218. Crisis Coverage w/ Richard Kerby - Tactical Advice for Raising VC Fund 1, Why Not to "Raise the Bar", and a Framework for Startups Adjusting to COVID-19

Richard Kerby of Equal Ventures joins Nick on a special Crisis Coverage installment to discuss the Tactical Advice for Raising VC Fund 1, Why Not to "Raise the Bar," and a Framework for Startups Adjusting to COVID-19. In this episode, we cover: Walk us through your background and path to Venrock Why'd you leave to launch Equal? You, Rick and the team just launched a $56 million Fund 1 at Equal Ventures in February...congrats on the final close! Tell us a bit about your thesis and how you differentiate? You invest in retail, insurance, supply chain and the care economy. From afar those seem unrelated - how'd you arrive at those four categories... is there a common thread? What is the best tactical advice you'd give to someone raising a fund? What's the biggest mistake you made during the raise process that prospective fund managers should do their best to avoid making? So you're early in the fund cycle w/ multiple years of initial check deployment in front of you... has the deployment strategy changed at all given the current environment? Many investors are talking about and tweeting about "raising the bar” for investments... due to the pandemic and recession. Are you "raising the bar" at Equal? Many famous investors opine on the importance of market size when making investments. What's your position on market size and how does one estimate an accurate market size in categories that have not yet been created? You recently published your framework for COVID-19 Scenario Planning on Medium. Walk us through this framework and how it's applied. What impacts has the virus had on your incubation arm at Equal? Do you see this being a permanent change in incubators once this passes? Diversity in venture is terrible... what is Stealth Mode and how are you trying to improve diversity? To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.