I caught up with Lightspeed Scout Chase Emanuel about his journey to VC and advice for aspiring investors. This is a continuation of Lightspeed’s new “Scout Spotlight” series showcasing our amazing Scouts, what they care about, and some lessons learned along the path to venture.
Me: Let’s start with who you are! What’s your story?
Chase: Well, I lead community at Alto by day, scout for Lightspeed Venture Partners by night, and was a travel tech founder in a past life; but my first full-time job was working nights and weekends in group home for foster children.
I was born in NYC, raised in Westchester County, and graduated from the University of Virginia at the height of The Housing Crisis in 2009. My parents’ families immigrated to the United States from Jamaica and Antigua to the Bronx back in the 60’s when they were both teenagers. They each got advanced degrees and pursued careers in healthcare and real estate. Education and social justice were both stressed to me growing up, and I spent most of my primary and secondary school years at Horace Mann with the likes of Alex Taussig (Partner at Lightspeed), Jared Friedman (Partner at YCombinator), Nick Taranto (Co-Founder & CEO at Plated), Chris Altchek (Co-Founder & CEO at Mic); Founder & CEO at Cadence), and Shaan Hatharaamani (Founder & CEO at Flockjay) and among others. Still, I wouldn’t know anything about the world of startups and venture capital until I was almost 30.
The turning point was actually a match on OKCupid. I had returned to NYC, gotten involved in city politics, and was working for the Mayor’s Office, when I met a founder who was just getting ready to raise her Series A. We dated for about a year and half, and eventually I’d start my own startup, fail at it, bank the lessons learned, and become a partnerships and business development lead for companies like Galvanize, Carta, and Alto.
The primary customers for these products and services tended to be early stage founders and investors, and I really enjoyed delivering value to them through resource, insight, or referral, which led to some successful deal sourcing. I built a number of relationships over time and had the privilege of seeing many founders and emerging fund managers grow impressive companies and portfolios just by trying to be helpful.
Now I get to learn investing from some of the best in the world.
Me: What led you to become a Lightspeed Scout?
Chase: Relationships, curiosity, and a ton of luck.
When my startup failed I became the NYC Evangelist for a co-working space called Galvanize that had over 50 venture-backed startups, a few VC firms, and a couple of Fortune 500 innovation labs under one roof. I had the opportunity to sponsor and host a lot of events for founders and investors, and one investor I became close with happened to be a Scout for Lightspeed.
I didn’t know what a scout was before I met him, but it seemed like such an incredible opportunity to build a track record in venture and back founders he believed in. He was the one who told me when Lightspeed was recruiting new scouts and encouraged me to throw my hat in the ring.
I called upon a founder friend and another investor in Lightspeed’s network to support my campaign, and everything worked out in the end.
Me: What’s your investment focus? Any companies / new investments you want to highlight for readers?
Chase: I generally gravitate towards all things SaaS, but right now I’m really focused on the future of work, especially when it comes to employee mobility, and the ownership economy, specifically tools that are democratizing investing and wealth building.
During COVID I got rid of my apartment, sold all my stuff, and officially became a digital nomad. I spent nine months traveling across Latin America, lived in seven different countries, and saw just how far my money can go outside of NYC. I also saw a ton of new applications for money movement, insurance, commerce, shipping, and housing that will be driven by a new generation of digital nomads working for remote-first and remote-flexible employers. As an example, I’m actively looking for founders building “turbo tax for digital nomads.”
I’m also just fascinated with how Millennials’ relationship with money has evolved over the last decade and excited about the growing focus on building wealth. That piece you wrote about retail investing hitting its zeitgeist moment really helps articulate why I joined Alto and why I invested in Tribevest, a platform that makes group investing simple and easy.
When I met Tribevest’s founder, Travis Smith, I fell in love with his story right away. He had figured out how to hack wealth with his brothers through group investing and turned it into a scalable software that others could use to follow in his footsteps. The product experience was delightful, and Travis really knew his numbers, which gave me a lot of confidence in his growth plan. They are crushing 2021 across metrics, and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Me: What advice do you have for other aspiring VCs out there?
Chase: That’s a great question. There are so many different paths into VC, but I think one of the universal first steps is to do your homework. There are a ton of great books, blogs, and podcasts that break down how the venture ecosystem works. Here are a few of my favorites.
The other thing you want to do is carve out a niche. Think about how you can provide value through insight, resource, or referral, and do it! Before I could write checks, my big value add was simply helping founders get discounts with the right service providers (cloud, banking, legal, etc.). Those service providers eventually put me in rooms with a few VCs, so I began making founder introductions to VCs as well. Some VCs began investing in the founders I introduced, and eventually I was given a shot to make my own investments.
Me: What advice do you have for founders out there looking to raise?
Chase: Oh man, how much time do we have?
First thing’s first: know what’s market for funding and valuation at your stage. Carta has the best data on pre-seed, seed, and series A. I actually built a data dashboard that aggregates and anonymizes fundraising and valuation trends, but you really want to understand financing risk during a fundraise. There are two questions every founder should probably ask institutional investors: what’s your average check size and what’s your target ownership [percentage]. Keeping track of these numbers will allow you to backdoor into a round size you can feel confident will close.
The most challenging thing I’ve seen is extremely compelling founders struggling to close funding because the round size is too big for seed investors but the traction isn’t quite compelling enough for large investors.
Me: Lastly, where can others learn more about you and connect with you?
Chase: I’m pretty active on LinkedIn, so feel free to DM me.
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