Sunil Dhaliwal, a General Partner at Battery Ventures, gave us a talk about working in a VC firm. Since 1983, Battery has been investing in technology and innovation worldwide. Some of their investments include Airespace (acquired by Cisco), Akamai, Fore Systems, Infoseek. Currently, they have $3 Billion in committed capital and ~30 professionals with 60% of their operations in Boston.
He mentioned that they usually receive ~10,000 ideas a year and they only make ~20 investments, which means that 0.2% of the proposals get funded! However, the role of a VC is to source as many deals as possible so the best way is to be active in conferences, networking events, organized meals, university events, etc. and never have lunch or dinner alone.
He talked about the dimensions they take into account to pick an invesment. In particular, he ranked in order of preference:
1. Market opportunity
2. Team
3. Technology/Product
He also talked about how long it takes to educate VCs about markets that do not exist. As an example, he mentioned that the founders of Akamai, talked to 4 partners at Battery Ventures over a long period of time and the last one was the one that decided to invest.
He also talked about careers in VCs. It is all about fit. Most partners are already millionaries so they will only go to an office because they like it and they can work with the people they like.
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