EUVC #280: Tej Panesar, Partner at Prism Ventures on LP investing in life sciences

33:18I think we're very similar to you. we're sort of ruminating on that and digesting it but i i think you know as i said before within life sciences and health care it's a brilliant use case for deep learning technologies um the the complexity the the volumes of data you get out of a single cell in terms of molecular interactions out of cells in the body trillions of cells interacting i mean it's it's a perfect It's a perfect, perfect use case. And in terms of approaches like spatial biology and molecular biology, the omics revolution, we're seeing, I think the practical answer to what you asked is the implementations that we get really excited about are within individual companies.

34:04and even what we're seeing within pharma, where it tends not to be just a deep learning medical company. It tends to be a biotech or a medical devices company trying to solve a problem. And it's a combination of a wet lab and a dry lab within a single company where bioinformatics and deep learning technologies are being used to identify and optimize for the lead asset. and it's only when that exercise is done do the wet lab then say, okay, let's start to experiment. And so it's these very symbiotic combinations of approaches to solve a fundamental problem where we see the most practical use cases that we can see generating value in the long term rather than being a pure AI play, which certainly within life sciences has been a difficult path.

35:02And there are many stories about high-profile use cases where that has not gone as well as expected. So we get really excited about those individual biotechs where teams of data analysts and deep tech specialists working alongside biomedical researchers are producing, enhancing really the existing pipelines. So Tej, before we started recording, I promised this wouldn't take more than an hour. That is now not going to happen because we got a bit excited. Just a heads up. I tend to go on. It's not your fault. It's our fault. But I think it's the perfect moment for us to go into Prism a bit more in detail.

35:48And starting off with what's the firm's world view? Why do you exist? And I think that's a great way to start things off. So we are a specialist life sciences, healthcare investor, and done at an institutional level. And what are the reasons for that? We are fundamentally long on the technological potential within the life sciences space for all the reasons that I've talked through. So we believe that the massive demographic tailwinds in terms of, and headwinds for that matter, in terms of aging populations, in terms of rises in disease, large disease areas, both chronic and specialist, are creating a demand pool that will drive this sector to be a fundamental part of institutional portfolios as we go forward.

36:40There is absolutely tremendous government backing for a push into this area, particularly within the UK, where they see the potential of strengths of the UK in this sector and are driving both regulatory change and capital through things like the Mansion House Compact here in the UK. So all of that is great to see. And for that reason, we fundamentally feel like we are the right firm with the right thesis at the right time to really capture all of that for the next 10, 20 years. At the end of the day, we come at it not just with a sort of giddy enthusiasm, but we are a dry, boring institutional investor.

37:24And as I mentioned before, what we see within the venture asset class is really an interesting financial commercial product within life sciences and healthcare venture where those strategies on the aggregate at a fund-to-fund institutional level have the potential to produce really interesting portfolios. And frankly, we're following the work of people like the EIF and the BPC in that regard. Why life sciences healthcare focused? Why not deep tech focused? or why not IP heavy or IP focused? Because that would, as an example, could encompass then automatically climate, which is arguably also going to save a shit ton of lives.

38:08So why so narrow? At the same time, I don't think it's narrow, but it's more narrow than deep tech, right? Yeah, that's true. I mean, so two answers. I would say, firstly, I don't think it's narrow. I think it's a vast, vast area that impacts, you know everyone's lives um as does as does the broader tech uh world for sure but but life sciences and healthcare will touch each and everyone's lives at different different points in our lives and and that will only increase as a trend as i as i said so i think it's a vast area both technologically both in terms of the uh the macro view of it and the potential impact on society and then secondly why not deep tech well i think the answer is we we are hugely interested in the team um within deep deep learning technologies and we deliberately describe ourselves as a firm that is interested passionate about two key pillars one is traditional biopharma and and the second is tech bio and so deliberately within our strategy we are talking to new and existing managers that are tackling this frontier space.

39:19And that itself is such a frontier space that is incredibly appropriate to venture as an investor in innovation, that we are very excited as a team about that. So we are involved in deep learning technologies, but with that life sciences lens, where we feel we have some domain expertise and really bring something to the table. And, you know, it may be the case that we do end up working with a generalist deep tech VC. That's entirely possible and within scope for us. That was actually exactly what I wanted to ask you about because tech bio is often done by firms that also do other things. So tech bio and then 20 % that and 30 % that.

40:09But, you know, how do you deal with that as an LP in your strategy? As I said, I think we are open-minded to the strategies that are playing out. We're also a co-investor. So where we see a strategy that maybe is 60 % deep life sciences, 40 % deep tech or 50-50, and we think the fundamental commercial strategy of the fund has been working, well, A, we're interested in deploying dollars in that, but B, we know that then there's a significant probability that that firm may identify the outstanding tech bio company of the next five, six years. And so therefore it is appropriate for our portfolio.

40:52From a portfolio construction perspective, Tej, how do you think about hardware? Is that something that you want limited exposure to, you're quite bullish on? I'll give the cliche quote, hardware is hard, and no less so than in life sciences and healthcare. I think it is a tricky area, if I focus on medical devices. What we saw over the last five, six years was a number of VCs pulling back from that space, both because of the capital intensity of some of those projects, but also a very tricky regulatory environment. Europe versus the US. It is a very tricky area, but fundamentally, it also has the ability to impact patients' lives massively.

41:44And so we feel comfortable, I think, if I speak for our firm, we feel comfortable going into it with battle-hardened VCs who have it as a component of their strategy. Would we go into a 100 % medical device-focused VC? I'd never say no, but I think that is a tough play for the reasons I mentioned. Would you ever consider, and now I'm bringing it to an LP portfolio level of, you might have five bets that have 20 % allocated to hardware, whatever those numbers are, and then kind of would you ever consider like, maybe I'm a bit overexposed now from a whole portfolio perspective. Would that be something in your mind?

42:27We do think in that way. I mean, as a funder-fund investor, we fundamentally are looking for the best fund managers to work with. That naturally then starts to produce a shape of the underlying portfolio in terms of the sectors that those investors are invested in. But at the same time, we take a framework approach. And so what we do is at the outset of a fund, we map out where we think from our own technology view of the world and from our own commercial view, where we want the capital in this portfolio to end up at a high level. It doesn't mean we're going to achieve exactly that. But what we then try to do is monitor on an ongoing basis how that spread between biopharma, medical devices, diagnostics is starting to build up and how it's mapping to that original intention.

43:19And it's okay if it's not a perfect match. But we definitely do take that kind of framework strategy approach. for any GP listening in that is either doing stuff in biotech, tech bio, deep tech. Could you give us a quick rundown of what are you looking for in terms of min and max? And that goes for fun vintage, that goes for fun size, that goes for stage, that goes for just give us a rundown as complete as you can. Sure. So hopefully we don't have too many min's and max's, but we keep things pretty flexible. In terms of our portfolio construction, we have a core focus on established managers, and that means really at a fund three plus.

44:09However, we have a specific allocation for emerging managers, so around a 20 % or so allocation. It's fairly flexible. and the reason we do that is because emerging managers is a very specific skill set it's that they are not easy to deal with there's lots of basics that you have to go through and really understand have they figured that out but it is an incredibly useful way within ventures specifically to access frontier technologies and deal with small and nimble teams so we very much have that mindset mindset it's part of my dna having come having started my career in the emerging manager program of British Business Bank.

44:47Then in terms of other min's maxes, I mean, our check size range is a reasonable spread. At the top end, we might do a 10 million euro deployment. Into earlier stage managers, we might look at two and a half million at that type of level. In terms of sectoral focus of a VC that we're speaking to, I would say probably if there's a sort of 50 % life sciences, healthcare focus, that's a good rule of thumb for us as a minimum. But as I said, even then, we encounter very specific, interesting use cases where we think the potential for identifying outstanding companies, for example, in deep learning is possible and we keep that flexible.

45:36Geographically, we are broadly split between the US, Europe and and the UK. So again, we have plenty of scope there, although we look at it both at the level of the VC manager, but also how they've deployed in the past at an underlying portfolio company level. And as I said, we take a framework approach in terms of technologies. We don't have fixed percentages that we will only deploy into this much, you know, biopharma. Could you share with us what the portfolio model of someone like you looks like? How much is allocated to funds? How much to direct? How much to U.S.? How much to Europe? How much to UK?

46:22How much to early stage? How much to growth? And if you can also expand a bit when you state those percentages, also why? What's your reflection on that? and then David and I will jump in with questions along the way. So our portfolio construction is fairly straightforward. We are a pure life sciences healthcare investor at the top end. We have an 80-20 established versus emerging manager approach, as I said, broadly geographically, 50-50 US, this is the UK and Europe. check sizes ranging from two and a half to 10 million into 15 to 20 fund investments. So really a core fund-to-fund approach. Why 15 to 20?

47:09Because that's the one thing that you might be, you know, there's some decisioning there, right? For sure. I mean, so for us, it was really a long internal conversation, a fair amount of statistical work. And what we triangulated to, and also the lens of what's available in the market, how many funds do we think are in our target universe? How often are they going to be coming to market within particular vintages? And what we triangulated to was that kind of number, specifically because we felt it offered the right level of diversification within our portfolio. there's excellent work by I think it's Thomas Mayers or Mayonet the guys from the EIF who've done some research and some reading and some analysis of this point and I think that you know some of the statistical work we did pointed to that being the right level of diversification without being over diversified but also fundamentally for us within our investment period being operationally implementable with a team like ours.

48:22So putting all those factors together, we think, practically speaking, each year, we will have a universe of really interesting managers to select from where, you know, choosing five or six is and getting those deals across the line is fundamentally doable within a three-year investment period. You didn't state the size of the fund, but you did state that it is a fund. So it was incepted by a family. That family has then decided to build a fund instead of invest out of a balance sheet. Could you share with us a bit about that decision process as well and why that was perceived by the family to be the right thing?

49:06So we are backed by a German family office. They are highly entrepreneurial. They have built a number of businesses. And when they began that conversation with me, it was always one about building an institution. This was not going to be an internal family office balance sheet strategy. And that, I think, reflects their mindset as business builders. And there are simply well established structural approaches that within a GPLP structure that work well. And in terms of then have growing a series of funds under a long-term institution and growing that institution over time that's where they felt it was the maximum opportunity to exploit the space and to to to really grow prism ventures into a world-beating allocator um that is that is seen by other institutions as the specialist in the space so it was a it was an early conversation it was very clear on both sides that's what we wanted.

50:14Before we go on to our shout out section, if you could enlighten us a bit on what you look for in the managers, I think that's worthwhile diving into. Yes, and stop me if I go on because that's my day-to-day job. So look, at the high level, like most other LPs, we break it down very simply. At any VC we look at, or any opportunity. It's team, track record, investment strategy, how are they doing in their fundraising, and what are the terms on offer, which sounds simple enough. There's a lot that then gets unpacked underneath each of those categories. So on something like team, do we fundamentally like this team?

51:03Do they have a track record of really investing together that's demonstrable. If we really lift up the hood on data sheets and individual track records, who's doing the work in this team? Is it concentrated in a couple of partners? Is it actually two principals doing all the work? What really is the dynamic in this team? And we like to see a machine that works and that's being tested. Tricky in the case of an emerging manager, but whatever evidence you can gather in that regard is helpful and it's up to you whether you want to take that bet or not. But we're open to different models. We're open to very different looking teams, but we like to see a machine that works for whatever reason.

51:47We just want to understand how that is working. Has it worked in the past? Will it work in the future? Are there signs of trouble? If we do referencing in the team, in the market, one-on-one interviews, are we seeing any patterns here? Is it too dependent on one partner. So things like that are some of the elements we try to look at. Is there a succession planning approach here? What is the firm's approach to diversity, for example, in a broad interpretation of that term? Is it a sort of aggressive up or out culture? Is it a very, very level playing field where everyone's in the investment committee together?

52:29we want to understand all of that. Is it an aggressive up or out culture? What's your take on that? I've seen it work. I mean, I think that for some firms that is entirely suitable. That's part of their DNA. It's part of what has made their success. And it is absolutely compatible with an approach that focuses on bringing in the best people and progressing the best performance. That can lead to a team that is highly diverse in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, all those traditional measures. But fundamentally, when you sit down in front of them, has a team that has incredible diversity of thought.

53:19And I think that, so as I said, we are open to all models as long as it works and an up or out culture for certain firms is part of their DNA. It doesn't work for other teams who are much more, I would say, less aggressive. And where it suits their strategy are all about building a family, keeping that family together long term, keeping that intellectual knowledge. And that is absolutely the case for certain VC firms. But for firms, and very often they've tended in the past to be firms that are maybe have a little bit more investment banking, maybe a little bit more of that culture in their background, but it's perfectly valid.

54:05And if that's their way of turning capital and getting deals across the line and identifying best of breed opportunities, we're open to that. As long as there are safety limits, it shouldn't be too aggressive or or too unfairly up or out for sure. But yeah, and there are plenty of examples. I have one final topic. I love the surface, Tej, succession. And I know you have some thoughts around this because we did brainstorm a bit before the conversation. And as you have a focus on more established managers, it's even more relevant, I guess, especially when I think of some, I won't name anyone, of course, When I think of some of the funds that we know that are like on fund four, fund five, we're definitely seeing that come into play, new generations of partners and so on.

55:00So I'd love to ask you to share a bit. I'm not sure how to phrase it, but when you think of succession, what are the core things that come to mind? And any tips that you could share for, I like to call them emerging blue chip managers that are going into becoming established? Sure, of course. Well, I think the easiest way to describe it is, you know, when I come and sit in front of a VC and start to lift up the hood in terms of diligence, what looks fundamentally healthy to me as a firm. And I think that is, at the top end, really good leadership at the partner level, people who have built firms before either individual corporates or have that background of building.

55:43building and they are looking to build their firm and they have a long-term mindset that potentially goes beyond their own tenure because they're aware of the importance of not just their own individual situation but the impact that their firm is having and that they you know may have built the firm as a two-partner team they took all the risk you know they started in that room together, but they've, where appropriate, handed across the reins to others because that is operationally optimal, but also is good for the long-term health of the firm. So what we'd like to see are firms that have a good spread of responsibility at the top end, that partners work very closely with the next levels, the principals and associates and analysts, that they've all had a strong involvement in bringing in and recruiting those people.

56:45And so there's strong buy-in across the firm as to why they like that deep bench that they've created. And that they have a rational approach and that the junior bench feel that, that they fundamentally feel there is a rational approach to progression and that this isn't just a pick your favorites type situation, that it's partly based on their adoption of firm culture. It's partly based on their outstanding performance in terms of deal sourcing, deal selection, deal analysis and deal execution. And the economics, in a sense, also reflect that so that there is a good broad spread of economics across the team.

57:28The broader, the better. And the healthiest firms we have seen genuinely do that. And that's not an easy decision to make when a firm reaches a certain size, there are grumblings. It's a hard exercise for a firm to sit down and say, OK, let's take a look at ourselves and really think about the point we've got to and do this not just because there's one loud voice in the room, but do this because we as a firm want to have a healthy progression. and uh yeah i think those are fundamentally the you know some some of the things that we like to see and and the overall umbrella for that is team culture a team that are happy they get on with each other uh they love the culture they they you know they they really there aren't grumblings coming out when we do one-on-one interviews with uh with with team members there's there's a general sense of enthusiasm doesn't mean you need to fake that you know we're pretty good at picking up on that stuff, but that it's a fundamentally happy team that like each other and like working with each other and are aligned to the long-term mission of what the firm's trying to do.

58:37So Tesh, we need to get on because we have more to cover and I think we're on our 60-minute mark. Fun editing job approaches you. We're going to put everything out, Tesh. We don't cut things short here. But I want to ask you, Because in our preparation for this, you gave us a long set of questions that you look at when you're evaluating teams. Yes. First, can we put that publicly together with the episode? Why not? Go ahead. Go for it. We're very open about the questions we ask. And as I said, that is a small subset of where we go with things. but why not? Beautiful. I ask you, of course, because I think that there's not that many places where you have good repositories of LP information, right?

59:41So we always try and leverage it when we have the opportunity. So everyone listening in, if you want to hear, and this is at least 30, probably 40 questions that Tesh and his team go through when they look at GPs. So go on to eu.bc and you'll find it there. And then before we go on to the next segment, I just want to ask you, is there anything here that you feel that you would have loved that we made it just to talk about at least briefly before we go on to give you a shout out? The key thing I would pick out of that long list of questions for us as an institutional LP is very often portfolio construction.

1:00:23It's a dry topic. It involves looking at spreadsheets and working through fund models, but it is absolutely incredibly important. And it comes back time and time again that a firm might have incredibly dynamic personalities and individuals, an incredible technology thesis. But if fundamentally the basic mechanical plan for turning a certain amount of capital into a larger amount of capital doesn't work on paper, hasn't been proven out in the track record, that will come back to bite again and again and again. And when you see that fail, Tish, when you see that chain of beautiful, beautiful team all the way down to having a beautiful portfolio model break, what do you see being the cause of that?

1:01:10And is it irreparable for the VC? meaning one might think well if I'm a good cook and you've got the recipe and you think my recipe isn't good well why don't we just work on it a bit together and then then then you know we can still do this thing together well listen it is always a dynamic conversation with partners you know between us us as an LP and the firm and I hope as a value-add LP we try to keep people honest in a good partnership approached way and sort of comment where we think that there's things are going adrift. So where it goes wrong is, I think, an element of strategy drift that just happens organically.

1:01:56The market changes, perhaps firms want to go later stage. We see that a lot where a firm that started as an early stage investor has been burned on the fundamental risk that comes with early stage investing and wants to move later stage to have more certainty over the outcome of their fund and fundamentally, you know, the delivery of carry to them as a team. So that starts to occur and that might be fine and it might be appropriate to where market conditions are at, but is it their skill set? Because early stage investing is different to late stage investing. I think, you know, it is clear that growth of AUM is a thing that is front and center in a lot of managers' minds, and rightly so.

1:02:40I mean, they are looking to grow their firm. They're looking to grow themselves as a force in the market. But that, you know, growing from a 150 million fund to a 400 million fund to a, you know, 700 million fund, that is a huge and fundamental change in portfolio construction. How does that work? You know, is it going to be 15 to 20 deals in that portfolio? What is the initial check going to be? What's the stake you're going to take? Like, does the strategy scale at that kind of level? And very often the answer is no. You know, the tired cliche that venture doesn't scale does come back again and again and again.

1:03:17Unless the firm have really thought that through and have a really interesting strategy, which they've used to bridge from that initial strategy to this increase in AUM. When you're already in a fund three and they're pondering fund four and they're looking to go from 150 to 300. And they might not necessarily, but that's on their mind. How do you approach that as an LPAC member and as an LP? How do you wish that managers work with you? So as an LPAC member, I mean, I focus on the fund. I'm an LPAC member of fundamentally, and I try to stick to that discipline. But as an LP being spoken to about the next fund, I really want to understand, again, what is the portfolio construction here?

1:04:11Why do you think the strategy scales to that level? Is it just going to be a direct scale up of initial and follow on checks? Are you going to tweak the strategy because you think there's fundamentally an opportunity to take greater ownership at the initial check? Have you tweaked your follow-on strategy and the way you're doing that and how you're allocating those reserves to the best opportunities versus underperforming opportunities? So do you have a plan that fundamentally works? Also, how will this growth in AUM affect the firm? If you can do it, it can be an incredible positive for the firm.

1:04:51Greater management fee, greater flexibility to grow the team, grow the platform and become a force for good in the market. So we try to look at all those aspects, both the firm, the fund, but always our first priority as a commercial investor is, is this going to dampen down returns in what we thought was a fundamentally good strategy? Or is it in some way going to enhance it and increase their ability to win the best deals? Can I ask you, because when you're of the size that you are and you're doing the size of tickets that you are, When does a fund get too big? Because fundamentally, a 150 million euro fund will have a different ability to do 5x than a 700 or a billion or more.

1:05:34And I always say, well, when I talk to private LPs, families that want to do and reason, well, perfectly fine, go ahead and do that. But just expect that they're probably not going to do 10x on that, right? And if you're a funder fund that tries to deliver the best possible returns, there is a point where it gets tough for you with a 5 million euro ticket, as an example, to get meaningful returns out of something. Right. So, again, it comes back to us and our portfolio construction. And, you know, perhaps the smaller checks into smaller funds with higher multiple potential, but at the same time, higher risk, you know, is entirely appropriate to the construction of our institutional portfolio.

1:06:22At the same time, we do think about we want to have a core engine that works. And that core engine should be with established managers who have a track record of producing a certain level of performance reliably. We will absolutely look at, you know, are they doubling or tripling their fund size? Well, that would indicate that this is a new experiment for them. But if it's a logical growth of the fund, for example, from 300 to 500, where it's effectively expanding capital within the same existing strategy, we're open minded to that. So as with all good asset managers, we want to build a balanced portfolio that blends deliverability with us fundamentally taking venture risk, which is our strategy.

1:07:14Tej, now it's time for our shout out segment.

1:07:26I'd love to ask you to give a shout out to a co-investor angel or LP for being awesome. And of course, do share the story behind that awesomeness. I'm afraid I'm going to be a bit repetitive. I'm going to call out Ian Connors here at British Patient Capital. He was the person that recruited me there. He taught me my trade as an LP. He was a superb mentor for me personally. And I really learned a lot from him in terms of growing an investment team and how to compose an investment team in terms of the people. And the power of investing as a team where there are divergent voices. And how do you actually involve those voices on a deal where somebody completely hates it?

1:08:12bringing them onto the deal team, making sure that, you know, they have the voice that is appropriate. So lots and lots of learnings from BPC broadly, but Ian in particular, one of the best things he did with me was really kept on, I would write my initial investment papers and Ian would be like, look, that's great. And you've definitely captured the, you know, to the technical answers. But this is not the voice that I hear in our investment teams every day. You know, let's sit down together and let's put aside all the materials. Let's have a talk about this deal. And we would talk about the deal.

1:08:54He would get me saying what I really think. And he would go, that's great. That's great. That's great. That's not in the paper. And so in an appropriate way, he was great at bringing out that structured intuition and making sure that that isn't lost in a broader set of technical analysis. And so I've kept that learning. I'm using that learning and implementing it in my own team at Prism Ventures. And, you know, in a world of sort of copy and paste and rehashing and, you know, let's get the AI to write it, the power of an individual and their thinking must not be lost because it is the ultimate algorithm.

1:09:42It is the ultimate distillation of large bodies of data into an investment view. And so thanks to Ian and all his learnings.

1:09:58so now let's go to the three biggest learnings that you've had in the last 10 years of your life and we're going to make this a rapid fire just as our final closing segment because we are very close to the clock absolutely uh so uh i'll give you a few and hopefully it doesn't go beyond three but um look fundamentally the biggest learnings have been over the last five six years the accelerating breakthroughs in biomedical science and the incredible new modalities that are coming through and have the power to change all our lives in positive ways. As I mentioned, the power of teams in delivering projects and investment strategies and the factors that make an outperforming team and how to manage that team effectively.

1:10:47and uh if i throw in the last one maybe a bit more personal um really on the power of things like personally meditation sleep exercise um not only in sort of keeping yourself physically and mentally healthy but also in terms of giving your brain downtime and allowing it to to process uh complex information, which is essential in our business, you need that downtime to really let your brain stew and let the subconscious work. That is not something that comes easy to me. Put it like that, sleeping. Letting the subconscious work, I don't think we really have the willpower for that yet. Maybe a final one then.

1:11:34Cold showers, give that a try. I I picked that up a few years ago and that is very good for sleep. So now let's go into the quickfire round to wrap things up. And now, the quickfire round.

1:11:58Tej, what advice would you give your 10-year younger self? trust yourself and you know trust yourself to keep doing what you've been doing which is following your intellectual nose even though that that that produces a long and varied career um it to my younger self you know trust that it will lead somewhere exciting uh that you might not might not be obvious to you right now and um you know maybe have you heard of this lp thing um you might not be aware of it but it might be suited to you so give it a What are your top tips for emerging VCs across Europe who are now fundraising? Yeah, great question.

1:12:38I think stamina is key. Starting a new firm is incredibly difficult. It could take up to two years to see whether this thing works out or not. So stamina at the personal level, financial, in terms of the conviction around your thesis, and finally pursuing us pesky LPs is absolutely key. As we talked about before, I would, even though it's a tricky exercise and maybe somewhat theoretical, I would try to think about the 10 to 15 year plan for your firm. How are you building out towards that vision at the outset of your journey? And how are you going explain that to LPs who are looking for that multi-fund, multi-year, stable relationship.

1:13:26That's absolutely key. And maybe a final one, which is you yourselves, as VCs and emerging VCs, your job is assessing and selecting investments. So really turn that lens on yourself, which I'm amazed how often I see firms don't do. And they look to me to do that for them as the external party in the LP. But really try and sit down, have an offsite, get the whiteboard up, take an honest look at yourself as a team and a strategy and firm and ask yourself, does it stack up? Would you invest in your next fund? And what is the most counterintuitive thing you've learned since you've been in venture?

1:14:07Well, we touched on it earlier that biotech is supposedly this binary asset class. I don't think that's entirely true and that it is this incredibly consistent and performing sub-asset class within venture. It isn't something that I had known when I first came to the space as an LP. So definitely was counterintuitive for me initially, but no longer. I had thought coming from a background in private equity, you would always want to go into the big firms, get that reliable machine, take advantage of their access to deal flow. But the outsized role of emerging managers within VC is key and can never be forgotten.

1:14:51And I think should play an important role in LP portfolios that are looking at venture.

1:15:01So on that friendly note, let's close off this conversation and say thanks a million for everyone tuning in. Thanks a million for joining us, Tesh. We hope you enjoyed the episode and do drop us a review, follow the pod and subscribe at EU.BC where you'll also find the diligence list or at least small parts of it that we teased just earlier in this episode. Thank you. Thanks, guys.

1:15:55Adjust them to each sideopian white Money