🎙️🆕 New Origins episode out today 🎙️🆕 Thirteen years ago, Amplify Partners started with a simple premise: Back exceptional technical founders and give every partner the freedom to say “yes” when conviction strikes. That focus on empowering outliers has shaped the firm’s journey from a $50M debut to $900M raised across three new funds, including their first dedicated biotech fund, Amplify Bio. In this conversation, Sunil Dhaliwal & Mike Dauber join Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson (LP at Sapphire Partners) to unpack: 🔹 How they’ve scaled from a solo-GP fund to a team of nine partners without losing sight of their founding philosophy 🔹 Why they encourage their team to invest in non-consensus companies 🔹 How Amplify Bio fits into their strategy and why they’re committed for the long term It’s a candid look at firm-building, conviction-driven investing, and the advantages of designing a platform for outliers from day one. 🎧 Full episode linked in comments. #OpenLP #OriginsPodcast #FirmBuilding #EmergingManager
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Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
OpenLP aggregates & amplifies insights across the founder ➡︎ GP ➡︎ LP venture ecosystem. Powered by Sapphire Partners.
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OpenLP aggregates and amplifies insights across the entrepreneur ➡︎ GP ➡︎ LP venture ecosystem.
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You can’t rely on reputation alone in venture. Keeping your edge requires energy, adaptability, and the right team. Sunil Dhaliwal and Mike Dauber of Amplify Partners have deliberately scaled from solo-GP roots to a $900M, multi-partner firm without compromising what made them compelling in their earliest stages. In the latest Origins minisode, Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson and Nicholas Chirls reflect on Beezer’s conversation with Sunil and Mike, unpacking what it takes to build a lasting firm while staying sharp across cycles. They share: • The challenges solo GPs face in maintaining energy, networks, and relevance over time • How Amplify encourages all partners to lead investments independently, even without consensus • Why curiosity is essential in venture, even in team-building and hiring • What it takes to move from fund to firm and eventually, to franchise status 🎧 Curiosity, Chemistry, and Keeping Relevance Across the Partnership is now live. Listen wherever you get your podcasts (links in the comments). #OpenLP #OriginsPodcast
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Is venture broken? It’s a question echoing across the industry, especially at the earliest stages – and as an LP in venture and co-founder of OpenLP, one Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson can’t ignore. This growing concentration of capital and “haves” vs “have nots” scenario has been explored recently by folks such as Sam Lessin (Slow Ventures), Ashley Smith (Vermilion Cliffs Ventures), Rob Go (NextView Ventures VC), Bill Gurley (Benchmark ), Peter Walker (Carta), Tomasz Tunguz (Theory Ventures) and many more. The through-line is clear: early-stage venture is in flux. Our team at Sapphire Partners (Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson and Evan Tarzian, CFA) looked beyond the anecdotes and dug into the numbers, combing through 2,000+ priced Seed and Series A rounds across NYC and SF from the last 3.5 years using PitchBook data. What Beezer and Evan found is a more nuanced story: ➤ Mega-funds are increasingly dominant in the largest Seed and Series A rounds ➤ But boutique Seed and A firms still have a very strong presence ➤ The real shift? Seed and Series A rounds are getting bigger, timelines are stretching, and competition to win the best deals has never been greater 📊 Read Beezer’s full breakdown and answer to this pervasive question below ⬇️
Partner at Sapphire Partners, Co-Founder at OpenLP, Co-Host Origins Podcast
Is venture broken? It’s a question I keep hearing as mega-funds are increasingly leading Seed and Series A rounds with large checks at even larger valuations. The traditional early-stage playbook is under pressure and I share the concern that replicating the venture returns of the past bull market looks increasingly hard (impossible?) to do. The reality is more nuanced. The market is shifting, competition is fiercer than ever, and what I see is an evolution of venture. To unpack what’s really happening and to answer the question at hand, we dug into 3.5 years of PitchBook data across 2,000+ priced rounds in NYC and the Bay Area—and the insights might surprise you. 🙏 Huge thank you to my Sapphire Partners colleague Evan Tarzian, CFA for spending countless hours culling through data - the real hero of this analysis. Full analysis + my take here 👇
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If you're raising from pensions, endowments, or sovereign wealth funds, start here.👇 This post gets under the hood of what raising from institutional capital really demands—from fund admin and DDQs to the tradeoffs emerging managers face along the way. It won’t be news to seasoned GPs, but for anyone stepping into this world for the first time, jump in!
How do institutional LPs choose which VC funds to back? Here's everything you need to know 👇 ◾️ First, understand that institutional vs traditional LP fundraising is like chess vs checkers. - Family Offices: 3-month decisions, 1-2 decision makers, $1-5M checks - Institutions: 18-month process, 8-person committees, $25-100M minimums Same board. Different game. ◾ The institutional landscape has 4 key players: - Pension Funds (CalPERS, CPPIB): $50-200M checks, 7-10 year cycles - Endowments (Yale University, Harvard University): $25-75M, academic timing - Sovereign Wealth (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA)): $100M+ minimums - Insurance (MetLife): $20-50M, regulatory constraints ◾ Your first complexity on raising $ lies in committee dynamics. You're selling to 6-12 investment committee members who meet quarterly. David Swensen: "The best opportunities often look risky to committees." ◾ Once you clear the committee hurdle, welcome to the ILPA Due Diligence marathon. 247 questions across operational, investment, ESG, and financial categories. Budget 47+ hours just completing paperwork. Institutional DDQ is 6x longer than family office questionnaires. ◾ That DDQ complexity reveals something deeper - institutions require institutional-grade operations: - Fund Admin: SS&C, Citco ($150K+ annually) - Legal: Top-tier fund lawyers ($200K+ setup) - Audit: Big 4 firms ($100K+ annually) - Compliance: RegTech systems ($50K+ annually) $500K+ operational costs before investing dollar one. ◾ Beyond operations, they evaluate track records through quantitative lenses: - IRR vs benchmarks: Top quartile required - Multiples: 3x+ fund returns expected - Consistency: Performance across cycles Lisa Edgar: "Performance alone isn't enough anymore." ◾ This creates the "Emerging Manager Paradox": Institutions want emerging managers (outperform by 200-400 bps) but require institutional track records. Solution? Emerging manager programs at HarbourVest Partners, Adams Street Partners, Pantheon. Your stepping stones to direct capital. ◾ When you finally get in front of committees, you get 20 minutes to present to 8-12 skeptical professionals. Structure: - 5 min: Investment thesis - 10 min: Track record examples - 5 min: Q&A on risk management ◾ What happens next is the reference check industrial complex. Institutions call 31 references on average (vs. 8 for family offices): - Portfolio CEOs - Co-investors - Service providers - Former colleagues Every conversation matters. Manage them like a full-time job. ◾ After analyzing dozens of institutional fundraises, here's the sobering math: - Timeline: 27 months from first meeting to wire - Conversion rate: 4.7% of prospects commit - Minimum fund size: $100M+ to be taken seriously - Annual costs: $2.1M+ in infrastructure It's not for everyone. But crack this code, and you've built something generational.
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🚨 ICYMI in the latest Origins episode, Sunil Dhaliwal and Mike Dauber of Amplify Partners VC joined Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson to share how they built one of the first sector-focused solo GP firms into a $900M powerhouse. They talk: ✅ Growing technical founders into leaders ✅ Structuring a firm that backs outliers and non-consensus ideas ✅ Launching Amplify Bio, their new dedicated biotech fund Plus, their take on the AI land grab and how early-stage firms can still win in a competitive landscape. If you’re an emerging manager, founder, or LP, there are so many gems in this one. 🎧 Listen to the full episode wherever you get your podcasts (links in comments). #OpenLP #OriginsPodcast
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In the final episode of Superclusters Season 5 with David Zhou, Kelli Fontaine, Partner at Cendana Capital, joins for a candid conversation on how LPs assess GP performance, navigate GP–LP dynamics, and what GPs can do to build stronger partnerships. Key lessons from the conversation: • Vintage-year benchmarking matters - Two funds can share similar MOICs, but if one deployed in 12 months and the other over four years, performance optics can be skewed without normalizing for timing. • Fund-level returns aren’t enough -TVPI and IRR can be shaped by timing and valuation methods. Kelli advocates for examining portfolio-level indicators, including revenue growth, retention, and cohort quality, especially for managers beyond Fund I. • Solo GPs need continuity plans - LPs aren't just asking “what happens legally” if a solo GP exits—they're asking how the culture, investment process, and portfolio support would carry on without them. • Engage LPs early - The best conversations happen when GPs bring context, not just questions—LPs want to be useful partners. 🎧 Listen to the complete episode here: https://lnkd.in/gusFYnQK
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There are no permanent rules for endowment investing, only durable principles forged in cycles, crises, and debates. Edward (Ted) Karns learned that lesson in 2008 when the great financial crisis hit, just six months into his role at Princeton’s endowment. He learned it again in the post-crisis rebuild, when pacing models clashed with fundraising realities. And again in the expansion years, when rising multiples and abundant capital tested the boundary between momentum and real value creation. From those experiences emerged four guiding mantras: 📌 Fewer, Better, Stronger – Deep partnerships > broad rosters 📌 Who Matters More Than When – Quality drives pacing 📌 Build Value in Private Markets – Back business builders, not momentum 📌 Invest Well to Do Good – Strong returns give mission flexibility Read how each mantra was forged, and how you can apply them. ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/d9XjhDeq
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From the 1987 crash to the early, contrarian years of allocating to privates, the dot-com boom and bust, the institutional embrace of alternatives, the GFC, the ZIRP-era boom, and the slowdown after 2021, Tim Sullivan, Director, Private Equity, saw it all. Joining the Yale Investments Office in 1986, Tim helped build and manage one of the most successful institutional private equity and venture programs in history. On Capital Allocators with Ted Seides, Tim reflects on the lessons from managing through every cycle and why repeating Yale’s past success is more challenging than ever. 🎧 https://lnkd.in/eZd7BfJF #LPInsights #Endowmentsl #OpenLP
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We’re getting a look behind the scenes of Carnegie Mellon University’s $4B endowment, how they approach venture and retaining self-funding while navigating illiquidity, pacing, and performance expectations on the latest 20VC with Harry Stebbings and Miles Dieffenbach, Managing Director of Investments of Carnegie Mellon University. 👇 #OpenLP #LPInsights #FundMath #VentureCapital
Let’s be honest. Most podcasts suck right now. Repeated guests. BS first principles “frameworks”. The best podcasts are with people with immense power who have never spoken publicly before. Today, we go behind the scenes into Carnegie Mellon University’s $4BN Endowment Fund. - Why 90% of LPs Shouldn’t Invest in VC. - The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds. - The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity. My 6 takeaways with Miles Dieffenbach👇 1. If You Want to Invest in Venture You Have to Ask This One Question of Yourself - Do you think you’re going to have access to top decile managers? - Top decile managers consistently achieve returns above the PME. - Below that, even top quartile, you’re not. 2. What Endowments Need to Make Annually to Break Even - We draw 5% every year. - To maintain the purchasing power with 3% inflation we need a 8-10% return target over 10-15 years. - When you start getting closer to that number you run into some real risks. 3. The Framework We Use to Underwrite Multi-Billion Dollar Funds - For example, a $7BN fund at 5% average entry ownership implies $140BN portfolio value. - To achieve a 4× net return in a 2 on 20 model the fund needs to be 6x. - That is $840BN in exits. The best year in the VC exit market was ~$850BN in 2021. 4. Why Index Are the Best Pickers in VC - Largest shareholder in Figma, Dream Games, Wiz. - Second largest shareholder in Scale, Revolut. - Did not scale their fund size & even reduced it after 2021. - They have one of the most performance-driven cultures in venture. 5. Mark Suster Is the Seller of the Year - He saw 2021 as an insane period. - He strip-sold a majority of his portfolio at a great price. - DPI in the pocket. 6. IPO Markets Are Totally Broken - There were more dollars raised in the public market in 2002-2004 than 2022-2024. - That was 3 years after the Dotcom bubble. - We have an asset class 10x the size today. - Something is clearly broken. Watch the full episode now by searching ‘20VC with Miles Dieffenbach' on Youtube, or click the links in the comments. #Founder #funding #business #investing #VC #entrepreneur #startup #investment #20VC
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📬 In Case You Missed It: July’s OpenLP newsletter was packed with insights for GPs, LPs, and founders alike. Here’s a quick rundown of what you missed: • What if you exited every deal at Series A/B/C? Charles Hudson runs the numbers on StrictlyVC Download • From memory curves to 11-star updates, David Zhou shares real-world LP engagement tips • How long until LPs see DPI? Peter Walker shares sobering fund data from Carta • GPs ask, LPs answer: Chris Douvos joins David Zhou on El Pack via Superclusters • UCLA’s PE strategy w/ Michael Marvelli on How I Invest from David Weisburd • Origins 🎧: Will M. talks AI, healthcare, and merchant banking with Nicholas Chirls & Elizabeth "Beezer" Clarkson •Q2 Venture Monitor from PitchBook + National Venture Capital Association highlights how secondaries are stepping up as a core liquidity strategy, reshaping how LPs and GPs think about exits. Huge thanks to all of this month’s contributors! 📩 Read the issue 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSPyjbM8 🔔 Subscribe 👉 http://subscribe.OpenLP.vc #OpenLP #LPInsights #Secondaries #OriginsPodcast