Barry Eggers, the chairman of the National Venture Capital Association and co-founding partner of Lightspeed Venture Capital, joined one of his predecessors to chew over venture’s role in innovation in a GCV Digital Forum session chaired by Heidi Roizen, a partner at Threshold Capital and former NVCA board member.
The panel kicked off with the incoming Biden administration and questions of policy given the NVCA’s role in lobbying – Eggers says the body was looking to drive infrastructure and climate tech projects anticipated to form part of the Biden presidency’s initiative, foreseeing an opportunity for corporate-startup collaboration.
Eggers’ predecessor Kate Mitchell, co-founding partner of Scale Venture Partners, who served as NVCA’s chairwoman in 2010 and 2011, said there was a role for corporate venture to play and that Eggers was taking leadership in bringing together the cultures of Silicon Valley and Washington DC to benefit innovation.
She said: “I think the overarching thing is a common interest in promoting innovation as the engine for growth in our economy. And that happens in small companies or large companies, and how critical that is for US economic competitiveness and leadership.
“Everything they can do to reduce the friction around tech innovation – that includes funding around the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and National Science Foundation, and all the other early-stage technology that all of us corporates and venture capitalists use as we go for growth and cutting-edge technology. Now we have elevated all of that innovation to the cabinet level [under Biden’s appointee as chief science adviser Eric Lander].
The discussion moved onto the evolving priorities in post-money startup support and how corporate venture was adding value.
The good news was that VC and corporate venturing complemented each other and would play a key role as startups aimed to adapt to new situations posed by the coronavirus pandemic, including remote working, which could tempt more businesses to hire workers away from the Bay Area, Eggers argued.
Mitchell added that CVC units could offer specific expertise in this area. She said: “Whether it is hiring people or whether it is partnering – this is again where corporates can help a lot. They are hiring legions of people remotely.”