Podcast: Sheel on 20VC
⬅️
Originally published by our friend Harry Stebbings of 20 Minute VC here.
Why Fund Sizes Should Be Smaller, Should Founders Also Have Their Own Funds, Is Emerging Markets Investing Gone, Is Fintech Investing Dead & Who Will Be The Winners and Losers in VC in the Next 10 Years
Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies globally. Sheel and Jake (his co-founder) invested for many years together before founding BTV and wrote checks into Mercury, Flexport, Ramp, and Hippo Insurance, to name a few. As for Sheel, before BTV, he ran 500 Fintech for close to 7 years, and before that was a founder, founding two companies, both of which were acquired.
In Today's Episode with Sheel Mohnot, We Discuss:
1. VC Needs to Change:
- Why does Sheel believe that VCs should have smaller funds?
- What are the biggest misalignments between founders and VCs today?
- What are the biggest points of friction between VCs and their LPs today?
2. VC in 10 Year's Time:
- Who are going to be the winners in venture in 10 years time?
- Who are going to be the losers?
- Will micro-funds be bigger or smaller as a segment of the ecosystem?
- Will solo-GPs be bigger or smaller? Were they a zero-interest rate phenomenon?
3. The Errors of a Bull Market:
- What does Sheel believe are the single biggest mistakes made by VCs between 2020-2022?
- Did Sheel take liquidity off the table in the last few years? What have been some of his biggest lessons on when to sell?
- How does Sheel evaluate the flood of capital into emerging markets in the bull market? What happens now?
- Fintech is also experiencing the same challenging time, how does Sheel assess what is happening in the fintech financing market today?
4. Building a Fund: Lessons, Mistakes, and Advice Scaling to $225M:
- What are the single biggest mistakes Sheel and Jake have made in the fun scaling? How has it impacted their mindset?
- What does Sheel know now about fund management that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
- What advice does Sheel give to emerging managers today, raising their first and second funds?
Listen Here
Sheel is a Founding Partner of BTV, which also runs The Mint, the pre-seed program for fintech founders. They accept applications and introductions on a rolling basis. Sheel was also Co-Founder with successful exits from FeeFighters and Innovative Auctions.
