Lightspeed’s hires stand on their own regardless of background, Liew says. The hires are “a good start,” says Liew, who blogged about the new hires, as did partner Chris Schaepe. “If you look at the current makeup of the team and firm, it speaks for itself.” “I’ve been so incredibly impressed with how Lightspeed is focused on building the right team for the future,” she says. One third of consumer investments over the past three years were in female-founded companies, the firm says, and 37% of members of its most recent cohort for its annual fellowship program came from “underrepresented groups.” Brasier, Grace and Messerschmidt add three new female partners to a group that took on Natalie Luu earlier this year and Nicole Quinn in 2016.Ĭulture and diversity were issues that Messerschmidt says she thought “a lot about” in making her decision. Lightspeed has since taken pains to rehabilitate its image as a diversity-minded, healthy actor in the ecosystem. It is clear now that we should have done more.” In June 2017, the firm tweeted, “we regret we did not take stronger action. Though Caldbeck left Lightspeed in 2014, the firm’s response at the time and in the months after the accusations became public drew widespread criticism. But the firm was also the employer of Justin Caldbeck, a venture capitalist who resigned from his firm Binary Capital after facing accusations of sexual harassment. Since the start of 2017, the firm has distributed more than $3 billion in portfolio exits, with 19 public offerings since 2011, including Guardant Health, Zscaler, Snap and Stitch Fix as well as acquisitions like AppDynamics and MuleSoft. The moves come as Lightspeed has been on a hot streak of exits and financial results but has also been facing harsh questions about its culture from the tech community. “It’s about understanding the audience,” he says. “Increasingly growth is coming from understanding narratives and shaping those narratives,” says Liew, who says Zimmerman won’t be a “growth hacker” because the focus is on organic growth, not shady practices. Zimmerman will work with Lightspeed portfolio companies such as Cheddar and The Honest Company on building their audiences. He’s well-known in media circles, however, for his work at The Hill and Gawker, where Zimmerman piloted audience growth methods that were both applauded and at times controversial. Zimmerman joins after most recently working at a Lightspeed portfolio company, Whisper. “You still need to apply judgment and ensure the entrepreneurs choose you.” “We still think that venture is something you can’t leave up to the algorithm,” he says. Liew says Lightspeed won’t be going fully to the data-driven side of the spectrum with the hire, though. He was a founding partner at SignalFire, a Silicon Valley firm known for using a Bridgewater-style, data-driven approach to its investments and hiring recommendations for portfolio companies. Ye will work primarily with the growth team of the firm to beef up Lightspeed’s data science practice. “Her network is in some of these next-gen companies, and their DNA tends to be different, more cross-disciplinary.” Grace founded Women in Product, a community of more than 5,000 women.Īlso joining the consumer team is Brasier, a veteran of Thumbtack in enterprise, Madheswaran, joins from portfolio company Rubrik. “She brings so much understanding of product,” says partner Ravi Mhatre. The onetime founder joined Slack when it had 500,000 daily users and left in 2017 with the number more than ten times that, Lightspeed says. Grace, who comes from a top role at Slack, will join Lightspeed’s enterprise team. “And how much founders like working with them.” “I was impressed as they went through the process of how well the team jelled,” she says. Messerschmidt was on a “rewirement” break after Twitter, she says, and was attracted to Lightspeed for what she calls its team-oriented approach that came through in numerous meetings and reference calls. In an interview, Messerschmidt said she was first approached by Liew about joining the firm after Lightspeed had pursued several investments in companies she’d previously supported. Her angel investing portfolio includes Bird, Color, Eero and Winnie, among about 50 investments. She is also cofounder of #Angels, a group of current and former female Twitter executives who teamed up to make personal investments in startups with diverse founders. An engineer by training and a former executive at Netflix and then Twitter, where she ran business development and platform, Messerschmidt was one of the more recognizable Twitter executives until she left the company in 2016. Among the group of new hires, the name most familiar to tech insiders will be Messerschmidt, who joins the consumer team.
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