Alternative Data 101 for Students and Professors

I recently met with a friend who’s an economics professor, who agreed with me that one of the best ways for rising academics to make a mark is to acquire and mine new data sets. I prepared for him a summary of resources to help students source and understand new, alternative data sets. If you’re...

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Venture capitalists eating our own dog food: Using technology and analytics to make better investments

Private equity and venture capital investors are copying our sisters in the hedge fund world: we’re trying to automate more of our job.  When I was single, I registered for (a lot of) dating websites. When I met my now-wife, I realized that any technology that can find me a spouse is a killer app....

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Venture capitalists eating their own dog food: How private equity investors are using technology and analytics

I just published a guest essay in AlleyWatch on Venture capitalists eating their own dog food: How private equity investors are using technology and analytics (as of Sep. 2017). As of Dec. 2019, I posted an updated version here....

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First-ever survey of VC tech stacks

We think one of the industries with the greatest room for improved use of technology is venture capital itself.   Blue Future Partners, a fund of funds, and PEVCTech.com are now running what we believe is the first-ever large-scale survey of VC firms’ technology stacks. Filling out this survey should take you no more than 7...

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How to scale support of portfolio companies

As I’ve worked to build out our portfolio acceleration platform, the #1 question I think about is: how do we scalably support our companies?  Large private equity funds like KKR can afford to pursue a consulting model (Capstone), typically with associated fees, but that doesn’t normally make economic sense for a VC.  We have lower AUM,...

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Artificial intelligence in financial services

I’ve presented at a few conferences lately on AI in financial services, particularly on how investors are using AI.  I’ve posted here an expanded version of my slides.  I provide an overview of why AI is a tool that so many people are exploring; what I think increases the odds of success for companies using AI;...

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