Earnest Sweat 00:02
Welcome to swimming with Allocators.

Alexa Binns 00:04
The VC podcast from the LP perspective, with your hosts, Alexa bins and Ernest. Are you ready? Let’s dive in. Welcome to our guest, Malcolm Robinson, founder of the black venture capital consortium BVCC, which trained HBCU students for careers in venture capital and startups. Previously, Malcolm was at Prudential for seven years in private credit and private equity, and then in Asia for nearly 20 years as general partner at Avenue Capital Group, where he launched and grew their Asia alternative assets group to over 5 billion. We’ll hear today about his experience investing out of his family office, Montclair Capital Group and forming the black LP Association. Thank you, Malcolm, why don’t we start today talking about Montclair capital, your family office. Curious, how you think about your personal allocation as it relates to venture or generally Sure.

Malcolm Robinson 01:04
First, I would say family office is a fancy word for investing your own money. It means it’s definitely in that category for me, although, as you know, there are some that are very official families that have a number of professionals and different platforms. So having said that, the way I’ve approached it is opportunistically. I’m an investor. At heart. I’ve always been a direct investor in many asset classes, and this was just an extension of that. But this time, it happened to be with my own money. So the key is authentic, I would look for different cycles. Sometimes it’s a real estate cycle, sometimes the equity cycle. Got particularly more interested in venture capital going back about seven years now, and just maintaining that opportunity, and having been a professional for 20 had a broad network, both at some banks and also funds and just other individuals, not just in the US, but across the world, where I would tap into that sort of deal flow, but I also made investments as an IT was a common direct investment, but a number as an LP

Earnest Sweat 02:32
Malcolm, we spoke a number of times, and I’ve always just been enamored by your experience As an allocator across a number of different asset classes. Can you speak to just that experience and how it kind of shaped your approach to venture capital as an allocator?

Malcolm Robinson 02:51
Sure. Again, I wish for the fact that I did the majority of my career on the direct investment side, and that’s going to definitely, for instance, you know, when you’re an LP, there’s a certain process you go through as it relates to the management the GP, as it relates to the target or investment universe that they’re going to invest in also relates to, you know, some competing funds. And then it’s overlayed by Macron elect, so that that lens will never leave me. But the additional thing you do take into account when you’re LP is you overlay some of the portfolio construction on, you know, it’s almost like in Star Trek when they’re doing the 3d chess, like when you’re a GP, it’s your alley. So now you have that portfolio construction at the company investment fund, but also on your own so taking that consideration was a bit interesting, because sometimes it allows you, as an LP, to take on certain risk. You wouldn’t necessarily take it because you’re more diversified than that individual GP, and I always knew that when I was just a GP, but it it was interesting actually playing that out in real time when I made certain considerations, for instance, and VC is example, Exhibit A where you get so much more exposure as an op in VC. And I would also say that the CO investment opportunity in VC is particularly of interest to LPs, you know, active LPs, as opposed to, you know, we’re just doing private credit. You I don’t think too many people are going to be co invested on credit, but you. VC, they’re very interesting deals, because it’s all about that curve of you only needing a couple of huge home runs, and then having that value of being an LP and getting rights to see certain deals that you otherwise wouldn’t be is extremely important. And obviously it does a GP. So there are some additional layers to factor in from the lens of LP, as opposed to and so what I try to do is, I try to blend the two

Alexa Binns 05:34
and and getting access to quality co investment is it’s pretty tough as a solo, you know, solo investor, invest in your own capital, any how tos or recommendations on what’s worked really well for you, given that’s your skill set, but also still having access to it when you’re when you’re not full time. Yeah,

Malcolm Robinson 05:55
I agree. However, what I would say is there are some advantages to being a, you know, a smaller check writer, because the competition doesn’t really exist. So you can, and that’s A and then B. At that point, it’s all about value apps, and I do believe that in a number of areas. So for instance, any founder who’s trying to take their business to Asia, well, I have been investing in Asia for almost years. I have tremendous relationships out there. Anybody trying those markets. I can definitely add value. Same thing for other industry jurisdictions. I think it’s always a combination. When you’re not the lead investor, you have to position yourself out to what doc brings to the situation. You talk to some companies where I’ve invested directly, but also does actually have an fund where we write checks out enough where even though we tend to be a smaller check sizes, I think a number of our founding companies would view us as a value and that they one of them, actually one of the more successful ones. We met. I literally meet with the founder every two weeks to do this so I think bringing the value adds to you, since it’s not in the number of zeros behind your check, it definitely makes sense out of the box. And I think that somewhat sometimes refreshing for founders. The other thing is, when you’re making an act from your family office, the other advantage you have is you don’t have an artificial deadline, right? So, yeah, have that. It’s just the nature of the business, and I think that gives the ability to look through a certain time horizon that maybe a fund couldn’t do. Now, obviously a huge advantage running a fund, but I’m just pointing out some of the ways that you can position yourself as a non fund investor for those offices out there.

Alexa Binns 08:12
Yeah, now I appreciate too that you are investing in things that you know more about than the average, too. So in terms of CO investment, you’re getting into things that are not unfamiliar to you, which I’m sure is, is improving your track record over the average,

Malcolm Robinson 08:28
That is sometimes a barrier. It’s the speed and also the lack of because you just don’t get the same amount of information as a coma. So that’s a good point. Having that background definitely helps, and taking advantage of that CO investment when

Earnest Sweat 08:44
you’re when you’re looking at a fund manager and kind of assessing the opportunities out there to be an LP and venture today, what’s your criteria, and how did you come up with that criteria? Sure,

Malcolm Robinson 08:56
So this is where I was going earlier with blending the two views. Without a doubt, I think LPS does a fantastic job of analyzing. What I try to do is I really try to understand. You have to look at the track record and the definition of track record. I believe the more fluid it is, the better. For instance, it could be a run of metal track record, but for certain assets, what you really want to know is, can they source, do they have experts at and what’s their sort of value at? So I really try to hone in on that mental piece. Really trying to understand is this group an expert on what they’re going to invest in, and not necessarily first your review of coming but just really have GPT conversation about that asset class, where I’ve literally invested every asset class except for actually. Crypto, but everything else. And as a consequence, I can ask those GP to GP type questions, and then I can really understand, are they experts in their field. The other thing put a tremendous amount of effort into when I’m an LP, is the opportunity set, the investment opportunity, and I think that really worked for me Well, when I was a GP out in Asia, is that the opportunity set was fantastic, because it’s right after the we really dug into we were doing our own fundraising, was obviously we were conveying that we were experts, but the opportunity that was very important. So those two things, like I said, you have to look at the track record per se, but then I really dig into their level of expertise and why they believe this opportunity, that is an interesting opportunity. Now you say, this equity, that’s a pretty broad generic term. I would really try to dig into their specific target market and what they’re really focused on. So I understand, do I believe that that is a target market? So if I do believe they’re experts, then I’m writing that check, irrespective if they have the standard, you know, track record that shows 10 years, clearly, they need to be experiencing that. But to me, I go more for their expertise and the opportunity over his track record that they and you know, that’s that’s been my my approach, and I think part of my approach is driven by the fact that I was a GP and LP

Alexa Binns 11:54
Is there an opportunity that you’re especially excited About or actively looking for, for more VC managers in that space? Because, you know, maybe, maybe you’ve, you’ve been convinced of the opportunity, but haven’t met the team.

Malcolm Robinson 12:09
Um, well, one of the ones where we act, I’m active as as an angel, but also the small fund that I do manage, um, we’re particularly focused on healthcare and also deep I think that depends on deep tech, SaaS, And the technology and software, where I think having the CTO jobs from a software perspective and infrastructure perspective was choosing important is less important. It’s not important. But that’s important because it’s so modular, if you really dig down and how they’re putting together their app or their tech platform. There’s a lot of buildings, meaning that they’re taking a lot of open things and putting them together. Nothing wrong with that point is it sort of emphasizes a little bit on that skill set. On the other hand, there’s a lot of exciting going on in deep tech that are exploding in of where the opportunities and then I healthcare that, you know, I’ve been looking at healthcare for over 30 years, and it was about but there were several bottlenecks that had to be addressed before really could take off. So it is behind the curve, and you know, as it relates to you going into the doctor’s office, or you going to an MRI machine, those are all leading edge technology. So I’m not talking about that, but I’m talking about other uses of automation and other uses of big data that have not necessarily been incorporated into healthcare, either in the care delivery or in even in the back office. Meaning, I think Exhibit A would be all right, all of AI. They were a high flying healthcare tech company that actually was to sit, and they fell out because at the end of the day, they weren’t able to deliver what they promised. And a lot of those were some dominance. Ironically, even though it was all AI, the AI is going to help them, they were just sort of one year too early on that. But those are the two areas, broadly healthcare and deep tech. I’m particularly interested,

Earnest Sweat 14:46
GPS always complains about how hard it is to find family offices. And so I just wanted to hear kind of like your perspective from being a GP yourself to now. Being an LP, you know, how do you like to hear about managers? How do you source?

Malcolm Robinson 15:06
Yeah, I do think because, at least with the endowments and the pension funds and the foundations, you know that they exist. You google them. So that’s half the battle is, do they exist or not, and who’s talking to the family offices? The exact opposite, you don’t. You could literally be walking down the street and you just pass by somebody’s or anywhere, even in, you know, smaller cities in the United States. So that has been a very difficult nut to crack. As a matter of fact, that’s one of the initiatives we’re doing at blpa, is some of our members are family offices, and we are trying to address that very thing. But I think part of it is these are two ships that don’t really, you know, they’re passing by the night. There’s family offices and a lot of diverse asset managers. We focus on appeal. So just letting them both know that they both exist, I think it’s huge. The other thing, be more specific, is once you do know there is a different cadence or different process, you know, again, there are family offices, so not talking about those, because that’s going to be closer to an institutional LP that just made a little bit less restrictions, but the more traditional, smaller family office, where they might have one to three people, they don’t have a lot of bandwidth, but they Also don’t necessarily need to take a top down approach, which is hugely important from the DP perspective. Now, what is difficult is to know once that a family office exists, is it that they’re focused because if indeed they’re not taking a top down approach like most institutional PR and how do you even know if what you’re focused on is of interest? So that map up is much more tricky. However, yeah, once it does, I think it flips, and then it’s easier. So if you want to compare the two, if you’re a GP approaching an institutional piece, as I said, you know they know who they are, and eventually you should be able to try to, you know, get a meeting with somebody. But that process could be very long, and it’s very institutionalized, rightfully so. There’s nothing wrong with that. The flip side is in the family offices. The front part is very difficult. Who do they exist? Are they interested in what I’m doing? But once you do find the ones who are interested in what to do, then that process is highly accelerated, assuming that they think that you’re in this, you know. JP, so we are trying to deal with the front end, part of that, because the back serves itself. Now, in addition to that, there are a number of conferences. There’s a number of Office groups that you try to approach, but those come with their own, you know, issues too, how you approach them, and what we’re trying to deal with, and also trying to get more connection with some of those, some of those groups.

Earnest Sweat 18:30
Now we’re going to take a quick break to speak with our sponsor

Alexa Binns 18:33
on the show. Today, we have industry expert and sponsor, Luke Gertis, a professional hockey player and now territory manager for the SF Bay Area at camber. Road camber is the most effective flexible leasing company for venture backed businesses. Thank you, Luke, for being here.

Luc Gerdes 18:49
Thanks for having me excited

Alexa Binns 18:51
to be on Absolutely. You are based in San Francisco, where hardware and frontier tech are having a moment. How do you think AI and automation are going to improve the viability of this hardware ecosystem, specifically when it comes to financing and investing in the projects? Yeah, I

Luc Gerdes 19:12
i think AI is everywhere, right? We hear it every bit in frontier tech. It’s software, it’s all AI, right? And the one thing that I’ve kind of stuck out, or what I’ve been hearing in the market, what I think about a lot when it comes to frontier tech, and how I think it’s going to change, is our tech is hard, right? Everybody’s heard that for a really long time, and AI sort of makes those things easier, not easy, but easier, right? So I think there’s a little bit of risk that’s being taken away because AI and automation are going to continue to improve. That will hopefully reduce risk for investors, reduce risk for folks that maybe on the investor side, that aren’t as frontier tech focused. There’s always been the funds that are frontier tech focused or kind of cutting edge, but now we’re seeing. A lot of generalists starting to kind of get into this play of hard tech and hardware is not as scary anymore. And I think AI and automation are driving a lot of that. There’s faster time to markets, there’s improved kind of returns, hopefully because there’ll be improved kind of reduction costs, because AI and automation are doing a lot of those things. Everything’s more cost effective, and there’s a lot more innovation that’s happening because of that, and things are happening quicker. Iterations are happening quicker. So I think all of that helps broaden the kind of people who want to be involved with hardware and who want to be involved with Frontier tech, and that obviously just kind of keeps rolling upon itself to get more people involved. You get more investors, you get more people looking at Frontier tech and hardware being hard isn’t necessarily a bad thing anymore. It’s not as scary as it once was. And I think that’s really a big positive, and a lot of that is driven from AI and automation being more in everybody’s day, every day, everyday life, right? We’re seeing it all over. It’s kind of unavoidable, and it’s not just a software program. There has to be that hardware, there has to be that hard tech, that tangible thing that usually goes along with the doing, whether it’s robotics right, or something that’s a little bit more tangible. And I think people are getting a little bit more comfortable with with the hardware risk that comes with it,

Alexa Binns 21:15
and you are part of the sort of financing that can, can you share any trends you’re seeing on hardware that is notoriously so expensive, are more people now calling you? Because this is taking off,

Luc Gerdes 21:31
I think we’re probably a little bit more popular, which is good. We like to be popular, you know, cool kid at the lunch table, kind of feeling it’s no I think we’re getting, we’re getting a lot more interest in companies that are they’re trying to figure out, how can they be the most cost effective, and how can they kind of diversify their capital stack? Because it’s a little bit different, right? It’s notoriously hard, like you said. And hey, now they’re getting a little bit more interested. So now we’re seeing a lot of these companies that might get funding, but it’s not as easy as it was maybe a few years ago, where equity funding was kind of everywhere. So how do I take the equity funding that I am getting and make sure that I’m using, you know, that to the best of its abilities, and complementing it with our financing, finding a non-dilutive partner that can help extend out that runway. Hey, can we use this to complement the equity and maybe find a venture debt partner as well, and kind of build the three stools of a capital stack? Right? We’re seeing a lot more of that in terms of, how else are we kind of financing, and what do we want to be looking at?

Alexa Binns 24:04
You got to call Luke exactly what’s, what’s the process like for, you know? So we can sort of prep our founders on what to expect to get a lease with camber, yeah,

Luc Gerdes 24:14
We try to keep it pretty simple in terms of the way we work, because it’s a lease, and not alone. And we, we own. We keep all of our leases. We’re not selling things off. We get to have that long term relationship, and that’s really what we’re looking for. So it starts with just having that introductory call. Get to know you get to know the company. How’d you get founded? What does it look like not diving right into okay? What is the equipment? What are we gonna buy? No. What are we looking to do? What does the horizon look like? Because we want to be there and help them scale, be a useful partner over, hopefully, multiple years, and that, yeah, exactly. You got to look at the bigger picture. And you know, relationships are something that really matter in this business, right? When you’re working in this space where six months is a really long time, there could be a lot of things that change. Over 234 years, and having that relationship built on a strong foundation is really what we want to do. So it’s learning about the business, learning about the company. What are they trying to do? Then we can kind of get into the nitty gritty of, you know, okay, what are we trying to buy? How long do we, you know, are we going to buy it over the next six months, nine months, three months. What does that look like? How can we hopefully be a good partner in terms of, let’s set up something now that will help us immediately, but then also we can have a really good long term relationship, and we can start with, all right, let’s focus on these XYZ pieces of equipment. And what we do is we just become the financing partner. We’ll work with our credit team. We’ll go through the diligence process to make sure that you know, we can try to get approval to do this. But once we’re there and we do get that approval, the companies, they’re still picking the equipment. We get that question a lot of, do you have, like, a big warehouse of equipment? It’s like, no, no, you’re working with the vendors that you want. You know the business, you’re the expert. We’re not right. We don’t want to be telling you what equipment you need, and do this, don’t do that. They’re getting the equipment that they want. They’re still speaking it, getting the right vendors. Then they’ll introduce us to the vendors. We’ll beat the invoice, we’ll actually pay for it. We’ll own the equipment. That’s what the lease is for. And then they get to just pay a monthly rent for the usage of it, hopefully extending out the runway and kind of giving them a better chance of getting to that next milestone, that next valuation, and using some non dilutive capital to do that along the way. So we keep our process pretty simple. We want the companies to be driving a lot from the actual procurement side. We don’t want to be too involved, because we’re not the experts. We don’t pretend to be. We’re just going to be here as a really, hopefully helpful financing partner, but we want them to drive a lot of it. Now,

Alexa Binns 26:44
I can see how you end up working with a huge range of businesses as a result, because you’re not, you’re not driving the procurement.

Alexa Binns 28:51
Awesome. Thank you. Appreciate it. Luke,

Luc Gerdes 28:53
awesome. Thank you.

Alexa Binns 28:54
Thank you. Thank you for being on the show. If any of you listening have portfolio companies interested in buying stuff, whether that’s heavy equipment or laptops. You can reach out to camber roads managing partner, Steve Aronson, A R O N, S O n@camberroad.com for equipment financing. And now back to our LP interview. It sounds incredibly helpful. What you are creating for fellow LPS with the black LP Association. Can you tell us more about the association and what your what? How do you all work together?

Malcolm Robinson 29:28
Sure. So it came about in 2019 it’s as I was becoming more and more of an active LP, I started going to more op meetings, and seeing that, although I personally don’t believe or I believe that hopefully there’ll be more diverse LP, diverse professionals, there’s certainly a lot more now, when I was actively raising money 20 years. Ago and raised 5 billion. So that was sort of a wake up call for me. And then I looked around and saw that there was no organization that’s particularly focused on the diverse LP. Fast forward today. We’re over 85 members. Blpa has for them the members day job work for LPS that have those of AUM and of the over 20 are CIOs, another five or 10 are wcios, then you have a big spot of individuals who are senior investment officers, usually in charge of an asset class. And many of those assets most, most of those asset classes are an alternative space, and then you have five to 10 offices. So we came about again. There’s a leadership committee of five other individuals, plus myself. So I view myself as a co-founder, not a founder. So there’s five or five other co founders who came together and we mandated. One is professional development, networking, sharing notes on you know how to navigate human CIO or WCI, but the other mandate trying to help shepherd or allocation for qualified, diverse asset management, and it’s elusive, so there’s no binding it where we’re think of it more of a as a platform where you are providing GP an audience that they otherwise have. And again, when I was raising five joints I wish I had that audience I’d like a lot easier. It’s a good aggregated audience. So that’s what we do. We meet several times a year, and we accomplish those two minutes we meet. We usually meet once in New York in the fall, and we meet in LA around the Milken. And then throughout the year it may happen that those in person will jump on Zoom. And then we try to support regional meetups, because our members are across the country. Although I would say there’s a predominant number, no surprise between Boston down to DC in that quarter and also in the Midwest. The Great Lakes area is where I would say between those two reasons, it probably has 65 members.

Earnest Sweat 33:46
Wow, what? There’s been a growing focus in venture as well, as you know, private equity overall in the number of emerging, diverse, emerging managers, and that being more of a focus with we’re seeing a lot more emerging manager programs, whether they’re mentorship or actual allocation going to them. What do you think an organization like yours, the black LP Association, how they can play in the overall growth of that allocation in these really, really important asset classes, absolutely,

Malcolm Robinson 34:27
two questions. There’s a couple ways. One is, are they really just implementing one of the largest ops in the country, addressing that reassure about, how can we work together to deal with because they are expanding their emerging manager program and ways that we together, and I’ve met with probably four or five very large institutions in that same capacity with my blpa, um. Also, there are other organizations out IDAC is one of them, and others that have similar strategies or missions of trying to and I’m also on the advisory committee of the precursor of IDAC emerge. So there’s a number of organizations, I think, if we work together and stay pollinated. That’s very helpful. We have to recreate the wheel, but I think it is ultimately earnest. The issue is a couple things. One is exposure that you know, there’s a whole ecosystem where you have consultants, you have ocios, obviously have staff, and there’s a lot of people who know each other, but there’s an awful lot of people who don’t. So I think that you and I had this conversation years ago. The list of diverse asset masters, not just in these but across the board, has exploded in the last 10 years, which is a very good thing. However, what has not exploded is the Aum, the number of but the Aum itself, in aggregate has not no problem. Rightfully seen from their AUM, quite, quite large. There’s but there’s another group that are just fantastic, fantastic, great experience and a really strong track record. That’s the group that we really focus on, and I would include those emerging managers. Mean, remember, I have a broader definition of track record, a person who’s been working in private equity for 20 years, but maybe one of the large houses, clearly, they, you know, they don’t own that portfolio in terms of track record, but they can walk you through the deals that they did and how well they’ve done. And to me, that’s a trend. They, you know, have all the essential things. So I think people use more logical criteria, meaning, using a track record is really a prompt. It’s a proxy for, can they do it? But you can dissect that and really look at other things and get to the same conclusion that yes, I believe they can do and here’s why, yeah, can they source do the proper analysis, can they come to the right decision at the right time, and can they do post support? And that goes across whatever you ask the class, not just VC. So we try to encourage people to take that type of approach when you’re looking at the traditional definition of emerging management, meaning either their first so there’s a number of platforms, or, I would say, conversations that are being had out there. And I would say that it’s progress where it is now, versus four now. Having said that, as you know, fundraising is extremely difficult right now because where we are in the cycle and because of the amount of allocation that oppa, but if you, if you kind of step back and look at it more from a whatever 20, 30,000 foot level. These cycles are so very challenging right now, but it won’t always be. And I do that the key is to regardless of the size AUM, is to stay active. Somehow figure out how to be an active investor, and there’s less active than more active. But being active is the key. Because I think when you do that, as you you know you do get a lot of credit for that, and I do think eventually do recognize that, and you do differentiate from others who might have had to maybe put their plans on home because of the fundraising environment, particularly for PC

Alexa Binns 39:12
and you are in rare error as a diverse GP who has raised 5 billion plus any suggestions, maybe specifically on Asia, you know, that would be really interesting to hear. A lot of people right now, I think, are looking at taking trips to Japan and looking to raise from the Asian markets. Any tips, sure,

Malcolm Robinson 39:34
yes, I did raise. It’s crazy. He’s almost crazy. That was for probably distressed Asians, our sort of North Star. When we were doing it was to really highlight differentiation. I’ve probably looked. It. You know, no probably about it, but dozens and investor decks, and I’ve given feedback, and one of the things that I’ve noticed is that, you know, just pointing out the asset class you want to do and showing that experience is not differentiation, right, the different next level down. And so one of the most consistent advice that I do is really think about that LP, especially it’s the type of LP where they specialize, which is most so literally, that that LP is and other PE five day. And then they do these days a year. So they know about private equity. They get it.

Alexa Binns 40:56
You can skip that slide, not

Malcolm Robinson 40:58
really, but you can’t only have and it’s, it’s, it’s going down in that differentiation. I can’t now, the other thing is, not always, I don’t think really in private equity, you have to, but there are classes where the risk mitigation is a huge part of it. That’s one of the things that we excelled at in Asia. I would say that was one of our breakthroughs. I literally wrote a white paper that explained how the risk of investing in Asian distressed debt matched up to other things that they were more familiar with. Because this is back in the late 90s, early 2000s and you know, Asian distressed debt was not a thing, right? We were inventing this going along. And so one of the common things I kept getting was, well, yeah, but how does it seem like the reward will take care of itself, because the potential returns for the grid, but nobody knew, was that risk appropriate or not? And that turned out to be the bottleneck. So as I said, I literally wrote a white paper that really broke the logjam. Once people understood how Asian distressed debt matched up to other risk buckets, then they got it, and that’s when we really took off. And, you know, the billions started to come in. So that was, that was a, as with today, um, or or just Asia in general. What I would say is, we say Asia, obviously, but it really is how you define your market, 10 to 15 different individual markets number one, and has different sets of rules for different sectors that are driving the economy. That goes without saying, but the other thing is that the level of transparency is different out there, so there’s no subs or underground research trying to. I’m talking about the GPS, obviously. LP, you’re going to rely on the GPS, but for the GP, they themselves need a snippet. Portion of their team in Asia. And Asia should be on just Hong Kong and Singapore. You have to be out in the field too, or at least if you’re there or you travel off the field, because a lot of ways that you get an edge in Asia is having proprietary research, but only if you have boots on the ground.

Earnest Sweat 43:38
Malcolm, you know, with your expertise of being a fund manager, how do you approach value add as an allocator, as an LP is that sitting on kind of the LP board is it? Is it just advising them on how to go out to international markets and raise What do you kind of lean in when you’re when you sign up as an LP?

Malcolm Robinson 44:04
So this is value-added as an LP, right? Yes, yeah. You mean above me,

Earnest Sweat 44:13
Yes, exactly. Environment,

Malcolm Robinson 44:15
that’s a lot of value add

Earnest Sweat 44:17
that, that is, that is, some people who just leave it there, yeah, you’re right, absolutely. I put you in business. Yeah, that’s enough.

Alexa Binns 44:26
But I wish some of my LPS had just

44:31
left it at that. Yeah, that’s true. You end up being

44:34
the real value add.

Malcolm Robinson 44:38
The additional value adds No, yeah, but you’re right, as an OP, there is a lot of value. I think usually it can be, as you alluded to, like either geographic value add to be an industry, it could be a function. I mean, if you want to talk about it, I think function is hugely important. I think having people, especially if you’re talking to family offices, or if you’re talking about that type of LP, you’re going to have a lot of different backgrounds. Some people have their own business. They had to go to a lot of market expertise, you know, a lot of how to build a business. Now, obviously the GPs are investing in families, but a lot of their founders, I’ve come across a lot of hitting the wall, it is to go to market, right? So I think LP, who understands functional expertise or geographic expertise or the asset class, it’s very helpful. Clearly, as we any GP to Asia, or there are companies, and obviously they give me a call on that this panel investing in but you’re going to have a lot of other LP to have, you know, certain types of and it is, I’m glad you raised it, because I would say that, just like founders should reach up to their GPS, or I think you’re right. I think that GP should reach up. What I would say so far is most of the value have reached out to me as GP has been in the fund which I need that first, but I would encourage them to do it on the other side too, but a lot of it has been fundraising

Alexa Binns 46:32
science. I know one other value add is through your association with the black venture capital Consortium. You’ve placed hundreds of interns in tech companies and venture capital internships in order to change the face of finance. If any VCs are interested in taking on interns, how do they get in touch?

Malcolm Robinson 46:56
Oh, I have that right here. Um, no, you can either or we do have a website, BVCC, that they can reach through. But you know, work closely with, you know, a group near and dear to earners, which is black, so I’ll give a shout to them. Yourself is a pipeline and but we do have relationships and partnerships with over 40 venture capital funds, some of the biggest, some of the everything in between, and that’s just organic where there’s been word of mouth, the BVC sure that your audience understands. There’s one group called blpa, which you and I were just discussing, black LPs. There’s another group, bvcc, which I also founded with the executive director, which is black Consortium. The consortium was when we first started as an LP, I was investing in the number of these new emerging black G and we were talking, my view was, hey, I believe as an LP that you guys can do a great job and a half, and I’ll make a lot of money with you, but we need to make sure that there’s a pipeline of rising talent behind you, and that’s part of what black BC does not. So the consortium part was because, you know, we need two sides of the market. I’m going to go. I’m a proud alumni, Mercy FAMU. It’s an HBCU, and I believe there’s a ton of talent there. Go find top performance. We’re going to expose them, we’re going to educate them, we’re going to train them through a number of our programs, and they’re going to be ready, but demand side for so the consortium part was indeed, there was an initial five or six funds that came with us and said, Okay, fine, we will take your we had them, and from there, it just was word of mouth, and we grew it to 40 something. So usually people do find us, and like I said, we have a website, and more than happy to reach out to guys and scan my email and we can talk about it. We’d love to have additional partners. Never have enough. We have raised a lot into the industry, internship and full time for some of those might be a little bit younger. In this podcast, we also ship. We have fellowships, a big shout out to both the Ford Foundation and bank. They are backers or sponsors to help us do this, pull it off, and Valley Bank helped us launch a where once they graduate, we can sponsor them for 12 to 1512, days as a full time investment analysts at a over the and that helps us, based on number of individuals full time, into Vc, as they’re just going to take you, it is difficult to break in the VC right? There’s, there’s, it’s a chicken egg. No. VCs want to train No. VCs want to have any of that, but they always want somebody who’s experienced. So how does that happen? So we’re fortunate to have the fellowship program to help provide additional experience for the individuals who make interferon

Earnest Sweat 50:58
Malcolm. You, you’ve, you’ve definitely inspired me from you know, your work as a direct investor, to like your ability to see white space and mobilize to for great causes. Just curious, before we end, was there anything else that we might have missed, that you’re a busy man, that you wanted to bring up?

Malcolm Robinson 51:20
No, the last thing I was is there’s always an opportunity market and to things like now, specifically for your, you know your VC is, it’s unequivocally, it’s but you just have to believe that at some point it will change and it will keep at it. I do really know how hard it is, but if you keep at it, hopefully it will be successful, awesome. Well,

Alexa Binns 52:01
thanks for the pep talk, if nothing ever

Earnest Sweat 52:05
I needed that. Thank you so much. Malcolm, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. It’s great to have you.

Malcolm Robinson 52:11
I mean, this has been, been great.

Alexa Binns 52:14
See you later. Allocator!