Sid Mofya, a Kauffman Fellow, is the COO of the Draper Venture Network and has one of the most interesting roles in venture capital: helping his team coordinate the alliance of member funds and providing post-investment support for their collective portfolio of over 900 companies.
Sid’s journey into the venture capital world is fairly non-traditional. Sid was born in Zambia and studied in the UK as a chemical engineer. After college, he went to work for Shell as a chemical engineer at an oil refinery. Sid yearned to move back to Africa and make an impact on the local communities there, so he left Shell for business school and eventually moved to Tanzania to work for a healthcare organization doing medical research that focused on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and influenza.
It was around this time Sid started looking into venture capital and entrepreneurship with a greater focus.
Sid eventually got in touch with the Draper Venture Network, which was searching for someone to help build a support platform for their global investments. He has been helping the Network grow since.
Today, DVN consists of over 20 member funds and supports a full-time Services team based in Silicon Valley. The Network currently has member funds across Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe and North, and South America. The funds are currently deploying over $2B in assets and are invested in almost 1000 active portfolio companies.
(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).
Ulf Ekberg (Ace of Base) hosted by Startup Grind Uppsala
How to scale a startup - Aaron Levie, CEO Box
Maggie Zhou - Managing Director Alibaba Group x Chris Joannou - CEO Startup Grind Australia
How to break a monopoly - Eric Yuan (Founder of Zoom) x Jim Scheinman (Maven Ventures)
How to creatively tell your story - Anjelika Temple (CCO Brit+Co) x Lindsey Quinn
Melanie Perkins - Co-founder Canva
How to Build a Brand like Google with Lorraine Twohill (Chief Marketing Officer @ Google)
Do what you Love! Tony Wheeler - Founder of Lonely Planet.
The Merits of Discipline. Mathilde Collin (Co-founder + CEO Front)
John Collison (Co-founder + President, Stripe) - The Case for Optimism.
From Founder to Funder. Adora Cheung (Y Combinator) x Holly Liu (Kabam, Y Combinator)
Innovate with Intention. Joe Gebbia x Alfred Lin @StartupGrind
Freddy Vega Co-founder Platzi @StartupGrind Bogota
Breaking Rules While Breaking Ground. Arlan Hamilton (Backstage Capital) x Emily Chang (Bloomberg) @StartupGrind
You should be scared. Guy Kawasaki x Jules Lund @StartupGrind APAC Conference
Gary Vaynerchuk in Hong Kong on Self-awareness, Failure and Finding a Purpose
Convenience 2.0: The On-Demand Economy with Will Shu, CEO/Co-founder of Deliveroo
Fighting Giants with Noah Everett, Founder of Twitpic/Pingly
Changing the World Through Education with Sebastian Thrun, Udacity/Google X
Fundraising 101 with Joy Randels, CEO of New Market Partners
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