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I interviewed Kate Mitchell, Managing Director Scale Venture Partners who won an award @NVCA Venturescape. She received the Outstanding Service Award. Along with being a great vc she started the IPO Taskforce which she worked on for 10months which resulted in the JOBS Act. The center piece of this is access to capital for small companies. It smooths the path all the way from the private end of things, crowdfunding all the way through going public for small companies. She refers to it as a ‘Purple Issue’ because both the Democrats (Blue) & Republicans (Red) care about jobs & innovation & that’s what entrepreneurship is about. Her domain expertise is enterprise technology. Scale Venture Partners has made a large practice out of investing in that area. She feels that the entrepreneurs inspire them: “They keep our gas tank full!” She spoke about the changing face of venture capital industry. On the one hand it is good that there have been cut backs: “It’s the tree that needs to be pruned but none of us want to be the limbs that have to be cut off!” It means that the great companies that are out there have a better chance. There’s also been a shift with micro VC, emerging manager small ‘back to the future’ funds. This is really what the industry was founded upon. She’s thrilled about that development as it complements what they do. Corporate Venture has grown hugely – they have come back in a more sophisticated way, are partnering & understand & help but not necessarily dominate the companies that they’re investing in.
