Miriam Rivera on going from angel to running a firm, driving real change in diversity in tech, and how traditional heuristics should be challenged in VC.

Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.

Our guest today is Miriam Rivera, managing director and CEO of Ulu Ventures, an early seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on IT startups. Currently Ulu Ventures has an AUM of >$200MM and the team has invested in companies such as Palantir, BetterUp, SoFi, Guild, and Span [For full disclosure, Ulu Ventures is also an investor in my startup, Allocate).

Prior to Ulu, Miriam was deputy general counsel at Google, which she joined in 2001 as the second attorney. She graduated from Stanford University, where she earned the AB, AM and JD/MBA degrees. Miriam is the co-founder, former co-president and on the board of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an open source network of Stanford alumni investors and entrepreneurs.

Listen to our conversation to hear Miriam’s thoughts on moving from angel investing to starting a firm, being a husband and wife team, the reasons behind Ulu’s large portfolio strategy, and why diversity is so important to her.

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In this episode we discuss:

02:05 Miriam’s journey into the investment side

03:23 Why they started Ulu and raised outside capital

05:22 The challenges of starting a fund as a wife-husband duo

08:14 Navigating their working relationship

11:33 Their unique view on what portfolio construction should be

14:06 What the stats say on returns

16:53 Trade-offs between size of portfolio and ownership

20:20 Strategies for venture investing at the seed-stage

23:14 Ulu’s unique decision making framework

29:15 Benefits of investing in diverse teams

31:58 Changes that can be made in the LP/VC ecosystem

35:06 LPs with diverse managers

38:18 The social vs. financial impetus in making investments in diverse managers/ partners

40:39 Miriam’s most counterintuitive learning as an investor

42:00 Companies Ulu missed out on

43:36 Inspirations in the VC world

Mentioned in this episodeUlu Ventures

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Miriam. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

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