If the music stops, what startup gets a chair? Renegade Partners' co-founders are finding out
Renegade Partners co-founders Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek have seen it all in their careers — notably over the past four years when they launched their first fund as the COVID pandemic took hold and navigated the economic roller coaster that followed.
Now, with a second $128 million fund — and a plan to write checks of up to $10 million into 20 startups — Quintini and Wincek join TechCrunch editor Kirsten Korosec on Equity to discuss those early days of their first fund, what they look for in a startup and what’s driving the shift away from megafunds.
Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod. For the full episode transcript, for those who prefer reading over listening, check out our full archive of episodes over at Simplecast.
Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products.
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Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek - Investing at the Supercritical Stage - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 240]
My guests today are Renata Quintini and Roseanne Wincek, co-founders and managing directors of Renegade Partners. Before launching Renegade, Renata and Roseanne were partners at high-profile VC firms, Lux Capital and IVP.
During our conversation, we explore their careers and what led them to launch Renegade. We cover what it means to invest at the “Supercritical Stage” in venture and dive into a variety of topics around this theme. We then discuss their investing philosophies more broadly, covering what best-in-class talent pipelines look like, what quality revenue means to them, and what worries them most in search of businesses with outsized potential returns. I think this episode highlights that even as competition in venture has intensified - the best VC partners can offer more than just capital. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Renata and Roseanne.
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here.
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This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors.
With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 20,000 calls on Affirm, Teladoc, Roblox, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit tegus.co/patrick to learn more.
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This episode is brought to you by Hall Capital Partners. Hall Capital is always looking for exceptional investment talent at any stage and size, so if you are raising capital or looking for a career change in the San Francisco or New York areas, you should check them out at hallcapital.com or e-mail at invest@hallcapital.com.
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
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Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Show Notes
[00:03:57] - [First question] - What the process of starting a new investment firm was like
[00:05:22] - Why the world needs another venture firm
[00:06:48] - The biggest takeaway from Renata's experience at a start-up Venture firm
[00:07:51] - The inspiration for Renegade
[00:11:48] - The most common mistakes made in the early stages of a company
[00:15:14] - Key items to look into first when evaluating companies
[00:18:04] - Internal superpowers: helping a founder use their strengths
[00:23:46] - Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction
[00:24:04] - What makes a good customer call
[00:25:44] - How more than one Operating Partner changes the conversation and reveals more
[00:27:59] - How businesses have changed in the past few years
[00:30:31] - What companies that have good talent pipelines do to set themselves apart
[00:35:36] - Lessons learned from working with Coda and its CEO, Shishir Mehrotra
[00:38:12] - Lessons learned from working with MasterClass
[00:41:21] - Differentiating between high and low-quality revenue when evaluating a company
[00:47:39] - What scares them about investing in outliers
[00:51:07] - Improvements made as investors and catalysts for those changes
[00:53:48] - Building an organization that will disrupt itself
[00:56:43] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for them
20VC: The 7 Requirements For Startup Scaling, Why VCs Must Approach Every Conversation with A Yes Mentality & Why We Will See The Humanisation of Technology with Renata Quintini, Partner @ Lux Capital
Renata Quintini is a Partner @ Lux Capital, one of the leaders in the rise of deep tech investing supporting scientists and entrepreneurs providing solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time, the more ambitious the project, the better. Before Lux, Renata was a partner at Felicis Ventures, where she worked with the likes of Cruise, Dollar Shave Club, Rigetti Computing and Bonobos, just to name a few. Prior to VC, Renata was an investment manager at Stanford University's endowment, which invests in dozens of private equity and venture capital funds.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Renata made her way from LP in venture with Stanford University to dominating seed VC with Felicis to now leading the deep tech investing charge with Lux Capital?
2.) How does the mentality shift from making the move of LP with Stanford to VC with Felicis and Lux? How does Renata believe being an LP made her a better VC? How has what it takes to be a successful emerging manager changed over the last 5-10 years?
3.) What are the 7 rules that Renata gives to all startups at the start of their journey to ensure they do not implode? Where do startups most often falter, from Renata's perspective? How have the requirements and demands of founders changed recently?
4.) How does Renata look to approach every investment opportunity, mentality wise? Why does Renata believe this stance is optimal over the alternative? What are the caveats that must be placed on this to ensure for realism also?
5.) What makes Renata believe that we are seeing the humanisation of technology? How does this affect how deep tech will be designed moving forward? How does this affect how technology truly interacts and integrates with consumer behaviour?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Renata's Fave Book: Daring Greatly
Renata's Most Recent Investment: Common Networks
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Renata on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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