft, he was a senior vice president and head of Qualcomm Ventures where he built Qualcomm Ventures from a US/China-focused team of three in 2003 to a global leader in corporate venture capital with 25 investment professionals and direct investments around the world. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Nagraj made his way into the world of corporate VC and came to be Head of Microsoft Ventures? 2.) Question from Matt Goldstein: What does it take to start a fund from scratch and build a team like Nagraj is doing with Microsoft Ventures? How does he look to establish mindshare for entrepreneurs with a new brand? 3.) Why does Nagraj feel that corporate VC is not viewed in the same regard as traditional VC? Why is this view wrong? What are the benefits of taking corporate VC money? 4.) Why does Nagraj feel it is imperative to let young VCs write cheques and learn from their mistakes? How does Nagraj structure the learning process for new and young VCs? 5.) What does the future hold for the world of corporate VC? Will we see an expansion of this capital source? Why is Nagraj so bullish? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Nagraj’s Fave Book: The Omnivore's Dilemma Nagraj’s Most Recent Investment: Kahoot As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nagraj on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Foundersuite makes the leading CRM for raising startup capital. Since March of 2016, Foundersuite customers have raised over $130M in seed and venture capital. Foundersuite’s CRM sits on a database of over 50,000 investors, which will help you quickly populate your fundraising funnel including a beautiful and easy-to-use investor update tool, and the recently launched a new portal that helps investors and accelerators track their portfolio companies on a single dashboard. For a whopping 40% off a Monthly or Annual subscription use the code “20MinuteVC” at checkout. Greenhouse Software designs tools that help companies hire great people and ultimately build better businesses. Greenhouse works with over 1,500 of the world’s most innovative companies such as Airbnb, Slack, Snap Inc. and Lyft. A wrong hire is not only costly for a company but can also turn an employee into an unhappy one. With Greenhouse’s Applicant Tracking System, companies can make well-informed decisions and hire qualified candidates who are empowered to do the best work of their careers. Anybody who has a company that’s scaling quickly but has trouble hiring and retaining the right people. Visit www.greenhouse.io today to discover how your company can grow.

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

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  Welcome back to another episode in the land of the 20 minute VC with me, your host Harry Stebbings, found on Snapchat at H Stebbings with two Bs and all ads get a personal thank you from me. However, to the show today, and we have a slightly different style of guest today as we have a leader from the world of corporate venture capital joining us in the hot seat today. And so I'm delighted to welcome Naghrash Kashyap to the show today. Now Naghrash is the head of Microsoft Ventures, the early-stage investment arm of Microsoft, and they've made investments in the likes of Kahoot, Cloud Simple and Outreach, just to name a few, from their fantastic portfolio. As for Naghrash, prior to Microsoft, he was a senior vice president and head of Qualcomm Ventures, where he built Qualcomm from a US-China focused team of three in 2003 to a global leader in corporate venture capital with 25 investment professionals and direct investments around the world.

• 0:44Harry Stebbings?

  And I want to say a big thank you to Matthew Goldstein at Microsoft Ventures for the intro to Naghrash today, without which this episode would not have been possible. But before we dive into the show today, you must check out Founder Suite. Founder Suite makes the leading CRM for raising startup capital. Since March of 2016, Founder Suite customers have raised over $130 million in seed and venture capital. Founder Suite CRM sits on a database of over 50,000 investors, which will help you quickly populate your fundraising funnel, including a beautiful and easy to use investor update tool and the recently launched new portal that helps investors and accelerators track their portfolio companies on a single dashboard. Founder Suite is used by startups in Y Combinator, Techstars, 500 Startups and every other major accelerator.

• 1:26Harry Stebbings?

  And listeners of this podcast can get a whopping 40% off a monthly or annual subscription using the promo code 20MINUTVC at checkout, that's 2020-MINUTVC. Check it out today and take advantage of this exclusive offer. Speaking of incredible software, Greenhouse Software designs tools that helps companies hire great people and ultimately build better businesses. Recognized as the 2017 best place to work in the US by Glassdoor, Greenhouse currently works with over 1,500 of the world's most innovative companies, such as Airbnb, Slack, Snap, Inc. and Lyft. A wrong hire is not only costly for a company, but can also turn employee into an unhappy one. With Greenhouse's applicant tracking system, companies can make well-informed decisions and hire qualified candidates who are empowered to do the best work of their careers.

• 2:09Harry Stebbings?

  Anybody who has a company that's scaling quickly but has trouble hiring and retaining the right people, visit greenhouse.io today to discover how your company can grow. But enough from me, so without further ado, I'm delighted to welcome Naghrash Kashyap, head of Microsoft Ventures.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:32Harry Stebbings?

  Naghrage, such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thanks to partner Matt Goldstein for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Naghrage.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Look forward to it, Harry.

• 2:41Harry Stebbings?

  Now, I'd love to get started today by discussing a bit about you and how you made your way into what I describe as the wonderful world of venture capital.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I'll, I'll give it a go here. And Harry, I think first of all, before I start, congratulations on getting your way into the wonderful world of VC.

• 2:57Harry Stebbings?

  That's very kind of you.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  I, I have to tell you, that was the most innovative way I've seen, ever seen anybody get into VC. And when my kids asked me how to get into VC, I said, well, I have a role model for you now. You just, but that playbook is taken, so you have to do something else. So that's, that's what I generally tell them.

• 3:12Harry Stebbings?

  Well, I'm always here to coach.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So from, from my perspective, I had a, a much longer route to VC. I was a, I started off as a software engineer and worked my way into being a management consultant, after which I, I was lucky enough to land into Qualcomm Ventures, which is the corporate venture capital of Qualcomm. So I went from being a software engineer to a management consultant and then went into VC. And the way I saw it was as a management consultant, I was doing very interesting jobs almost every project, every three to six months. And it was very, very intellectually stimulating. Uh, but I had to travel to the client. And when I joined Corporate VC, I was still doing very interesting things every day, uh, working with different entrepreneurs, but they were coming to me. So I think it was a much better trade for me.

• 3:59Harry Stebbings?

  That was the thing that attracted you to venture. Um, and now obviously you're at Microsoft Ventures. And so I do want to start with a question from, from one of the partners, uh, with you at Microsoft and, and the man who introduced us, Matt. So talk to me, he wants to know, what's it like setting up a firm from scratch like you are with Microsoft now? How is that for you?

• 4:19Speaker 02

  Well, it was, uh, it was one of the primary reasons I took the job, uh, when Microsoft came calling. I mean, there was many other reasons to join Microsoft as a company, but one of the attractions was the fact that I would be employee number one in my own startup, which is, you know, the startup in this case is, is starting up a new venture firm. So it was really. Very exciting when I got that, you know, I did this once over twelve years back and the chance, you rarely get a chance to do very similar thing again because you have a lot of lessons learned. So I said, everything I've learned in the last twelve years, I'll take that. I'll jump into it. I'll try to make sure I don't make the same mistakes and do it hopefully much better the second time around. So it was, it's very exciting to start it. It obviously means that you're to build everything again, starting with the biggest component of the arm, which is the people.

• 5:02Speaker 02

  And so from my perspective, I spent the first six months almost just basically recruiting. And when I say recruiting, it doesn't mean that, you know, I got people to come up to my office and, and just had an interview. It meant that I was taking them out for dinner. I was meeting where they were. I wanted to see them in many different settings. Because ultimately what I was trying to build was a culture that would last long. And people who would fit into that culture would not only smart, which, you know, many of us in the VC world are smart, but it also has specific culture I was trying to build. So it took me a while to build a team. But it was the probably the best part of the journey is to be meeting so many bright folks and then trying to figure out which, which one of those would actually fit into the culture I was trying to build at Microsoft Ventures.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  So it was really the way I look at it as building my own startup for the first six months and then activating the best and brightest I hired for the next stage of the, of the firm.

• 5:53Harry Stebbings?

  And I'm super interested. You said there about twelve years ago, obviously you did it before. What were those really big lessons that you took with you then to establishing your second startup in Microsoft Ventures? Were there any that stand out?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  I think the, the, some of the good lessons I took, which I sort of, I'm doing it again. Uh, basically, what I learned was you can absolutely take young professionals who are smart. I was just pure smart, who had never done VC, and you can train them. And I have a specific methodology for training, but you know, I, I knew that I trained folks who had not, not done VC or not written code and code their first check and, and help them get into the VC world, but also thrive in it. So I think that was the biggest lesson I said was I was successful in doing that at Qualcomm and I felt that I could absolutely do that in Microsoft. And that's sort of primarily how I've done it. I've obviously hired folks who have done VC before, but I've also heard, heard folks who have sort of not written checks or not been.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Out retired checks and sort of said, look, you can do that now because I fundamentally believe in you. So I think that's sort of the lesson I I I learned. It took me, I would say, the best way to think about it is it took twelve years to build a Qualcomm ventures where it is. I'm compressing that timeframe because I'm taking a lot of the lessons. I it took me a while to understand how to hire and what kind of people to bring in. And I feel that I have hopefully the formula right and now I can accelerate it. And that's what I've done, I think, in in less than twelve months, built, I think, a corporate venture capital firm that is already recognized as one of the most active and and good firm to work.

• 7:17Harry Stebbings?

  Well, how can I not pick up on one element there? As a developing VC myself now, you said about a strict methodology in terms of training. I'd love to hear more about that. How that process looks for you? Is it kind of instant ownership? Is it very much a backseat in the IC and and watch and learn style? How does that process look for you?

• 7:34Speaker 03

  For me, it's when I say strict methodology, I mean, I think sort of worked and it is really about ownership. And what I mean by that is the lessons I've learned, which work well is you hire what you think are the best, the smartest people. You give them responsibility very early on and you give them responsibility by letting them essentially write small checks, make small investments. And what that process brings about is it brings about these lifelong lessons for the person who's making those investments. And many times you almost allow them to make mistakes. And when I say mistakes, I mean, as a VC, it's a lot about patent matching.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  So you've seen things happen which you don't want to repeat. If a newly minted VC wants to write a small check and you think that's a mistake. Many times you'll say, why don't you go ahead and do it? And what happens is if it turns out it didn't work out, they will never again do it again. They will just learn from that. The best people are self-aware. They realize they made a mistake. And at the time when they have to write the bigger checks, they're much better positioned to make the right decisions. So the methodology we used and is all about empowering. It's you empower the people to make the make the decisions. Once they make the decisions, it's a pride of ownership issue and they not only have money on the line, but they have their track record and their personal pride of ownership on the issue.

• 8:55Speaker 03

  They will not repeat mistakes. Now, many times, of course, they also get it right the first time, which is great. If you get it right the first time, that's great. But if you don't, that's still okay. And I think that's why I think corporate VC is a great training ground. You cannot necessarily do the things I'm talking about in a normal financial VC environment, but in the corporate VC environment, you can do these things because there's no.

• 9:16Harry Stebbings?

  Why is that? Is that because the fiduciary responsibility of LPs is is different to you now as a corporate with Microsoft as the LP? Is that the reason?

• 9:23Speaker 03

  Absolutely not. That is not the reason. The reason is there is a lot of flexibility in the kinds of checks corporate VCs can write, the kind of stages we can invest in, kind of sectors we can invest in. If you think of a firm that has raised, let's say, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred million from LPs, you have a set formula. It's very, very hard to change that formula, which is you can do X number of investments. The check size has to be Y. You need to get twenty percent. And those are sort of almost very hard exceptions to break because that's how the model works. And if in that particular model, you cannot go and say, hey, go ahead and make a small investment and let's see how it works out. You really can't. In the corporate VC environment, we don't have constraints of we have to write a check of X million dollars. We have to get twenty percent ownership. We only only can invest in a sector that the LPs gave us money for.

• 10:09Speaker 03

  When when we invest as behalf of large corporations, the interests are very, very varied. It can be a hardware company one day, it could be a software company next day, it could be a med device company the other day. So it's a very varied group of companies you can invest in. We don't have to take twenty percent ownership because it is not the purpose. We need to make financial return, but it is not a set fund size many times. So I would say the degree of flexibility in how the fund is structured allows us to train the next generation of VCs.

• 10:37Harry Stebbings?

  Before we dive into kind of corporate VCs in that world, I would love to hear, just out of personal interest to me now, again, just joining the world of VC is, how much of a role does mentorship play for you? Often VC firms are personnel light, and so the managing partners and partners are very time constrained and don't always have the time for the onboarding of of new employees. How much of a role do you think kind of mentoring and time allowance plays in in onboarding successfully?

• 11:02Speaker 03

  I I think mentoring is is critical. I mean, mentoring is critical. But I think, as I said, mentoring alone is not enough because at some point the young VC or the VCs coming into the into the profession has to spread out on their own and mentoring alone won't do it. What you have to do is after a period of mentoring, you have to allow them to be able to make decisions. And I think ultimately, as I said, you never learn from books. VC is not a science. You can learn. It's very much an art. And unless you go through a couple of investments and figure out what works and what doesn't work, ultimately, that's what trains you. So you're to start with mentoring. You obviously have to spend a lot of time trying to just at least impart what you've learned, which, you know, again, everybody has learned something in their lives and there's some value to imparting them to new newly

• 11:47Speaker 03

  minted professionals. But then ultimately, they will make their own decisions and learn from their journey and you add that up with the mentorship you provided and that should lead to a good, successful career.

• 11:56Harry Stebbings?

  Well, fingers crossed on that one. But I do I do want to discuss the corporate venture fund structure and and kind of area now. You said about the benefits of it in terms of flexibility mandate wise. I'm intrigued though, because often when speaking to entrepreneurs and the wider public, there's a slightly negative perception towards corporate VC funds. I'm intrigued why you think this is and whether you think that's a fair attribution to the to the kind of asset class of corporate VC.

• 12:22Speaker 03

  Absolutely. So before I start, I'll tell you one stat. I mean, right now, 25% of all VC dollars come from corporate. So from an asset class perspective, it is here to stay. It is not a fad. It is not something that's going to go away tomorrow. And it's a very important part of the VC ecosystem. 25% means that every almost every entrepreneur at some point in time will run into corporate VC. So your question is very valid is to what when they do run into corporate VC, there's some misconceptions or or sorry to say, perceptions that were built over time. And a lot of the perceptions have been built over the last big time when corporate VCs jumped in. And this was in the late 90s when the stock market was going through the roof. And essentially, every corporation felt this was an easy way

• 13:04Speaker 03

  to make money and they all got into it. When the stock market crashed, many of them got out. That led to many of the misperceptions today that still persist can be traced back to the era when corporate VCs were viewed as short term capital sources, not disciplined, not willing to stay with the company to the long run. I think what has changed now, fast forward a decade or more later, is that there is a different reason corporate VCs are in the game. They are not here to make, you know, sort of easy money, so to speak. They're here to support corporations. They're here to support their parent corporations in finding new sources of innovation. They're here to make sure that startups work well with big corporations. Some of the startup culture gets imbibed in in large corporations from an outside in perspective. And corporations have strong balance sheets.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  So this is a different time than when a lot of the perceptions of corporate VCs were formed. So while things won't change overnight, I think the new breed of corporate VCs are changing the perceptions, you know, sort of one investment at a time and doing, making best practices that should sort of really allay the fears of financial VCs entrepreneurs and how to take money from them. So it's it's not going to happen overnight, Harry, but I do think that not only is corporate VC here to stay as an asset class, it's a critical part of the VC ecosystem. And I would say many, many best practices from what we did at Qualcomm, what other longstanding venture, corporate venture firms like Google and Intel have done, are now permeating to the next generation of corporate VCs. So we should see, I think, a lot of these perceptions go away over time.

• 14:33Harry Stebbings?

  What do you think the future of VC, corporate VC, sorry, looks like? Does it also look like a much greater piece of the pie than 25%? Or do you think the growth in their sector will remain as it is?

• 14:44Speaker 03

  Now, I don't have a crystal ball, but there was a recent report, actually just very topical, released, commissioned by Telstra that came out just a couple of days back, which said that they see corporate VC going from 25% to 35% in the next five to 10 years. You know, directionally, I think I view that as as a reality. It's going to either stay or or grow, but it won't shrink. And and as I said, the imperative for large corporations to find new sources of innovation and to grow beyond what their, quote unquote, core business will not go away. And so if that doesn't go away, there's no reason why participation in the startup ecosystem is going to go down. So I I sort of have the view that directionally, it's headed in the direction of having more. Participation then less.

• 15:26Harry Stebbings?

  I I'm intrigued also, again, as a newly minted VC, kind of LP relations is is a critical part of any traditional venture fund model. How does LP relations work then then with you and and Microsoft Ventures? And what's the kind of reporting structure?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  The way to think of LP relation obviously is a single LP, so Microsoft is the sole source of funds for for the group. And that means that we have to report to Microsoft, just like LPs, you need LPs would like to get reported. They want to find out what investments you've done, what the value of the investments is, you know, are they doing well, not doing well? So a whole host of financial reporting that any other LP would demand. But I think the interesting thing is, in addition to that, the biggest value from a Microsoft perspective is what's really happening in in the startup ecosystem? Where are the pockets of innovation? Where is the puck going next? Those are things that are above and beyond what a traditional LP relationship looks like. And I think most of the value that the parent company gets out of it is in the latter category, not just not the former.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Because on the former side, we assume that you hire the best people and you'll make money as any other VC should be making money. You make good investments. I've always been a believer that good financial investments lead to good strategic outcomes. And, you know, if a if a company doesn't do well, there's no strategic benefit for anybody. This really, we are focused on finding the best companies thrive financially, but that also lead to these good strategic outcomes for the parent company. So I think the the LP relationship is slightly different. And I would argue that, you know, we have to actually not just report, but sort of come back to the parent company on many more different axes than just how financially the companies are doing.

• 16:59Harry Stebbings?

  I I do, we discussed the kind of future of corporate VC as a as a model there. I do want to discuss the the future of diversity in VC. It's often something that's much discussed in VC. I'm intrigued to hear your take on on diversity within the sector and and how prominent it's been for you in terms of what you've witnessed.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  It's very well known that our overall sector suffers from a lack of diversity. And I think, again, I I come back to how VCs get their start. I mean, getting a start in a VC firm is just is very, very hard. I mean, there's the, I would say, not the easy route, but the most obvious route is you become an entrepreneur. Or you sell your company and then you know you join a V C. That's that's one route. The other route takes you from whether it's engineering or or or labor arts to to sort of getting some work. Uh, work, getting an M B A and then sort of finding your way into an associate role and then you sort of rise up the ranks. But not every associate becomes a G P or managing director. And so there's some attrition there.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  But historically, it's been very, very hard to see how there's sort of just a fundamental lack of diversity in the way it is. And I I sort of trace it back to a little bit of the inflexibility with the V C model and the financial V C model. And why I think corporate V C is there is a lot more diversity. And because, as I said, come back to we can train, we can take chances uh on on folks. We hire the best people. You don't not rigid in terms of number of partners who can write checks. And so I think corporate V C lends itself a lot more to diversity. And for me, it's not just about numbers. Really, it's about who the end customers are. The end customers are diverse, whether it's the buying folks in a big corporation or it's the it's the public that's consuming good.

• 18:37Speaker 03

  You want to have representation that commiserate with what the end markets are. And so from a financial and business sense, a business perspective, it makes sense to have a diverse set of investors. And so for us, it's been a really, really nice to be able to hire the best people and be able to train them. And then, you know, it turns out if you do that and you have a flexible model, you end up with a very diverse group.

• 19:01Harry Stebbings?

  And I'd love to dive into a quick fire round with you now, though. So I say a short statement and then you give me your immediate thoughts in about sixty seconds per one. How does that sound?

• 19:09Speaker 03

  I try my best. I got this pretty late, so I'll try my best.

• 19:12Harry Stebbings?

  So let's do your favorite book and why.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Uh, you'll come around left field. One of my favorite books is The Omnivore's Dilemma, and you asked me why. And one is I read it recently, so it's as fresh off my mind. Second is I like to know what goes into my stomach. I like to know what my food comprises of. But I think more importantly, uh, if you read the book, uh, what the author Michael Pollan's done is it's taken himself in a journey when after the journey is passing judgments. And he's taking into a journey where he actually goes and understands the food supply chain and why it's broken and why things are the way it is. He's not doing armchair quarterbacking and I come back to VC many times. I feel that myself, you know, VCs and myself included,

• 19:52Speaker 03

  we pass judgment too quickly. We meet a company, we really don't know what journey they went through before they got to presenting us across the table. But you know, they basically get an hour and we pass judgment on whether that's good or bad. We don't really understand the journey they went through, why they actually created, what they created. And I think what Michael Pollan has been able to do is not just pass judgment, but but sort of go on through the journey and then understood the reasons for what uh why the food is is what it is. And I think it's very interesting. And when he passes judgment, it's a lot of credibility when he says things are good or bad because he's actually immersed himself in the food supply chain. Anyway, that's my six seconds on why I like the book.

• 20:29Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. Sixty seconds. So what would you most like to see change in VC?

• 20:33Speaker 03

  I would like to see a more flexible model all around where it's not one size fits all with the largest funds having to deploy larger and larger amounts of capital, which constrains them on the kinds of things they can fund, whether they can fund early stage or later stage. The check sizes have a way of taking the industry in in in manner where you may actually miss fundamental innovation. So I would like to have that change in VC. I would also like to have VCs fund more fundamental innovations, which I think we have gone away from over the last few years. Because harder tech, I would say, more core tech is very hard to fund from a VC perspective. Semiconductors is a good example of funding that sort of has almost gone away from the VC sector. Very few VCs will touch semiconductors. And it's a it's a core innovation. Hardware is a core innovation on which software resides.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  So we do need to see continued innovation at the bottom layers, but that has sort of almost gone away from the VC ecosystem. I'd like to see that come back.

• 21:25Harry Stebbings?

  The biggest mentor to you and how it came about?

• 21:28Speaker 03

  My biggest mentor, without naming the person first, is how it came about is when I when I joined Qualcomm Ventures, you know, it's sort of very, very early on. And we were we were very early and we were taking bets which were very sort of hard for many people in the company to to sort of understand. And so by my my mentor by default became the most senior member of my investment community, which was at that time, it was going to be the CEO of Qualcomm, but you know, Dr. Paul Jacobs, and he sort of, he basically gave. He basically said, okay, I understand that there is, you cannot trace a direct line between the investment in Qualcomm. But I understand where you're going. You're saying if the company is successful, we'll benefit indirectly and directly. And while I don't completely agree with your investment, I will let you do it because I do think that you assembled a good team of folks.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  And so I'll let you do it. And that was sort of two thousand three, two thousand four, when corporate VCs were not well established. And so he sort of de facto became my mentor and sort of I use that philosophy to hire my team and train my team, which is, I will let you do this because I believe you're smart and I think what you're doing is in the best interest of Qualcomm. And I think you'll look out for that interest and I trust you. And so go make a few investments and I will give you that leave it. And that became my de facto mentor, my philosophy and how I actually hired my team and trained them.

• 22:41Harry Stebbings?

  How do you measure success then for you?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  For me, personally, the reason I like corporate VC and how I measure success is if I am a strong enough signal that I am responsible in some small way to change corporate strategy for a large corporation. That is the reason that I get up every day and do my job is, A, I meet very, very strong entrepreneurs. But what I invest in, if I can make that as informed for the senior management of the company I'm investing on behalf, that then they take into account and change what they were doing in some small or big way. That's how I measure success. We always have to make money. But on a broader level, I want to be able to influence the strategy of the company I'm investing on behalf of. And that hopefully leads to good societal good also.

• 23:22Harry Stebbings?

  And then let's finish today on your most recent public investment, that's publicly announced investment and why you said yes.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  The one that I personally recently did and that I said yes to was a company called Kahoot. It's actually close to where you are. It's closer to you than it is to me. It's based in Oslo. And what the company really does and why I said yes was they are fundamentally making learning more fun for kids from K to twelve. And that is, it really, really hits home for me with my two kids and how I want them to be more engaged with what they're doing. And what Kahoot does is sort of really brings games or how you teach the curriculum in a gamified way to the classroom. And the reason I said yes was not only did I like the management team, which of course you have to, and the numbers are good. But when I really said yes was when I saw videos of kids engaging with their teachers on complex subjects using Kahoot

• 24:12Speaker 03

  and how excited they were. I mean, that was sort of the clinching thing for me is sort of that can bring about fundamental change in our classrooms. And it's a good business. So that's sort of why I said yes.

• 24:22Harry Stebbings?

  Nagraj, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show. Matt told me it would be a fantastic episode and it's absolutely lived up to our expectations. So, thank you so much for giving up the time today.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Absolutely, Harry, and best of luck as a newly minted VC. As I said, you had a great way into it and I'm sure it'll be very successful.

• 24:39Harry Stebbings?

  Very kind of Nagraj and such a pleasure to hear the internal workings of Microsoft Ventures and such exciting times for him and the team. And if you love the show today and would like to see more from us, then you can follow me on Snapchat at H Stubbings with two Bs. I'd love to see you there. But before we leave you today, you must check out Founder Suite. Founder Suite makes the leading CRM for raising startup capital. Since March of 2016, Founder Suite customers have raised over $130 million in seed and venture capital. Founder Suite CRM sits on a database of over 50,000 investors, which will help you quickly populate your fundraising funnel, including a beautiful and easy to use investor update tool and the recently launched new portal that helps investors and accelerators track their portfolio companies on a single dashboard.

• 25:20Harry Stebbings?

  Founder Suite is used by startups in Y Combinator, tech stars, 500 startups and every other major accelerator. And listeners of this podcast can get a whopping 40% off a monthly or annual subscription using the promo code 20MINUTEVC at checkout. That's 2020-minute VC. Check it out today and take advantage of this exclusive offer. Speaking of incredible software, Greenhouse Software designs tools that helps companies hire great people and ultimately build better businesses. Recognized as the 2017 Best Place to Work in the US by Glassdoor, Greenhouse currently works with over 1,500 of the world's most innovative companies, such as Airbnb, Slack, Snap, Inc. and Lyft. A wrong hire is not only costly for a company, but can also turn an employee into an unhappy one.

• 26:03Harry Stebbings?

  With Greenhouse's applicant tracking system, companies can make well-informed decisions and hire qualified candidates who are empowered to do the best work of their careers. Anybody who has a company that's scaling quickly but has trouble hiring and retaining the right people, visit greenhouse.io today to discover how your company can grow. As always, I so appreciate all your support and I look very forward to bringing you Friday's episode with Spencer Kimball at Cockroach Labs.