Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:14) Why Did Mark Start Chemistry in a Crowded VC Market?
(02:21) Fund Size & Its Impact on Founder Alignment
(03:03) Multi-Stage Firms
(10:37) Is Venture Now a Low-Margin, Commoditized Industry?
(15:58) Concerns Over Growing Seed Round Sizes
(17:50) Competitive vs. Non-Competitive Markets
(19:37) Why Does Execution Often Fail Post-Product Market Fit?
(23:45) What Was Mark’s Strategy for Organizing the Fundraise
(29:37) What Was the Most Common Reason Investors Said No?
(31:12) Best & Worst LP Meetings
(33:46) Most Recent Disagreement as a Parnership
(38:18) What Happens to Companies with Overinflated Valuations by Multi-Stage Funds?
(40:27) Investing in AI Today
(44:22) Meeting an Amazing Founder in a Bad Market
(48:47) What Mark Compromises First: Check Size or Ownership
(50:57) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss:
1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms:
Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders?
What are the most broken elements within a multi-stage firm?
How does decision-making break down in large partnerships?
When is the right time to work with multi-stage firms? When is not?
2. From Boutique High Margins to Commoditised Low Margins:
With the immense amount of cash that has entered VC, will returns simply get worse?
Who will be the winners in the next 10 years of venture?
Who will be the losers? What can they do today to change this?
What element of the future of venture are not enough people spending time on?
3. Lessons from Leading Unicorn Company Rounds:
What happens to all the unicorns with insanely high prices they cannot grow into?
What has been Mark’s biggest hit? What did he learn?
What has been his biggest miss? How did that change his go-forward approach?
Does Mark agree that 90% of VC do not add value?
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