On this episode of Startup Slingshot Radio I sit down with Venu Shamapant of LiveOak Venture Partners. In our time together, we deconstruct three of Venu’s most successful investments in an effort to shortcut your path to success. We also dive into the process of starting a venture capital firm and tons of other great knowledge nuggets. Enjoy!
Have comments, questions, ideas, or feedback? I want to hear it. Tweet me at william_griggs.
Topics Covered In This Episode
- Spatial Wireless acquired by Alcatel-Lucent
- Why did you all make the investment in the first place?
- What mistakes did they make that our audience can learn from?
- What did they get right that our audience can learn from?
- Any interesting stories from your time with this company that you think the audience should hear and learn from?
- Why was it acquired? (Strategy)
- What lessons did you take away from working with this company that has impacted how you work with other investments?
- LifeSize Communications acquired by Logitech for $405M
- Why did you all make the investment in the first place?
- What mistakes did they make that our audience can learn from?
- What did they get right that our audience can learn from?
- Any interesting stories from your time with this company that you think the audience should hear and learn from?
- Why was it acquired? (Strategy)
- What lessons did you take away from working with this company that has impacted how you work with other investments?
- Mavenir Systems (NYSE:MVNR)
- Why did you all make the investment in the first place?
- What mistakes did they make that our audience can learn from?
- What did they get right that our audience can learn from?
- Any interesting stories from your time with this company that you think the audience should hear and learn from?
- Why go public? (Strategy)
- What lessons did you take away from working with this company that has impacted how you work with other investments?
- Starting A Venture Capital Firm
- Why start one?
- Why not just join an existing one?
- How do you start one?
- What personnelle do you need?
- How do you connect with LPs?
- What do LPs want to see?
- How do do you think about your strategy for getting it off the ground?
- How do you think about the vision for the future of the firm?
- What do you think makes you all unique?
- Why start one?
Venu Shamapant’s Bio
Venu Shamapant is a co-founder of LiveOak Venture Partners. Venu focuses on investments across a wide variety of sectors including SaaS, Mobile, Cyber Security and Tech-enabled services. His current investments include Veros Systems, NSS Labs and Infocyte.
Prior to LiveOak, Venu was a General Partner at Austin Ventures where he invested in companies producing more than $1B in exit values to date. He was an early investor in and sat on the Board of Directors of LifeSize Communications (acquired by Logitech), Spatial Wireless (acquired by Alcatel-Lucent), Navini Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems), Mavenir Systems (NYSE:MVNR) and Sipera Systems (acquired by Avaya Communications). Prior to joining Austin Ventures, he was with McKinsey & Co. serving clients in the enterprise systems and software markets. He started his professional career as a software developer and engineering lead at Mentor Graphics.
Venu received his MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business, MS in Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BS in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Osmania University, India.
Venu is a founding Board Member of Austin Speech Labs (www.austinspeechlabs.org), a non-profit focused on providing affordable speech and cognitive therapy for stroke survivors.
