Global Founders Capital’s Don Stalter on their belief in larger portfolios, managing a global investment firm, and building systems and processes to deliver value at scale

Venture Unlocked: The playbook for venture capital managers

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.

On this week’s Venture Unlocked episode, we had the pleasure of hosting Donald Stalter, Partner at Global Founders Capital, a global multi-stage venture firm that has raised $1.6B across two funds and has backed companies such as Kalshi (led by Don), Deel, Headway, Slack, Away, Hellofresh, and Brex. The firm has a very unique model that employs capital across geographies, stages, and industry sectors, and Don provided insight on how the firm executes on this strategy so effectively.

Previously Donald co-founded CityDeal, which he later sold to Groupon where he built Groupon's international offices in Europe and Asia. He subsequently led BD at Airbnb global.

A word from our sponsor:

Vouch Insurance is a new kind of insurance platform for startups. Built by founders for founders, Vouch’s fully digital coverage takes minutes to activate. Vouch is trusted by the biggest names in the startup economy — such as Y Combinator and Silicon Valley Bank — who partner with Vouch because everything from onboarding to claims is designed for startups by experienced founders. Because Vouch is an insurance platform, and not a broker, it works with its clients to manage, mitigate, and avoid risks.

http://www.vouch.us/ventureunlocked

In this episode we discuss:

01:36 Don’s journey into Venture Capital

03:18 How being an operator influenced Don’s path as an investor

06:30 What is Global Founders Capital mission and focus?

09:08 The fund construction model for Global Founders Capital

10:27 How they balance growth vs. early stage and how location factors into their investments

12:50 How Don and his team add value at scale across his portfolio

14:45 How their operations team and investments team work together

17:20 The risk/return Global Founders Capital underwrites to and their return targets

20:32 How the frothiness of the market in growth-stage investments affects how they approach growth investing.

22:52 The non-obvious opportunities for global investments

25:03 How the firm manages global investing out of a single fund

26:20 The benefit of bringing a strong operations background to global investing

28:30 Global Founders Capital’s pitch to LP

30:13 Differences between US LPs and international LPs

31:28 Recapping the recent market conditions and what the future looks like

33:38 What is the most counterintuitive lesson he’s learned as an investor

34:37 The investor he admires

35:32 The firm he feels is the best in the world

Mentioned in this episode:Global Founders CapitalFelicis Ventures

I’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Donald. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you’d like to be considered as a guest or have someone you’d like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.

Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee Agency

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com