Beyond the Cap Table Jennifer Neundorfer, January Ventures

This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, we switch it up and discuss our 5th Annual Early Stage Founder Sentiment Report. I’m joined by our investment associate, Lizzie Carr, to dive into the data and share what stands out. Lizzie and I delve into:


Why the results suggest that the early stage fundraising market might be stabilizing
How the founder experience remains bifurcated, and why underrepresented founders are feeling even more friction in this market
Why finding and cultivating a strong founder community is the key to success in fundraising, company building, and more
How founders can successfully activate their networks and enlist people to help, even if their networks haven’t been helpful in the past
How increased alignment between founders and funders can maximize mutual success within the VC & tech world
What’s ahead for venture and the outlook for 2024

This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, I interview Ed Zimmermann, venture lawyer at Lowenstein Sandler and Co-founder of First Close Partners, a fund of funds investing in underrepresented fund managers. Ed is a venture veteran who has spent his career supporting and championing founders and funders. In this candid and thoughtful conversation, Ed shares:


His personal motivation for championing social justice and diversity, and how he brings that unique perspective to venture capital
Why he started angel investing and what he has learned about investing from sitting on the legal side of VC
How to approach building a diverse network with an open and prepared mind
Why Ed started First Close Partners to help underrepresented fund managers get to “first close” and how the fund helps its partners evaluate underrepresented funders
Why sharing fund-level returns data can help emerging fund managers understand expectations and communicate effectively with their LPs

Ed Zimmerman chairs Lowenstein Sandler⁠'s Emerging Companies & Venture Capital practice (fka, The Tech Group), which he and Anthony Pergola co-founded in the 1990s. Ed has been a growth company, startup and venture/M&A lawyer for 30 years. Ed co-founded First Close Partners, which invests into venture funds owned and run by underrepresented managers across the world, and The Historic Fund (a nonprofit supporting Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) by donating fully-funded LP interests in a portfolio of VC funds into HBCU endowments). Outside of First Close Partners, Ed has personally invested in 100+ VC funds and 150+ startups, predominantly in the US, Europe, and Africa. Ed serves as: an Adjunct Professor of VC at Columbia, on the Wall Street Journal’s Panel of Experts, founder/Chair of VentureCrush, Interim Chair of the Board of Center for Policing Equity, and a Board member at Fisk University, Black Women Talk Tech, The Orchid Foundation, and, previously, Harvey Mudd College. Ed was an adjunct professor of law at Rutgers Law School. Ed has served as an advisor on VC matters to the President of France. Ed also serves on the boards and/or LPACs of several venture capital funds (all of which have impact as part of their mandate), including 2050, The Historic Fund, and Ingressive Capital, and as an advisory board member of Ada Ventures. Ed advocates on issues concerning racial equity, gender, the LGBTQIA+ community, reproductive rights, and gun control.

This is an episode of ⁠January Ventures⁠’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, I interview ⁠Brittney Riley Gavini⁠, venture investor at ⁠Pivotal Ventures⁠. Pivotal Ventures expands opportunity and accelerates equality in the United States through high-impact investments, partnerships, and advocacy. Pivotal Ventures focuses on areas where social progress has stalled—and where the organization can have the biggest impact. Brittney and I explore:



Pivotal’s investment strategy to maximize returns and impact
The case for investing in emerging managers and how to underwrite them before they have historical fund data
What Pivotal’s diligence process looks like for funds vs. direct investments, and what gets her to yes
How Pivotal Ventures is reimagining the world for women in the US and why they believe the care economy is the place to start
Why she believes in a collaborative model to drive change in the ecosystem and how they partner with programs like ⁠Recast Accelerate⁠ to breaks down barriers for female GPs
Why she started ⁠Founderkind ⁠to help early stage entrepreneurs take the leap to start a business


Brittney Riley Gavini’s work focuses on driving capital to overlooked people and problems by making venture capital more equitable and effective. She has over a decade of experience focused on early-stage innovation, as an operator, investor, and LP. For the last five years, Brittney has been at ⁠Pivotal Ventures⁠, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda French Gates. There, she invests in emerging venture funds and leads direct investments in the Care Economy. Previously, Brittney led the US ventures team at Village Capital, where she built the process and team to source, train, and invest in early-stage companies in Fintech, Health, and Education. Brittney spent the beginning of her career at early startups, focused on growth and community in the consumer tech space.

This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

In this episode, I interview Allison Baum Gates, General Partner at SemperVirens. Allison and I discuss:


Key lessons from her book Breaking Into Venture, which was informed by her own experience starting from scratch in the industry


What she learned from building her first venture fund in Asia, why she believes specialization wins in venture, and how she landed at her current fund, SemperVirens
Why exclusivity in venture is a feature, not a bug - plus her advice for how to navigate that exclusivity
Why 'leaning out' out of networks that don't work for you can be the answer to finding your way in a network-driven ecosystem
Why she focuses on how founders interact in non-fundraising conversations, and how that impacts her investment decision
Why Allison believes in an ecosystem model of investing and what that looks like at SemperVirens
How to tap into being an outsider and use your unique perspective to your advantage



Allison Baum Gates has spent her entire career at the intersection of finance, technology, and the future of work. As a General Partner at early stage venture capital fund SemperVirens, Allison invests in technology transforming workforce, healthcare and financial services. The fund is backed by a powerful platform of HR leaders, giving Allison unique insights into the needs and perspectives of industry-leading employers. She is also a contributing writer for Forbes, a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and UC Berkeley-Haas, and the author of Breaking into Venture (McGraw-Hill, 2023). Prior to joining SemperVirens, Allison worked on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs; was an early employee at General Assembly (which sold to Adecco for $413mln in 2018); co-founded Fresco Capital, a global seed fund; and was an investor at Trinity Ventures. Currently based in New York, Allison has lived and worked in San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. She holds a B.A. in Economics with Honors, a minor in Film Studies, and a language citation in French from Harvard University.

This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

We were thrilled to interview Priyanka Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Evvy, and explore her groundbreaking approach to women’s health and her drive to uncover much needed answers for women. In this episode, we discuss:


How Priyanka moved from being a product expert to a CEO, and why she made that choice
Why she gave herself a deadline during the initial exploration period of starting Evvy and how that helped her uncover a hidden massive market opportunity
How Evvy is redefining the standard of care for women’s health
Why founders should feel empowered to ask for help upfront and lean on their founder community for support
How Priyanka raised a $14M Series A in the midst of a challenging fundraising environment


Priyanka Jain is the co-founder and CEO of Evvy. Priyanka has always been passionate about leveraging data to improve outcomes for women. She spent the past 4 years as Head of Product at pymetrics, where she focused on building algorithms to make hiring more fair, efficient, and transparent. She's excited about the opportunity to create new datasets that will help us improve diagnoses and treatments for women's health conditions that have gone under-researched for far too long. Priyanka is also a spokesperson for the United Nations Foundation's Girl Up Campaign, Chair of the Acumen Fund's Junior Council, and on the Innovation Board for the XPrize Foundation. She received her B.S. from Stanford University, where she was a Mayfield Fellow and President of Stanford Women in Business.

This is an episode of January Ventures’ Beyond the Cap Table podcast, hosted by Jennifer Neundorfer. We aim to demystify the various parts of venture capital and highlight founders, funders, and other game changers who are building new networks and enabling the new establishment in the startup and venture world. Listen to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

During this episode, we interview Jeremiah Gordon, General Counsel at CapitalG. Jeremiah shares:


His unique take on the venture capital industry from his various legal, LP, and angel investor viewpoints
What makes a venture fund a viable franchise, and how he helps emerging managers achieve that
What role affinity groups play in supporting diverse founders, and how the Black Angel Group at Alphabet is especially well positioned to provide differentiated support for founders
Why he thinks now is a great time to build a company despite the current economic conditions
Why venture capital is a team sport and why building your 'tribe' is crucial to your success

Jeremiah joined Google in 2011 and has been the General Counsel/Chief Compliance Officer of CapitalG since its creation. In this role, Jeremiah manages legal and regulatory affairs for CapitalG and is involved in all aspects of CapitalG, including fund formation, deal execution, portfolio management and international investments. Before CapitalG, Jeremiah was a senior counsel at Google where he worked with Google’s corporate development team on acquisitions, investments and special projects. Prior to Google, Jeremiah worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where he represented leading technology companies, entrepreneurs and investors in significant transactions and business challenges. Early in his career, Jeremiah was a corporate associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Jeremiah holds an AB in Economics from Princeton University and a JD from Harvard Law School.