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I interviewed Larry Marcus, Managing Director Walden Ventures @GLAZED Conference. Walden Ventures invest in post technology, post product. Larry likes to see something with his own eyes that generates visceral excitement in himself or the target market so it all starts with a great demo. They dont do seed investing. They invest in digital media & cloud based products & services (digital media is defined very broadly services, infrastructure & content). He became a vc because he just loves technology & innovation & he loves products as a user. He was in Equity Research & was taking companies public & spent time with the vcs who had really helped build the business. To him that seemed like a great spot to be & at the time in the ’90s those were Series A & B companies that were entering into the market. He has a real passion for the people & products & building brands that can deliver to the mass market. He really values deep feminine passion & has recruited into senior management for SoundHound, Pandora & BandPage. He also has been advising Rivet Ventures which is a team of female vcs who fund early stage women ventures. He spoke about the changes that are happening in the venture industry as it has contracted dramatically from hundreds of firms to maybe a hundred firms that can actually do a legitimate Series A investment (& most of those wont be able to invest in particular sectors). Theres never been more angels – there’s probably 60k to 70k investments done a year. But with all those seeds out there, very few can sprout & turn into something. In between once they have great market traction theres not a lot of capital – the Series A Crunch. The big firms have gotten bigger & write larger checks. They do deals in US based areas. The more angel & seed investing there is the more innovation & he’s a big supporter of that because theres more opportunities for them to get involved in companies: building their brands, building their teams, helping them scale.
