The Solo GP Journey & Navigating Hype Cycles - Sunil Nagaraj on the Venture Unlocked podcast

Explore the process of launching a solo GP firm, investing in deeptech over 10+ years, and where the VC market is going

This morning, the Venture Unlocked podcast with Samir Kaji interviewed Sunil Nagaraj to talk about a variety of subjects:

• The major left-turn in Sunil’s career all based on a single comment from his internship at Microsoft (2:30)

• Sunil’s own entrepreneurial journey founding an online dating company, triangulating on who you really are by looking at what you do online (3:40)

• Why Sunil left Bessemer Venture Partners after 6 years (and the real reason anyone anywhere starts anything) (5:00)

• The “Solo GP” model of venture capital and its tradeoffs - for anyone thinking of starting a new firm (7:05)

• The 2 HUGE mistakes Sunil made when pitching LPs for his first fund in 2017 (11:10)

• The various types of LPs and how to “speak LP” (13:13)

• What makes Ubiquity “nerdy and early” (17:00)

• What is “software beyond the screen” (17:55)

• Lessons from successful investments (19:30)

• Lessons from investment failures (22:20)

• Why deeptech startups don’t need more capital than mainstream tech startups (28:28)

• How Sunil’s wife’s PhD dissertation on organizational over-reliance on risk frameworks impacts his investing (39:18)

• The state of today’s VC market (41:15)

• Sunil’s biggest career learning: authenticity matters (44:45)

Click below to listen to the latest episode of the Venture Unlocked podcast

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Ubiquity Ventures — led by Sunil Nagaraj — is a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on startups solving real-world physical problems with "software beyond the screen", often using smart hardware or machine learning.

 If your startup fits this description, fill out the 60-second Ubiquity pitch form and you’ll hear back within 24 hours.