Growth Capital Podcast

Justin Dixon
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Investing
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to the GCP Channel! Tune in to gain exclusive insights from leaders in private equity, CEOs of PE-backed companies, and startup entrepreneurs. Each episode dives into their unique career journeys, sharing valuable lessons on starting, investing in, and scaling successful businesses. And most importantly how the Right Talent drives business success. Listen on all major podcast platforms and of course, watch right here on YouTube!

  1. Sep 29

    Investor-Grade Data: The New Diligence Standard with Graeme Crawford

    📊 Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 96 📊 What if the biggest risk in your next deal isn't the numbers on the page, but nobody being able to prove they're right? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Graeme Crawford, Founder & CEO of Crawford McMillan, a data consultancy that helps private equity firms move from "management-grade" data to "investor-grade" data that can stand up to real scrutiny. Graeme spent years running business intelligence at Capital One before building Crawford McMillan, and he brings a data engineer's eye to what actually happens inside a company once liquidity events and acquisitions enter the picture. This conversation goes well beyond a typical diligence checklist. It's a look at why departments quietly "mark their own homework" on the KPIs they report upward, why a polished AI-generated dashboard can make bad data look more credible than it is, and why value creation work is increasingly happening mid-hold instead of just pre-deal. 🔍 In this episode, you'll learn: Why "management grade" and "investor grade" data are not the same thing How AI dashboards can quietly make bad numbers harder to question Why Crawford McMillan starts every engagement with people, not databases What a central data dictionary actually fixes, and why it comes first Why software deal volume has dropped sharply, and what that means for value creation Why AI can't shortcut the hard work of defining and governing your own data Whether you're a founder preparing for diligence, a PE operator trying to reignite a stalled value creation plan, or an investor trying to separate real data rigor from a nice-looking chart, this episode offers a practical framework for knowing whether your numbers can actually be trusted. 📩 Connect with Graeme Crawford: 🌐 Website: https://crawfordmcmillan.com/ 🎙 Podcast: Private Equity Data Guy - https://crawfordmcmillan.com/podcast/ (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts) 📬 Newsletter: Inside the Data Room - https://insidethedataroom.com/ 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with an operator preparing for diligence, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: If someone asked you right now how you know your top-line number is correct, could you actually answer?

  2. Sep 22

    Closing the Gap Between Concept and Construction with Aurimas Sabulis

    🏗️ Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 95 🏗️ What if the biggest bottleneck in construction isn't the job site, it's everything that happens before anyone breaks ground? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Aurimas Sabulis, Founder & CEO of Dextall, a company redefining how prefabricated building exteriors are designed, engineered, and manufactured. After building a nationwide commercial window and exterior company from scratch, Aurimas set out to answer a question that had bothered him for years: why does an industry responsible for some of the largest capital investments on earth still design and build almost everything from scratch, on every single project? In this conversation, you'll learn: Why up to 30% of materials on a traditional job site end up as construction waste How Dextall standardizes a building's structural "chassis" while giving architects full creative freedom on the exterior finish Why cost, not sustainability or quality, is the real barrier standing between prefab and mainstream adoption How Dextall's software, Kora, is compressing roughly a year of manual engineering work into days Why using existing, already-trusted skilled labor was a deliberate strategy to lower the risk of switching to prefab Whether you're a founder building in an industry still run on manual expertise, a PE or VC investor evaluating opportunities in construction tech and PropTech, or an operator trying to find efficiency gains hiding in plain sight, this episode offers a practical look at how to bring an entrenched industry into a new model without asking customers to pay more for it. Connect with Aurimas Sabulis and Dextall: 🌐 Website: https://www.dextall.com/ 🌐 Software: https://kora.studio/ 💼 Find Dextall on:      LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/dextall/ and      YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@dextall 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with someone building or investing in construction, real estate, or PropTech, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: Where in your own industry is everyone still "reinventing the wheel" on every project?

  3. Sep 15

    Building, Selling, and Rebuilding: A Biotech Founder's Second Act with Tero-Pekka Alastalo

    🧪 Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 94 🧪 What does it take to build a biotech company, sell it right before a crisis hits, and then find the motivation to start all over again? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Tero-Pekka Alastalo, Co-founder & CEO of Avenue Biosciences, a protein engineering company re-engineering therapies to make them cheaper and faster to manufacture. An MD-PhD and trained pediatric cardiologist, Tero-Pekka's path from Stanford postdoc to founder took him through a genomics company that was sold just before COVID, a stint at the acquiring organization, and ultimately to co-found Avenue. Key topics discussed: ● Selling a genomics startup weeks before the COVID shutdown ● Life inside an acquiring company, and knowing when it's time to leave ● How Avenue re-engineers proteins to lower manufacturing costs ● Building a platform play inside the biosimilar market ● Where AI is actually accelerating drug discovery today ● Finding the right investor niche for deep-tech biotech ● Why go-to-market, not technology, is the hardest problem to solve 🎧 Whether you're a founder weighing an exit, an operator navigating a company post-acquisition, or an investor trying to understand platform plays in biotech, this conversation offers a grounded, honest look at what building — and rebuilding — actually looks like. 📩 Connect with Tero-Pekka Alastalo: Email: tpa@avenuebiosciences.com 🌐 Learn more about Avenue Biosciences: https://www.avenuebiosciences.com/ 👉 Watch now and subscribe to the channel! 💬 Tell us in the comments: Have you ever had to rebuild your motivation after a big win?

  4. Sep 8

    Sport Rewards Talent, Business Rewards Effort with James Elvery

    🏆 Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 93 🏆 What happens when a former pro triathlete decides the sport that shaped him still has an unsolved problem? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with James Elvery, Co-founder & CEO of RaceRanger, the drafting-detection system now used across professional triathlon. James spent his twenties chasing an Olympic berth before retiring at 28. He spent the next decade building the technology that finally gives athletes and referees a real answer to one of the sport's oldest fairness problems. This conversation goes far beyond triathlon. It's a founder story about validating a real pain point before building a product, choosing the right first customer, and the operational grind of scaling hardware from a handful of prototypes to a real company. 🔍 Key topics discussed: Why drafting has been the triathlon's most contested, hardest-to-police problem How James and co-founder Dylan validated the idea before building anything The personal loss that turned a shelved side project into a full-time company Why they deliberately kept human referees in the loop instead of full automation The operational challenges of scaling hardware from dozens of devices to thousands What elite athletic competition taught James about competing in business Whether you're a founder validating your next idea, an operator thinking about scaling hardware or operations, or simply curious how a professional athlete became a startup CEO, this episode offers a real, unfiltered look at building something over more than a decade. 📩 Connect with James Elvery and Race Ranger: 🌐 Website: https://www.raceranger.com/ Also on Instagram: https://lnk.ua/BujnClNrz ,and LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/raceranger/ 👉 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with a founder validating their next idea, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: Have you ever had a "What would they do?" moment that pushed you to finally commit to something you'd been putting off?

  5. Sep 1

    The Shift From Code Generation to Code Understanding with Anand Kulkarni

    ⚙️ Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 92 ⚙️ What if AI's next breakthrough isn't writing better code, but finally understanding the code we already have? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Anand Kulkarni, Founder & CEO of CoreStory, an AI platform that reverse-engineers massive, undocumented codebases into plain-English specifications enterprises can actually use. Anand has spent two decades building venture-backed AI companies out of Berkeley, and he brings a rare, clear-eyed view of how legacy technology actually works under the hood. Key topics discussed: ● Why roughly 800 billion lines of COBOL still run the world's banks, airlines, and government systems ● Why coding agents break down once an application gets too large for their context window ● How CoreStory turns undocumented legacy code into a living specification ● Why "vibe-coded" MVPs need a spec before they can scale into production ● Why AI is making human roles more valuable, not less ● Practical steps founders can take to drive real AI adoption inside their own teams Whether you're a founder wrestling with technical debt, an investor evaluating AI infrastructure plays, or an operator trying to roll out AI without the hype, this conversation offers a practical framework for thinking about how AI should actually be used. 🌐 Learn more about Core Story: https://corestory.ai/ 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with a founder or CTO wrestling with legacy systems, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of technology and business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: Is your organization still running on code nobody fully understands anymore?

  6. Aug 25

    A Family Office's Journey: From Phone Books to Home Building with Brandon Ball

    📖 Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 91 📖 What happens to a family's wealth after they sell a business at exactly the right moment, and then decide they're not ready to stop building? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Brandon Ball, Partner & CFO at Blue Diamond Capital, a single-family office based in Provo, Utah. Blue Diamond traces its roots back to an independent phone directory business that the Bingham family sold off just as the iPhone was about to make the entire industry obsolete. That exit became the foundation for a decades-long investment platform spanning real estate, home building, construction, and operating companies across the country. This conversation goes beyond a typical investing breakdown. It's a look at how a family office actually thinks differently from private equity and venture capital, why timing can matter more than a deal’s strength, and how patient, relationship-driven capital is emerging as a real alternative for founders navigating today's tighter fundraising environment. 🔍 In this episode, you'll learn: ● How family office investment thesis and timeline differ from PE and VC ● How Blue Diamond grew from real estate into home building, construction, and franchise businesses ● What a typical deal structure and check size looks like, including non-dilutive subordinated debt ● How the family's philanthropic foundation is built directly into the business model Whether you're a founder evaluating non-traditional capital, a PE or VC professional trying to understand how family offices compete for deal flow, or an operator curious about how one exit became a multi-decade investment platform, this episode offers a practical look at a side of the capital markets that rarely gets discussed publicly. Connect with Brandon Ball: 📧 Email: brandonb@bluediecap.com 🌐 Website: https://www.bluedicap.com/ 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with a founder exploring alternative capital, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: Would you rather raise from a fund racing a clock, or a family office with no clock at all?

  7. Aug 18

    From Tool to Teammate: AI Agents Join Security Teams with Dov Yoran

    🤝 Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 90 🤝 What happens when AI agents stop being tools in your security stack and start acting like coworkers on your SOC team? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, host Justin Dixon sits down with Dov Yoran, Co-Founder and CEO of Command Zero, an autonomous, AI-assisted SOC investigation platform built for complex enterprise environments, to unpack exactly that shift. Dov has spent nearly three decades in cybersecurity and has three career exits to show for it, including the acquisition of ThreatGrid by Cisco and Polar Security by IBM. He brings that rare mix of deep security expertise and repeat-founder experience to a conversation that goes well beyond a typical AI hype cycle discussion. In this episode, you'll learn: How AI agents are becoming coworkers to security analysts instead of replacements for them Why AI is making the attacker's playbook faster and more dangerous, not just the defender's What separates a real AI security platform from a weekend "vibe coded" project in an increasingly noisy market Why culture and trust determine whether a startup acquisition actually succeeds, based on Dov's experience being acquired by both Cisco and IBM Who Command Zero's autonomous SOC platform is really built for, and why maturity matters more than company size The basic cyber hygiene principles every company, from solo founders to enterprise security teams, still needs to get right Whether you're a security leader evaluating AI SOC platforms, a founder thinking about your own eventual acquisition, or an operator trying to separate real cybersecurity innovation from the noise, this conversation offers a grounded, experience-based look at where AI is actually taking the security industry. 🎧 Watch or listen now, and let us know in the comment section: Do you see AI agents as tools, or are they starting to feel like teammates on your team? Connect with Dov: 🌐 Website: https://www.commandzero.ai/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dovyoran/ 📧 Email: dov@commandzero.ai 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, drop a comment with your take, share it with a security leader or founder navigating AI adoption, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of technology and business.

  8. Aug 11

    The Hidden AI Risk Already Inside Your Business with Arti Raman

    🛡️ Growth Capital Podcast — Episode 89 🛡️ What if your biggest AI risk isn't a hacker, but an employee who's just trying to get their job done faster? In this episode of the Growth Capital Podcast, Justin Dixon sits down with Arti Raman, Founder & CEO of Portal26. This AI adoption management platform helps enterprises discover, secure, and get real value from the AI already running through their business. Arti built her first company in 2019 around data encryption, years before AI became mainstream, and pivoted the entire business in the months after ChatGPT launched, redirecting existing capital and technology toward an entirely new problem: shadow AI. This conversation goes far beyond a typical security discussion. It's a look at how AI usage is quietly spreading across every department, why the biggest risk isn't always a data breach, and why some of the most dangerous exposure a company faces right now is financial, not just technical. In this episode, you'll learn: Why most companies have no visibility into how employees are already using AI What "token explosion" is, and how it can quietly wipe out a budget in minutes Why agentic AI creates legal liability that traditional security tools were never built to catch Why AI hasn't cut headcount at Portal26, even as productivity has multiplied Why early-career hiring is genuinely harder now, and what needs to change about it How Arti pivoted a fully funded company without losing her investors' trust Whether you're a founder rolling out AI across your organization, an investor evaluating AI-driven risk, or an operator trying to understand your own blind spots, this episode offers a practical framework for thinking about AI adoption before it becomes a liability. Connect with Arti Raman 🌐 Website: https://portal26.ai/ 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arti-arora-raman/ 🔔 If you found this conversation valuable, give the video a like, share it with a leader rolling out AI across their team, and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the founders, investors, and operators shaping the future of technology and business. 💬 Tell us in the comments: Does your company actually know how employees are using AI today, or is that still a blind spot?

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

Welcome to the GCP Channel! Tune in to gain exclusive insights from leaders in private equity, CEOs of PE-backed companies, and startup entrepreneurs. Each episode dives into their unique career journeys, sharing valuable lessons on starting, investing in, and scaling successful businesses. And most importantly how the Right Talent drives business success. Listen on all major podcast platforms and of course, watch right here on YouTube!

Information

  • Creator
    Justin Dixon
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    98
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    Growth Capital Podcast