Miriam Rivera on going from angel to running a firm, driving real change in diversity in tech, and how traditional heuristics should be challenged in VC.

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Our guest today is Miriam Rivera, managing director and CEO of Ulu Ventures, an early seed stage venture fund in Silicon Valley focused on IT startups. Currently Ulu Ventures has an AUM of >$200MM and the team has invested in companies such as Palantir, BetterUp, SoFi, Guild, and Span [For full disclosure, Ulu Ventures is also an investor in my startup, Allocate).Prior to Ulu, Miriam was deputy general counsel at Google, which she joined in 2001 as the second attorney.  She graduated from Stanford University, where she earned the AB, AM and JD/MBA degrees. Miriam is the co-founder, former co-president and on the board of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, an open source network of Stanford alumni investors and entrepreneurs.Listen to our conversation to hear Miriam’s thoughts on moving from angel investing to starting a firm, being a husband and wife team, the reasons behind Ulu’s large portfolio strategy, and why diversity is so important to her.  A message from our sponsorStandish is the largest provider of fund administration services to Venture Capital funds globally. Currently, we serve approximately 750 Venture Capital funds and have more than $150 billion in committed capital under administration.  Standish has been designed by experienced Chief Financial Officers with a deep understanding of the service needs of both finance departments and General Partners at every stage of the product life cycle.  Standish can handle all of the needs of finance department so General Partners can focus on investing.Standish is an employee owned company.https://www.standishmanagement.com/In this episode we discuss:02:05 Miriam’s journey into the investment side03:23 Why they started Ulu and raised outside capital05:22 The challenges of starting a fund as a wife-husband duo 08:14 Navigating their working relationship 11:33 Their unique view on what portfolio construction should be14:06 What the stats say on returns16:53 Trade-offs between size of portfolio and ownership20:20 Strategies for venture investing at the seed-stage23:14 Ulu’s unique decision making framework29:15 Benefits of investing in diverse teams31:58 Changes that can be made in the LP/VC ecosystem35:06 LPs with diverse managers38:18 The social vs. financial impetus in making investments in diverse managers/ partners40:39 Miriam’s most counterintuitive learning as an investor42:00 Companies Ulu missed out on43:36 Inspirations in the VC worldMentioned in this episodeUlu VenturesI’d love to know what you took away from this conversation with Miriam. 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