In this special episode, Justin Gordon (@justingordon212), the Director of Marketing with VITALIZE Venture Capital, interviews three key VITALIZE team members, Founder and Managing Partner Gale Wilkinson (@galeforceVC), Partner Caroline Casson (@carolinecasson_), and Community Manager Larissa Insogna (@LarissaInsogna).
VITALIZE Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. VITALIZE has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We believe in people and process. From our investors to team members to the founders we fund, we are focused on building a community of amazing people. Venture capital is a relationship business, and one of our core differentiators is how we leverage our extensive network to provide value to our portfolio companies. We make valuable connections for our companies, mostly to prospective customers and other VC firms, but we field all types of requests to help our portfolio companies flourish. As founders ourselves, we have learned a lot from building this investment firm. We have implemented effective processes for deal flow, due diligence, and helping our companies post-investment, allowing us to move quickly and offer a high-quality product to founders and investors.
VITALIZE Venture Capital: https://vitalize.vc/
VITALIZE Angels: https://vitalizeangels.com/
VITALIZE on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/vitalizevc
VITALIZE on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VitalizeVC
Show Notes:
0:00 How Gale got into venture and started the Irish Angels investment network
0:43 How Caroline decided to partner with Gale
1:24 Caroline’s cross-country cycling adventure and Gale’s pandemic road trips
3:04 Larissa’s diverse professional experiences and how she ended up running community at VITALIZE
6:18 How a cold DM to get Gale on Justin’s own podcast led to him joining VITALIZE
10:21 The challenges and less glamorous side of working in VC
11:58 How Gale envisions achieving a manageable workload for herself and her team
13:08 The effect of the COVID pandemic on their schedules
14:24 Different strategies the team members use to create boundaries for a healthy work-life balance
20:12 Making investing accessible to everyone through the VITALIZE Angels community
24:20 Gale and Caroline’s thoughts on the future of early stage venture
27:38 VITALIZE’s North Star and the strategy to get there
29:37 Potential paths for the future of VITALIZE
33:19 The trailblazing work some of our VITALIZE Angels community members are involved in
35:07 The due diligence process for VITALIZE Angels
36:50 What makes a good fit to become a VITALIZE Angels portfolio company
38:17 What to expect in terms of ROI for our VITALIZE Angels members
40:09 The value of angel investing communities
More about the show:
The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.
Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.
The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.
The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.
More about us:
Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212
Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/
