In this episode, Cassandra Harris sits down with J. Skyler Fernandes, a Powerlist 100 VC and the founder and general partner of VU Venture Partners, a global venture capital fund focused on consumer, enterprise, fintech, frontier, healthcare and proptech. The teams investment partners have invested over $1.8B+ to date in over 250 companies — and they have been some of the earliest and largest investors in 20+ unicorns, such as Facebook, Uber, Twitter, Venmo, FabFitFun, Beyond Meat, Oculus, Wish, etc.  After explaining what prompted him to abandon his dreams of being a quantum physicist in favour of the world of startups and venture capital, Sky shares some insight as to why VU Venture Partners is the most scalable venture fund in the world. Combined with their ‘sniper-like’ approach, VU sees over 10x more deal flow than a traditional venture fund, but are far more selective, picking just 20 investments per year across the globe and going after the biggest possible market opportunities in existence, resulting in both short-term plays like their investment in agrotech company Bear Flag Robotics (sold to John Deere for a 9x return within 14 months) and long-term plays, such as healthtech companies like 3D-printed organ pioneers 3D Biocorp and men’s reproductive health startup Contraline, where the opportunities are 10x-100x+  Sky ends with a brief overview of the concept behind Venture University, the world’s leading investor accelerator for individuals breaking into the VC/PE industry, as well as some advice geared towards potential founders looking to catch his eye. Through his approach, Sky’s confident that he and his team will find not only more unicorns (companies who grow to valuations of $1B+), but also possible ‘chimera's’ — a term they’ve dubbed to refer to companies with the potential to grow to being valued at $1+ Trillion dollars. A number of companies have now crossed the $1 Trillion valuation and were VC backed (Amazon, Tesla, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google).

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