#140 Kindred Ventures’ Founder & Managing Partner, Investor of Uber, Coinbase, Postmates, Steve Jang

Sophia Amoruso is the founder and managing partner of Trust Fund, an early-stage venture fund focused exclusively (yet broadly) on investing in tech-enabled products that help people start and build businesses. Trust fund’s investors include Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Ev Williams, Naomi Gleit, Andrew Chen, Jeff Jordan, Jesse Draper, Rob Hayes, and Phil Hellmuth. Some of their portfolios include Public, Liquid Death, and MoonPay, among others. She is also the founder of Nasty Gal, Girlboss and a New York Times Bestselling author. 

You can learn more about: 

• How to Brand Your Business
• How to Invest in Top Startups
• Lessons from Being an Entrepreneur to Venture Capitalist

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Dave Long is the CEO of Orangetheory Fitness. He leads the company's franchise model, regional development, and product development strategy. After founding the company in 2010 with two partners, Dave has led the brand through countless pivotal achievements, including launching two apps, creating a proprietary heart rate monitor with strategically chosen partners, and signing celebrity brand ambassadors. In addition, Dave facilitated Orangetheory Fitness's exponential growth and expanded the brand worldwide, with studios now open in several countries. The scientifically backed fitness franchise continues its rapid expansion with no end in sight under Dave's leadership. Before that, Dave helped grow Massage Envy from 25 to 800 locations. Dave also helped European Wax Center expand the concept from 4 to over 550 locations in less than nine years.

You can learn more about:

1. How to build an iconic fitness brand
2. How to build an effective system to scale your business
3. How to stay on top of the tech trends and apply them to your businesses

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Jake Seid is the Co-Founder and General Partner at Ballistic Ventures, a VC firm focused on early-stage cybersecurity and security-related venture investments, with a debut fund of $300M. Before working at Ballistic, Jake was a Managing Director at Lightspeed Venture Partners and founder and Managing Director at Stone Bridge Ventures—his portfolio includes Blend, Brex, Bolt, Abnormal Security, Carta, Cresta.ai, Drata, and more. 

You can learn more about: 

1. Investing trends in the cybersecurity space
2. Starting and building a successful fund 
3. How to attract the best founders 

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Sergio Monsalve is the Founding Partner of Roble Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs building human enablement technologies. Before founding Roble Ventures, Sergio was a Partner at Norwest Venture Partners and the Board Member and Investor of Udemy. He also invested in other billion-dollar companies such as Kahoot! and Adaptive Insights. 

You can learn more about: 

1. From working at a top fund to starting a fund.
2. Insights into founding Roble Ventures and key strategies for success in venture capital.
3. A look into future trends in work, learning, and AI, and what makes a successful ed-tech company.

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Disclosure: I am an investor in the company. 

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Ambar Bhattacharyya is the Managing Director at Maverick Ventures. During his venture capital career at Maverick Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Bain Capital Ventures, Ambar has led or been actively involved in investments resulting in 16 IPOs & acquisitions, with six companies achieving valuations of over $1B in the public markets.

Ambar has received broad recognition for his leadership, including Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40", Business Insider’s “30 leaders under 40 transforming healthcare”, San Francisco Business Time’s "40 under 40" list, and as a Global Shaper by the World Economic Forum. He was also selected to be an Aspen Institute Health Innovators Fellow in 2022. Ambar has been cited by publications including Business Insider, CNBC, Fast Company, Forbes, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal for his thoughts on the startup ecosystem and innovation. 

You can learn more about: 

1. How to invest in the top healthcare companies? 
2. How to accelerate your career growth in venture capital? 
3. The healthcare AI landscape deep dive. 

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Gaurav Jain is the Co-founder of Afore Capital, one of the top venture funds ($300M AUM) dedicated to pre-seed investments. Some of the investments Gaurav and/or Afore have been involved in include Modern Health (leading mental health platform), Hightouch (leader in data infra), Cruise Automation (acq by GM for $1B+) and Firebase (acq by Google). You can find Gaurav at https://twitter.com/gjain

You can learn more about: 

1. How to identify talents in the early stage 
2. How to build a top pre-seed VC fund 
3. How to add value to top founders 

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Rebecca is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Canvas Ventures where she leads early-stage investments in Fintech, Healthtech, and AI. Rebecca has been named to the Forbes Midas List five years running, a Woman to Watch: Senior Deal Maker by the Wall Street Journal, and a Top Woman VC by the New York Times. Some of her notable investments include Luminar (NASDAQ: LAZR), Lending Club (NYSE: LC), Practice Fusion (acq Allscripts), Gabi (acq Experian), Check (acq Intuit), RelateIQ (acq Salesforce), CrowdFlower (acq by Appen), Viewics (acq Roche), FutureAdvisor (acq Blackrock), and Figure8 (acq Appen). 

Before founding Canvas, Rebecca served as a General Partner at Morgenthaler Ventures. During her time at Morgenthaler, one of her early investments, Doximity (NYSE: DOCS), went public in 2021 and was one of the year’s largest IPOs. Before that, she was the VP of NextCard. At NextCard, the first online credit card company, Rebecca helped scale the company from 30 people to 1300 and an IPO. 

You can learn more about: 

1. How to invest in the world’s changing entrepreneurs  
2. Founding and managing a leading VC firm 
3. How to be a value-adding board member 

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Sam Yagan is the co-founder and Managing Director of Corazon Capital, a leading Chicago-based Seed and Series A venture fund. Their portfolio includes companies like SpotHero, Songfinch and Stellar, among others. Prior to Corazon, he served as CEO of ShopRunner and led its 2020 acquisition by FedEx Corp. Previously, as CEO of Match Group, he spearheaded the launch of Tinder in 2012 and oversaw the company's IPO in 2015. His previous ventures also include founding SparkNotes in 1999 and co-founding OkCupid in 2004.

You can learn more about: 

1. How to start and run multiple successful startups 
2. How to run the best dating company 
3. How to build a great network and start a fund 

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David Rogier is the founder and CEO of MasterClass, the streaming platform where anyone can learn from the world’s best across a wide range of subjects. Instructors include Anna Wintour, Serena Williams, Gordon Ramsay, Chris Voss (our former guest), and more. With MasterClass at Work, companies can develop durable skills that transform employees into future-ready leaders through cinematic lessons and life-changing stories taught by the world’s best.

You can learn more about: 

1. How to build a world-class learning platform 
2. How to effectively fundraising 
3. The secret to storytelling and running a fast-growing company

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Dave Zilberman is a General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. Norwest Venture Partners manages more than $12.5 billion in capital. They have invested in over 600 early-to-late-stage companies, with more than 200 currently active. Dave primarily focuses on early to late-stage investments in enterprise and infrastructure—some of his portfolios include Slack, DocuSign, Amagi Corporation, and more. Before joining Norwest, Dave was the Managing Director of Comcast Ventures.

You can learn more about: 

1. How to identify and invest in the next generation of Slack and DocuSign 

2. Investing career advice from corporate venture arm to traditional VC fund

3. How do you construct an excellent portfolio to produce good results and stay competitive?

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