The COVID19 crisis is unique in how immediate, broad, and acute it is for the global economy. In the United States, unemployment claims have reached 40 million and counting, and across the world an estimated 1.7 billion people have been ordered to remain at home as governments take extreme measures to protect their populations including deploying massive financial reliefs. Uncertainty has become the new normal. However, we also have a strong belief that great companies can be built during and navigated through a crisis - the last great recession even led to the birth of many multi-billion dollar businesses including Instagram, WhatsApp, Spotify, Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox, and Slack.
Very few of today's venture investors were around during the 1997 Asia crisis, the 2000s dot-com burst, the 2007-08 financial crisis, and the 2015 blip. Northzone, founded in 1996, has successfully deployed eight (now on our ninth) funds amounting to over $1.5 billion into early-stage companies. We have been fortunate to amass a great deal of learnings about investing and managing funds through uncertain times.
We are hosting a closed session with early-stage managers in our network to discuss and share best practices from prior crises and what that means today. For example: What are the common denominators of fund success? What concerns to expect from LPs and how to respond? How various global markets are reacting differently? How to respond to macro trends in a measured way? How to manage and balance portfolio risks? What are the legal/PR impacts of government reliefs and how to assess them?
We want this to be as engaging as possible, so please submit any questions beforehand and/or engage directly during the event.
PJ has been venture investing for 25 years. His portfolio includes multi-billion dollar exits in market-defining companies such as
Spotify, iZettle and Avito, as well as Pricerunner, Jasper, Videoplaza, and current companies
like fuboTV, Spring Health, Play Dots and others. He has been repeatedly recognized on the Forbes Midas List.
Theresia has been investing for over 20 years in startups including Cato Networks, Exabeam, Trulia (TRLA) LearnVest (Northwestern Mutual), and others. Theresia has received recognition on Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women list, Forbes Midas List (8 times), Time's 40 most influential minds in tech, and Carnegie Corporation’s annual Distinguished Immigrants list.
Ed chairs the VC/Startup team at Lowenstein Sandler since 1992. Ed has taught VC at Columbia Business School for 15 years and founded VentureCrush. Chambers USA ranked Ed among the 22 best lawyers in Startups & Emerging Companies–USA–Nationwide (the only of those based in NYC); Best Lawyers in America (2017) named Ed the NYC Venture Capital Lawyer of the Year. Ed's team has been recognized among the 5 most active law firms in America for venture capital and private equity deals (Dow Jones/WSJ).
