Jonathan Heiliger, General Partner at Vertex Ventures, talks about how the startup ecosystem has changed, and explains why founders DO/DON’T need to be in Silicon Valley. Jonathan also sheds light on the problem of matchmaking. He proposes solutions for ensuring that founders meet and partner with investors who are fit for them.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

4:27 A lot has changed in the startup ecosystem but Silicon Valley hasn’t lost its culture of supporting people.

16:05 What founders should expect when they work with investors and partners who run a concentrated portfolio.

24:28 Diversity in technology hubs is critical to maximizing the technology revolution’s potential

Non-profit organization that Jonathan is passionate about: VC OpenDoor

About Guest Speaker

Jonathan Heiliger is a General Partner at Vertex Ventures. Jonathan currently serves on the board of directors of Webmonsters, in addition to Vertex portfolio companies PerimeterX, CloudAcademy, and SpaceIQ. He has individually invested in and actively helped several companies, including Cloudera, Coravin, Diffbot, Dropbox, Square, and ThousandEyes.

Prior to founding Vertex Ventures, Jonathan started the seed practice at North Bridge Venture Partners where he was General Partner (2012- 2014) and led global infrastructure, site architecture, and internal systems at Facebook (2007- 2012). Previously, Jonathan held executive engineering roles at Wal-Mart and Danger (acquired by Microsoft), was COO for Loudcloud (Opsware), and co-founder and CTO of GlobalCenter.

Fun fact: Jonathan started rebelling against his parents when he was nine years old by staying up all night to game, hack, and program a new computer.

About Vertex Ventures

Vertex Ventures is a global network of operator-investors who manage portfolios in the U.S., China, Israel, India and Southeast Asia. Vertex is a trusted partner to some of the world’s most enterprising founders who seek to disrupt large markets. The firm supports entrepreneurs with unmatched operating experience and deep access to the capital, talent, partners and customers they need to build truly global businesses. Its portfolio includes LaunchDarkly, PerimeterX, Very Good Security (VGS), Desktop Metal, testlio, and many more.

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Choose Investors Who Solve Problems