Genevieve LeMarchal, co-founder and managing partner of Suncoast Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss her journey from management consultant turned sales trainer to startup acceleration, healthcare tech, and VC fund manager.
Genevieve LeMarchal, co-founder and managing partner of Suncoast Ventures, joins Vlad Cazacu, co-founder and CEO of Flowlie, to discuss her journey from management consultant turned sales trainer to startup acceleration, healthcare tech, and VC fund manager. We discuss her passion for assisting entrepreneurs, her confrontation with imposter syndrome, and the origins of Suncoast Ventures. The conversation touches upon Genevieve's significant relationship-building efforts within her ventures and the importance of providing differentiated value to founders.
00:01 Introduction and Welcome
01:21 The Journey to Venture Capital
05:29 Learning from Failures
07:51 The Challenges of Fundraising
08:43 Transitioning to the Investor Side
14:42 The Genesis of Suncoast Ventures
18:21 The First Steps in Venture Capital
22:46 The Journey to Launching Cohorts and Accelerators
24:13 Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Embracing Opportunities
25:03 The Struggle with Self-Doubt and Building Confidence
27:35 The Role of VC Lab in the Journey
31:17 The Vision for Suncoast Ventures
36:44 The Inception of Suncoast Ventures
38:19 Building a Diverse Team and Ecosystem
39:41 The Value-Driven Approach to Investing
45:37 Gratitude and Reflections
46:49 Closing Remarks and Future Prospects
You can find Genevieve LeMarchal on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/genevievelemarchal/ and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/genlemarchal and learn more about Suncoast Ventures at https://www.suncoastvc.com/.
Learn more about Flowlie and how the platform can help you screen deals faster and discover the right connections from your network at https://www.flowlie.com.
Stay up-to-date with all our episodes by checking our website at https://www.thevcarchitects.com, following us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/thevcarchitects, and on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thevcarchitects.
The VC Architects (Ep. 10) - Genevieve LeMarchal (Suncoast Ventures)
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Genevieve LeMarchal: [00:00:00] Hi, I am Genevieve LaMarchal. I am the managing partner and founder of Suncoast Ventures. Suncoast ventures is a seed stage healthcare fund. We focus specifically in health impacts and health equity.
Vlad Cazacu: Hey everyone. Thanks for tuning in and welcome to the VC Architects, the podcast where we share the real stories behind new VC fund managers and the blueprints used to make them successful. My name is Vlad Cazacu, and I'll be your host today as we interview Genevieve LeMarchal, a management consultant, turned sales leader and operator, finding her life's path into venture capital and startup acceleration.
Vlad Cazacu: This is such a unique episode with a person who followed her passion to help others be successful. And opened up about the full story challenges and successes included. For more information about starting and growing your venture fund, including show notes, highlight clips, and exclusive scenes, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at the VC Architects, as well as on our website at TheVCArchitects.com.
Vlad Cazacu: This episode is brought to you by Flowlie, the number one choice for deals screening and network management used by hundreds of [00:01:00] investors from 50 plus different countries. Now, let's dive right in.
Vlad Cazacu: Genevieve, such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to, to join us for this conversation. Really excited to learn more about you and Suncoast Ventures.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Absolutely. I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me on your show.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And I would like to start the conversation, you know, before investing was really even on your radar screen, right?
Vlad Cazacu: Yeah. Like back to some of the very first early days in the, in the career. Right. From management consultant. Mm-Hmm. To CX lead to founder. You've really had a lot of different hats. Uh, yeah. So explain to us a little bit of the pre-investing Genevieve journey.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah. Actually, um. I didn't know what a startup even was, so it wasn't even that I didn't even know what investing was. I didn't know what a startup was. I started my career, my intention was to become a journalist and I actually didn't want to be in business at all. It, to me [00:02:00] business was I. Wearing pantyhose in a cubicle and you know, I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to be out in the world and solving interesting problems and, and I just didn't really think that that was business at the time growing up.
Genevieve LeMarchal: But one of the things that was interesting is when I was a young girl, my mother worked in an office with commercial real estate investors. And so I was around investing my whole life, not just around the actual practice of, you know, the paperwork and you know, what's actually the boring part of investing, but surrounded by investors and my parents were building relationships and socializing, and these people were a part of my life.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I didn't actually know when I was growing up that these people who were investors were not just our friends. And so I would say it was being, the seed was being planted, but I didn't actually realize that was going on until I was [00:03:00] probably in my thirties. And knowing that, that these social events and these things that we were having and parties and things that our house were, our friends, were actually our investors as well.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so my first career as a journalist, um, and as a writer, I wanted, I was led that way because I wanted to be creative. And because I had a curiosity. About the world and I wanted to find out why things were the way they were and how, you know, I might be able to tell these stories. Um, and it hadn't yet occurred to me that perhaps I could impact the world in any way, but I was curious about it.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so I think that's kind of where it all began. But I didn't ever think it was business and I didn't ever obviously think it was investing. So I was always interested in entrepreneurship naturally, but I didn't know it was entrepreneurship. I just thought I was working on cool projects and doing stuff, and [00:04:00] so I remember having a business in my college dorm room and doing a very early like e-commerce eBay based type store when I was in college, and having no idea, never putting two and two together, that it was a business.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I just thought I was having some fun and making enough money to, you know, go do some things with my friends and pay some of my bills in school. And so my journey to becoming a venture capitalist and eventually an entrepreneur, in the early, early days, it was not deliberate or even mindful at all. And so interesting. I'd like to be able to say, I thought about this and this was my strategy, and it's like, no, it really wasn't. You know, I think I had a lot of experiences that just rolled into one thing, into the other thing, into the other thing, but I, I, I didn't really have the intention to get here much.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Did I even know that here where we are was even a thing that you. [00:05:00] So, yeah,
Vlad Cazacu: it was, it was not even on the radar screen on, on that time. And it's interesting how one thing led to another. So I would like to, to explore that right before the very first investor role, you had a number of entrepreneurial parts or episodes of your journey.
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm. Uh, so one to zoom in a little bit on that particular aspect and some of the successes, but also of the failures and how that brought to the conversation of now: I think I can support other founders and additionally investing in them as well.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely have learned a lot more from the failures than I have from the successes.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I would probably say at least through my twenties and my early thirties, my life was not a string of successes. My career was a string of. Failure and learning and just kind of rolling into the next thing, into the next thing, into the next thing, continuing to try. So I really, at that time in my life, I built up a lot of [00:06:00] resilience.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I think today that's one of the things that is the best quality I have and stands out the most about me that I've been told by LPs and other collaborators, is that my resilience is you know, sort of the thing that seems to be, you know, one of the best qualities. Some people have this incredible intellect and, you know, some people have different things and I'm just, I just keep getting up when I, when I fall down.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I think that you do learn so much from your failures and it taught me to become wise very early. So I think I developed a wiseness, I don't know if wiseness is a word, um, at an earlier age than I might have otherwise because of how much I have failed. Some of the failures were small failures or missteps or things that just didn't really pan out.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And some of, I've had some crippling, horrible failures, and so they. Ultimately, if they don't [00:07:00] break you, they'll make you wise and you can decide what to do with that. Now you have this wisdom. Do you wanna do something with it or do you wanna just have it? And in my role as an VC, I decided to do something with it every single day and help entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes that I made.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I'll often tell entrepreneurs, I I don't actually know how to be successful. I don't think anyone does. I actually think it's luck and you can read any book you want and hear any interview with any successful person you want about how to be successful. But I think it's just don't fail and keep going until you get lucky. So I'm like, I can't really help you be successful, we can try, but I can help you not fail and let's do that.
Vlad Cazacu: The thing is, is the perfect industry to put that skillset to good use. I mean, everybody talks about the power law and fundraising in general before even we talk about the outcomes of investing, right? Fundraising in itself, it's a [00:08:00] hard, lengthy, uh feel-of-rejection process. Oh my gosh. Where resilient people are, really have no idea. The ones who, you know, get up and, and continue to do it.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Um, I had no idea. I had no idea. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna be able raise a fund. And I, I still see people, even people who you would think would know it's hard, still think it's gonna be easy.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And it's like, no. Until you are actually that one pulling in those checks. It. Yeah. No.
Vlad Cazacu: Right. It's, it's, it's one of those things that you're gonna have to feel on your own skin. Yeah. To be able to appreciate it and see and empathize with others who are going from a similar journey. A thousand percent.
Vlad Cazacu: Yeah. So I'm curious, 'cause you know, now we got to the point where you are thinking about supporting other founders and getting into a role of VC and you didn't start your journey in venture capital with your own [00:09:00] firm. You started initially with another firm, so mm-Hmm. Walk me through that decision process of moving from the builder side to the investor side and how that went
Genevieve LeMarchal: for you.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, actually, I would love for it to have been a decision process, but I'll tell you what actually happened. So I was passionate about helping other entrepreneurs because that was something I knew I could contribute. I had a little bit of knowledge, um, by a little bit, I mean maybe six months more knowledge than some of these other peers I had.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I started teaching entrepreneurs in my kitchen how to build sales pipeline. At the time I was living in Portland Oregon, that has a very nascent and very small startup community. There's not a lot of investors, there's not a lot of investment activity going up on up there, but you and I both know it doesn't matter where you go, you're gonna find people innovating. You're gonna find entrepreneurs, you're gonna find it. I believe there will always be a market for [00:10:00] what we are doing because we are human beings and humans are always going to be creating and reaching and building. So there was that going on, and so I started teaching people how to build sales pipeline and basic concepts of how to do campaigns and things like that because the drum beat that I had kind of going at: make money, don't raise money because customers can pay you today and you don't have to pay 'em back, you know?
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so I would, people were coming to my house and bringing laptops and I was teaching people what I knew about how to do this. And light bulbs were kind of going off because the culture for so many founders is: raise some money and then go build your thing. And I was basically flipping that on its head, which seems very basic, but saying build the thing, get the customers, and then the investors won't be able to deny that we have a business or we're onto something. And so that eventually grew and grew to the point where, [00:11:00] as founders, we could not do any more sales because we were bursting at the seams in our businesses. We were falling apart and it was like more sales will actually hurt us. We need to bring in some sort of infusion of capital so we can tool up, so we can scale, so we can bring in some resources so that we can kind of make that jump to the next plateau and grow again.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And that was when we started to. Kind of realized there seemed to be some systemic inequities. We were like, well, this is odd. Why is it that you know that company over there, that company over there could raise money? But we're being told as this group of us who all happened to be women, that we don't have enough traction or we don't have enough proof of concept, and we couldn't understand why that was.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so. This was back before there was a big conversation going around venture capital in the entrepreneurship world, about less than 3% of venture capital dollars were going to women. [00:12:00] And so when we found this information out, which required quite a lot of digging, we started going to some of these institutions and telling them this stuff, and they were like, no, that can't be the case.
Genevieve LeMarchal: There's no possible way that women running venture fundable backable businesses are getting passed over for funding. Why would that be? So we had to basically prove it. And so we started this organization called Accelerate, and the whole point of starting Accelerate was that we wanted to, we had to show that there was a strong and healthy pipeline of women-led businesses that needed support and access to funding, and they weren't getting it. And we also created a loan funding mechanism at the time because we were like, well. We're cash flowing and we've got the money to service some debt. So why don't we just do a loan and design our own loan program?
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I, I was doing that and I caught the attention of a very small VC firm and an investor in particular who [00:13:00] I had a friendship with. And he calls me one day and he said, Genevieve, I think you should become a VC. And I'll never forget the conversation 'cause I was standing in line for a Gyro sandwich at a Greek deli and I started to laugh and I said, that's hilarious, Chris. I was like, I'll wire you $15 million tomorrow? You know, just goes to show how little I knew you know about venture and um. And I was like, oh, my sandwich is done. I'll call you later. You know, hung up the phone completely. It was like, oh, Chris is funny, hilarious. You know? And so he kept staying on me for months and months, and then one day an agreement landed in my inbox and it was a basic carry share agreement that said, if you bring us these companies that are focused on growth and on sales, and if you bring us these founders who are out there building stuff because you know them, we'll give you a, some carry on the companies that you help us with and I thought, alright, that seems like it could be fun. I don't know. We'll see. I was very much a dabbler in the beginning. I was, I attended meetings when I felt like [00:14:00] it, I would help with due diligence when I felt like it, it wasn't really like anywhere near a full-time job, but that's how I got started in venture.
Vlad Cazacu: I love this sort of accidental, but at the same time, it feels like everything was really kind of coming together in a really beautiful and organized way, which usually happens. It
Genevieve LeMarchal: does now looking back, right? Yeah,
Vlad Cazacu: exactly. It doesn't feel like the moment. Yeah. Uh, but there was a point where you said, I think this is what I want to do for Mm-Hmm.
Vlad Cazacu: A number of decades moving forward. Yeah. And that for sure was a decision, like, I won't buy an answer, which that happened. So I'm curious, let's go back to the genesis of Suncoast Ventures and how they're really come about.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, it, it was a decision, so I continued with the sales training. I was still teaching these sales bootcamps to founders who had non, who were non-salespeople, so [00:15:00] engineers and product people, teaching them how to really get over the mindset blocks that they were having around not just starting their companies, but offering.
Genevieve LeMarchal: What they were had created to the world in the form of getting paid A.K.A. sales, you know? And so I was doing that and that's how I was making money. And I was not making money in venture capital. I was, and I was. Dabbling. I had a seat at the table and I didn't realize how valuable that was. I had no idea at the time that by being given a seat at the table, I had a golden ticket.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so as the years went on, and you know, this wasn't like three months later, I would decide to become a VC. It was, it was years of dabbling and very slowly getting more and more and more involved over time. I. There came a point when I realized I was good at it. Um, but that was a couple years in when I thought, Hmm, this interesting, I have got this [00:16:00] brain, you know, that seems to grasp this stuff and I also realized I had built this network and I had this ability to connect with founders in a unique way. And so there came a point, and this was before Suncoast was even a blip when I sort of realized I had to make a decision, I could be a sales trainer or I could be a VC.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I knew up until that point, this multi-passionate thing, you know, doing all these different things and building all of this skill set and expertise in all these different areas was serving me, but I needed to focus if I wanted to really grow. And so it was actually something I mulled over for a while and thought about. And I just came to the conclusion that I was given a gift in terms of the opportunity to have a seat at the table and learn venture. And I had an opportunity to differentiate myself as a female in venture [00:17:00] and do something really different.
Genevieve LeMarchal: But if. And it would require me to sacrifice a lot in the short term. I could be a sales trainer, I would make more money in the short term, but I would be just another sales trainer. There's a lot of those. And so I decided I would make some short term lifestyle changes and sacrifices in order to pursue the venture capital path and I would stop doing the sales training and it was a very, very definitive decision I made.
Vlad Cazacu: Interesting. It, it feels like it was the area where, long-term was the biggest leverage around the impact that you were looking to make Yeah. Uh, on this world, and you were really the person to, to fulfill that mission.
Vlad Cazacu: So I would like to understand moving from something that you truly passionate about, that you have the skillset to do. You know that this is really a mission that you wanna dedicate your next few decades on. To a fund, and the, usually the missing [00:18:00] ingredient is capital, right? That very first LP.
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm. That says, you know what, Genevieve, I agree with you. Mm-Hmm. Here is $15 million to do it. Right? Yeah. Maybe, maybe not that lucky from the very first check. But help us understand. Who was the very first person who believed in this? Mm-Hmm. Um, and how did that kind of transform from one person to a
Genevieve LeMarchal: fund?
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, so I dabbled in a couple different funds before I had, you know, like you're saying, the LP back me and so I had the opportunity to learn and continue to have a seat at the table in different funds. And that's how I ended up actually in healthcare was because I had a role in a deep tech, intellectual property focused fund. And I loved it. And I thought, this is my forever home, I'm staying here, I'm kicking off my shoes. I was not a general partner, I was just a partner, so I didn't have a lot of visibility into some of the other operations of the fund and that fund ended up not working out.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And it was really difficult because I [00:19:00] had, this was 2020. I had moved during this time from Portland Oregon to San Diego, California, and didn't know anybody. I knew, I'm not kidding, three people and one of them was a cat. And I say that all the time, but it is full true. I knew three people and one was cat. And what's funny is two people ended up, the other two ended up becoming LPs. But so in my mind I was like, I can't start a fund. I don't know anyone. I live in a new city in a pandemic. I know three people, and now I am an unemployed VC. Like, oh my gosh, what did I just do?
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so, um, I was like, well, I'm gonna do the best thing I know how to do, which is I gotta make some money. Like, I gotta, like girls gotta eat, you know? So I studied investment banking. I got into that whole process and I was like, I will learn sell side mergers and acquisitions. I will meet [00:20:00] LPs, I will network here. I will get my feet under me, and then I will start a fund. Um, and my passion wasn't in investment banking. My passion though, was I loved working with entrepreneurs and I loved helping them put together deals. And so I was working with Charlotte Triplett. We were collaborating together.
Genevieve LeMarchal: We were consulting with MedTech founders. We were helping them structure rounds and then when the time came for them to raise, we were just kind of like structuring. Plan and helping them fundraise. So we had all of the components, all the recipe for baking the cake that became Suncoast, but we just didn't have our own fund.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And it really hadn't occurred to me to do that. And so I was preparing to sit for my investment banking exam. And a lot of people are like, oh yeah, you know, series 65, it, it'll take you. You know, two months to study. Not me. I'm terrible at taking tests. So it took me eight months to study for that securities exam and I was getting ready to [00:21:00] sit that test and the lawyer that I was hiring to help me file the stuff and get going as an investment bank, was an attorney for an accelerator in LA and he said to me, I, you know, you might wanna meet these guys.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I was thinking in my head. Oh, I'm happy to meet them. I'll, you know, this'll be any sort of opportunity to connect and, you know, meet people. Maybe they're a great, good funding source or a partner, and so I agreed to meet with them. Unbeknownst to me at the time, would I become their head of healthcare in just a few months, but I was planning on starting an investment bank. Um, but that really wasn't where my heart was. My heart was in early stage venture capital, and that's really what I wanted and I wanted to work with founders. So, um, it's kind of funny how the universe put me into that situation where I would be able to do that.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And again, kind of this recurring theme that I've noticed throughout the, your career, which is, really, sometimes life [00:22:00] happens, but you have to see why it happens and then proceed to go from there. So now you're at this accelerator, you're back in the VC arena, and luckily you did not go the investment banking
Genevieve LeMarchal: route.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I, I thank myself every, I'm like, thank you. No, not an investment banker,
Vlad Cazacu: right? It happened at the right time for you to not make that decision. There's still a point where you move from an accelerator to Suncoast Ventures. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm. Um, so what was that period of acceleration where now you were rummigating and you were thinking, well, maybe a fund is actually the right way to go about this.
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm. Uh, but you were, were not yet pulling the trigger. At what point did you said No. It's now it's happening.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah. Well, so we started launching cohorts and accelerators, you know, we batched the companies and people started to notice the quality of companies and they started to notice that the types of [00:23:00] companies that myself as well as Sharla who was working with me at the time were bringing in, were novel.
Genevieve LeMarchal: They were like, these are not the typical MedTech, health tech companies that we might see. You guys are finding really, really interesting deals. Really great founder, you know, and so we started getting attention because of the quality of the work. We took our jobs working with these founders extremely seriously.
Genevieve LeMarchal: It wouldn't have mattered what accelerator it was at that point because we were just. We were kind of an island of healthcare tech, you know, within this accelerator. And we really gave everything we had and could to these founders to help them. I think it was just because that's what we were passionate about is the right thing to do. And through that work it got noticed and I started having a couple people say, oh, you should start a fund one day, but it was the same thing. Oh no, I don't know anyone, you know, maybe one day.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And I applied to VC lab, but I actually don't even remember applying, which [00:24:00] is really funny. I think I might have done the application in my office maybe at the end of the workday or something. I can't remember. But obviously it wasn't a very good application because I don't even remember doing it. Um, but I applied to VC lab and when we got accepted, that was sort of this light bulb that I thought, wait a minute, this could be an opportunity to, to do this.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And everyone else seems to think the time is now and I'm the only one who thinks that I'm not ready. So it was an imposter syndrome thing for sure, and I think that's something that, you know, a lot of us, me included for sure, have had to battle. But I was kind of kicked into it by getting accepted into that program.
Vlad Cazacu: Two really great topics and I want to tackle them individually. Imposter syndrome is something we discussed on a number of episodes and I think each conversation brought a very unique angle to it. So I'm curious to [00:25:00] understand, you know, your journey around that.
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm. Right.
Vlad Cazacu: You know, battling your own self doubts. Like, is it really like, am I now ready to take on the fiduciary responsibility of other people's money and then return, you know, more than I received the, in a number of years, and make the right decisions every single time? Uh, what was your process around getting that confidence and getting that support group around that says, you know, this is happening and there's just, yeah, there's no other alternative path
Genevieve LeMarchal: for us.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I think that in the beginning it was more just brute force, like mind, brute force of just saying no. Like, it was like the, the, the voice that's saying, you're not enough, you're not qualified, you don't know how to do this. Who are you to think that this is something that you should be doing, you know, and I just had to tell myself. You belong here, you can do this job. You're just as good as they are. You're actually probably better than that [00:26:00] person. You know? Like, you're, you belong here, you belong here, you belong here. And it wasn't until I started to track closely on my own performance because I needed to believe it.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I had to have the data. I couldn't just tell myself the story. Um, and so day, days. Where I would tell myself the story and then I would look at my data and I would benchmark it against others. And I would say, how am I performing compared to X? How am I performing compared to Y? And I had to start building my own case over time for why I Belonged in the room.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And you know, one of the things I tell people that's really hard about venture is you don't know if you're good at your job for many years. You know, like, we really don't know. We, I've got all these performance metrics I'm tracking on. You don't know, we know once we start returning capital. So I like to take, at least once a quarter, dive into the numbers and look very cold, hard, black and [00:27:00] white at what's actually going on in order to make sure that my, I keep a realistic idea, not just of my performance, but also, help tamp that imposter syndrome down. You know, that comes up a lot.
Vlad Cazacu: For sure. And you know, it, it's, it's very relevant. I mean, you know, myself an immigrant, we had a number of individuals on the podcast from different types of backgrounds, right?
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm.
Vlad Cazacu: You know, solo GPS who are female or minority or immigrants, and everybody has a different way of creating that support group, that benchmarking group of working with others towards that shared goal. Yeah, and it seems that a recurring theme throughout some of these episodes is VCLAB.
Vlad Cazacu: So I would wanna spend a second on that because actually the person who introduced us and was able to get you as a guest on our podcast, Ihar, who also went through VCLAB and a good friend of mine. I'm curious to learn your experience there and being surrounded by other people who are dealing with their own imposter syndrome and their own journeys and building their [00:28:00] own resilience around fundraising in a time where venture funding was really shifting. You know, there was so much happening in a macroeconomic context during that time.
Vlad Cazacu: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Vlad Cazacu: That, you know, you weren't really sure if tomorrow is gonna look similar to yesterday, right?
Vlad Cazacu: Mm-Hmm.
Vlad Cazacu: Like every day was very, very different than the other. Walk us a little bit through, through your experience there and the power of working together as a group, um, yeah. Towards raising
Genevieve LeMarchal: multiple funds. I mean, I learned in VC Lab that there is a wrong way to go about raising a venture fund. And there is a way that you can set yourself up to be most likely to close. So that was really helpful. It was also helpful because VCLab, so Mike and Adeo and all them, they've compiled all these numbers and they really wanna be able to be a very comprehensive data source about performance for new managers and what new managers actually mean today versus how the global industry at large would define a new manager.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so [00:29:00] it was helpful because you, you know, when I go, when I interact in other organizations, I'm being lumped in with and benchmarked against others who aren't like me. And so I continue to feel like, well, this isn't really for me. I don't really belong here. Versus in a lot of the VC lab environments, a lot of the emerging managers and people in the program are like me.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I can, I. Say I do belong here. And now I can start to actually try to learn best practices from these other people because they're not raising a $1 billion private equity fund. You know, they're raising a fund like me, and maybe they're just focusing on Ag Tech or they're focusing on food innovation or something else.
Genevieve LeMarchal: But we're all kind of the same, and we're all going through very similar experiences, even if some people have an easier fund time fundraising than others or whatever that might be. Um, and [00:30:00] then I think one of the things that's helpful too is because VC Lab in 2022 per their numbers, they launched, a little under half, I believe, of the emerging funds, the new funds that, um, launched in the country. So their data is comprehensive, so I'm much more apt to trust what they say versus what someone else is telling me. So when they say, genevieve, you're fine, you're, you're on track, you're doing well. I can breathe easier because I know that I'm with my peers.
Genevieve LeMarchal: If I need help, they're there and then I'm on track. Versus this journey being so lonely, I cannot imagine what it would be like to just wake up one day and be like, I'm gonna start a fund and try to do it by myself. I think I'd be lost and I was lost, I think for, and when I look at funds that don't make it, I've kind of gotten to the point because I know so many new managers, I can almost tell you which funds and which managers are gonna make it and which ones probably aren't just based off of what I've seen over the years with [00:31:00] my interactions with, with other, um, managers at VC.
Vlad Cazacu: So I'm sensing a mutation of Suncoast Ventures over the next decade or so in a fund of funds. And, uh, that's really where the where the journey's heading. That's so
Genevieve LeMarchal: funny. You bring that up. Yeah. I actually, so my goal is I'd like to raise three funds for Suncoast minimum. I may or may not do sort of like topical specific funds.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I would love to have a women's health specific fund one day. Um, the theme, the thesis, and, you know, the structure and everything like that. If Suncoast works really well. So I don't wanna change what's working right now, but it's just something I would always love to do. But looking at what VC Lab has done, I just find it very inspiring and extremely impactful.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And then meeting a couple LPs who are also fund to fund and getting to see what they do. I. It's made me think, you know, maybe that's might be where I eventually want to end up, you know? And so [00:32:00] raising three funds, that's gonna be 10 years. I've been very clear with my fiance and the people in my life. I am like, this is a 10 year ride for sure. I'm giving myself an option to get off at the end, you know, because this is really hard work and I'm not going to say that I, you know, won't be ready to take a break, but I think I've become really intrigued with this idea of an eventual fund of funds and would like to see maybe things move in that way. We'll see.
Vlad Cazacu: Fantastic. So I feel that listeners can say they heard it for the first time on the VC Architects sold. I'm curious to understand. I think it's crazy to think that we're two-thirds into the episode and we haven't had the chance to discuss about the thesis of Suncoast Ventures and probably the most important question there that's probably on people's minds as they're listening to this, we've heard the journalism background, we've heard the sales background, we've heard the journey into venture and [00:33:00] acceleration, but Suncoast Ventures, it's focused on healthcare. Yeah. At what point during that career, uh, healthcare became a interest? Um, of you and a part where you really wanted to dedicate your, uh, investing and support towards those founders?
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, actually, so I think I got the idea in my head before I even knew what venture capital was.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So I was reading a bunch of articles in a newsfeed one day, and I saw an article about a life-saving Therapy or Technology. I can't remember what it was coming out of. O hsu, Oregon Health and Science University. And this article was talking about how they had lined up, you know, everything that they needed to go to market, how they had, you know, I was in distribution and all this stuff, and how this technology was going to save millions if not billions of people. And all they needed was to do was do the final, have a final chunk of funding in order to get through the last milestone of [00:34:00] the FDA. And um, it was gonna cost $500,000 and it would take about six months. But the company was unable to raise that. And so the technology was going to sit on the shelf and it would never reach the people who were waiting to purchase it.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And it would never save the world. And in the same feed aggregator down the page, I saw an article about some startup in San Francisco that was doing some technology for something. I don't even know what it was, but I remember thinking that I thought it was dumb and that they had raised four and a half million dollars.
Genevieve LeMarchal: They had burned it all on offices and office furniture and office amenities and all these different things, and they were trying to raise another round. And I remember just thinking, well that doesn't make any sense at all. What a waste. And I thought if just 500,000 of that had gone to this company, we could have had something that would've really been meaning, meant something to the [00:35:00] world and the investors would've made a lot of money.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Why would you put the money into this company over a year that's not even gonna like, do anything? And I didn't understand any of this at the time. And so when I found myself working for that one Venture fund as a partner where they were doing deep science and intellectual property, I got to get really deep into understanding the process of commercialization, which is not a process that tech companies have to go through per se.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So you know, they build the product and then they sell the product. And in health they have to, basically, products are often built or incubated or created or invented somewhere different by a different. Team or team composition than the people who take it to market. And that whole process is unique to med tech, healthcare, tech devices, you know, all that.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so getting really into that process and learning about it and getting really into the nuances of it, I started to realize that if I [00:36:00] learned that and if I could figure out how to wrap, how to make a funding mechanism work in there, I could create impact. Other people weren't creating because the barrier seemed so big.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Like people stay away from health because of the complexity of it and the scientific of itness of it. And I thought if I can get past that, then I can do something truly unique and very impactful. So I think I have. The semblances of a foundation to give it a try, and I'm just gonna focus on these types of companies because I know how to do those ones and not do you know, biotech or anything like that.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So that's kind of how Suncoast, the inception of Suncoast began.
Vlad Cazacu: Interesting. Did you look towards getting that scientific expertise in-house, or how were you thinking about the [00:37:00] complementarity of the skills around the fund in order to make the right investment decisions?
Genevieve LeMarchal: Yeah, well, so when you think about a fund.
Genevieve LeMarchal: A lot of health funds in the health industry, they're very specific. So they're like biotechnology, computational biosciences, or drug discovery and that's because the breadth of knowledge that is required is so specific in order to make those types of investments. And so I was kind of thinking to myself, well, if I'm doing seed funding and we're making smaller bets and smaller checks, and we're, it's about the timing of when we put that money in, more so than it is about the check size, it becomes a lot more about check size later. So I thought in order to get the timing right, I have to understand the industry and in order to understand the industry, there's no way I could do that alone. I. Or even the smartest person who came in as a partner, you know, Sharla for example, [00:38:00] extremely talented engineer, but she still doesn't know everything about everything in this industry.
Genevieve LeMarchal: There's no possible way we're gonna be able to do this unless we surround ourselves with the right people. So we set up a structure where we basically created a venture partner bench of people with different expertises across a range of disciplines. Data science mathematician, clinical nursing, engineering, and everyone comes at things with a different angle so that we can not only understand technology at that stage, but so that we can time it properly.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And then on top of that, so we have our core team who are all partners in the fund. And it's not me. I usually joke and say, I am the resident VC. Because these companies don't really need VCs. You know, at seed stage you get the timing right, you get the for the diligence down, and the deal itself is actually relatively straightforward once you figure out how to do it.
Genevieve LeMarchal: So that [00:39:00] doesn't need to be a. You know, we're not doing private equity crossover funding or anything crazy here. So then after that we started to create an ecosystem. So we said maybe not people who work with us on the team, but who are involved in our ecosystem and have access. And have specific expertise again that we can tap on when we need.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And then we also, um, brought in LPs. So 70% of our LPs are healthcare industry execs. That's a long-winded way of saying it takes a village. But if you want the diversity you have in the fund and then in the portfolio, you have to have the diversity of thoughts and experience.
Vlad Cazacu: Absolutely. And I think it's a perfect segway to my last question before we jump into the rapid fire, which is how do you think about value add and more specifically, how did you design Suncoast Ventures to be best positioned to have founders work with you rather than someone else?
Genevieve LeMarchal: Mm-Hmm. [00:40:00] I would say value add has been shown to return higher returns and funds. If there's a fund out there, if there's someone who has money and they would like to deploy it into startups and they don't wanna add that much value, that's fine. There's a place for them in the ecosystem. But I think that being able to contribute in some way to a company is, I wouldn't wanna invest in any other way. It would feel completely like soulless, I guess.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And so the value add starts with the relationship and the value add begins with how can we connect with these founders in order to help them not fail? And then, uh, we've been thinking a lot about that because we're like, we've built this whole ecosystem and we've got all these cake recipe cake ingredients. What's the cake? We're actually gonna bake, and one of the areas that we continue to come back to in terms of where we're grade at adding value is, well, we have to have the [00:41:00] context for the clinical application. We have to understand the workflow, we have to understand the science, and we have to be able to communicate that outward.
Genevieve LeMarchal: That's a. We want to be able to help them be successful and at the stage that we're coming in the way that what, so what some of these companies need most is sales, growth, that kind of thing. And so we start looking around and we realize there's not a lot of branded funds or programs specific to health that focus on sales and growth. And maybe we can be that.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And it's interesting because it's like that also brings in my background of growth and sales and combining that. So if we can bring that discipline to the table and we can add value there, then. That to me is something that we can differentiate with as a fund.
Genevieve LeMarchal: And once you have a strong differentiator, your check size and your economics and things like that, they need to work, but they don't matter as [00:42:00] much as they would, as the value that you bring to the fund, the value that you bring to the founder and the relationship that you can create around it. I
Vlad Cazacu: like this value-driven conclusion that we're reaching as we're approaching end of this episode around what's truly most important is figure out where you can provide the most differentiated value to those founders. And then everything is built around
Genevieve LeMarchal: that. Yeah, yeah. Like you're, there's a nuance there, right? Like you're saying, where can you provide it? A lot of people look and they say, what is the gap in the market? What is the market need? Can I, I'm.
Genevieve LeMarchal: It may not be as sustainable as if you can say my thing that I can do that you know is unique to me or is unique to my team is this, and maybe there are other people in the market who do it, and that's okay, but you're gonna do it. Your way and you're gonna do it your own special way and you're gonna do it really well.
Genevieve LeMarchal: [00:43:00] And so, you know, going to expert Dojo, launching cohorts and doing that. Well, I just continue sometimes when I feel a little lost and when I feel a little bit imposter syndrome, I just get back down to be excellent at fundamentals. The fundamentals of investing are actually quite basic. Be excellent at them.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Be excellent at, you know, the fundamentals of advising and relationships and try not to pile on too much. And so anytime I start feeling a little overwhelmed, go back to the fundamentals. What creates value and how is that value created? And go do more of that.
Vlad Cazacu: Such a great answer, and I really appreciate you, you going into this angle as well.
Vlad Cazacu: As we're wrapping up the episode, we'd love to ask you two rapid-fire questions. And one of them has to deal with you, which is what is one thing that a lot of people don't know about Genevieve that they should know about you?
Genevieve LeMarchal: Gosh, [00:44:00] don't know, but should know. I think, well, one thing is I think I am very spiritual and so a lot of my relationships with founders and with LPs, they're not really centered around, our conversations aren't so much around business.
Genevieve LeMarchal: I like to connect with people about real things. Who are we? What's the purpose we're trying to create here? I don't like getting stuck and mired in like little details of things, um, and that, that that's a good thing and a bad thing sometimes. But I like to really understand who people are at their core and really understand why something is being done a certain way and sometimes that means we invest and sometimes it means we don't invest, but that doesn't have anything to do actually with them or what it is that they're doing. And so I think I, that's something I like wish a lot more people kind of knew when they approached either me or any other investor, is when I meet with an entrepreneur, my first thought isn't [00:45:00] necessarily about a check.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Um, and then if it seems like it's gonna make sense, then it becomes about a check. But the first thought is usually about getting to know who is this person and why are they on this journey? And I think that's something that it would be nicer if more entrepreneurs could engage in that way.
Vlad Cazacu: Fantastic.
Vlad Cazacu: And I think there's a whole other episode that we should be doing around the spirituality. I have a lot of questions for you on that note. But as we're ending this one, today, we've always asked this question, who would you like to say thank you for? Or who are you most, grateful for looking back at your life and career? Unfortunately, you'll have to be only one person. I. Oh
Genevieve LeMarchal: man, that's so hard actually. So several people popped into my mind in terms of who I'm grad grateful for. I thought of my partner, Sharla. I thought of my other partners, Ray, Hal, Tammy. But I, the person that I would like to talk about gratitude for today is a guy named, Chris, Chris [00:46:00] Capdavilla, and he's an angel, he's an investor. He is the person who called me that day that I was getting a gyro sandwich and told me he thought I should become a VC and he's also the person who taught me, and he was very patient and he gave me a seat at the table and he challenged me patiently when I needed to be challenged. He gave me every resource that I needed in order to learn this. I don't think it was ever his intention that I, like, you know, become a GP and start a fund, you know? I don't think that was his thing, but that is what he did. And I am very forever grateful to him. And, you know, I've written him a letter and, you know, things like that. But, you know, I wanna share, like, he gave me an opportunity and he may not have realized what he was doing, but he did. And I am eternally grateful to that.
Genevieve LeMarchal: Thank you so
Vlad Cazacu: much for, for sharing that. And thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation with us. It was beautiful, insightful, transparent, and honest at its core, which I think [00:47:00] make up a great story to tell about how someone got where they are right now. And hopefully people take that story and get inspired, following their own journeys and create more funds and bring a more diverse group of around the table to support an next generation of founders. So thank you Genevieve so much for taking the time to do this today. Thank
Genevieve LeMarchal: you. It's kind, very kind words. I really appreciate that and it was wonderful to come on today and I'm glad we got to have this conversation. So thanks.
Vlad Cazacu: What a great conversation. If you enjoyed it. Make sure to like and subscribe to our podcast and be on the lookout for a new episode in two weeks, featuring another amazing fund manager and their story.
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Vlad Cazacu: That's it for today's episode. See you next time.