We don’t know, but the San-Francisco based venture capital firm, one of the few, if only full-fledged firms in Silicon Valley actively led by a woman, is in the middle of a rocky ride. Here’s our story about VSP Capital and its founder, Joanna Rees-Gallanter, from the Merc yesterday.
Here was our entry about “Alley Cat” just two months ago, when everything seemed smooth sailing.
6 Comments
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aaa said:
Enjoyed the piece. Also, Constance Loizos of PE Week wrote about this last week.
http://www.privateequityweek.com/pew/freearticles/1110466061014.html
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Nilesh Shah said:
Your article in Sunday�s paper regarding Joanna Rees-Gallanter and Venture Strategy Fund deserves another side. Joanna was a Board Member in my company. I had an opportunity as an Entrepreneur to closely work with her and her firm. She was one of most �human VC� I have seen. The VSP fund came in our second round after the 9/11 disaster. Joanna bet on our team, and she stuck with us. Her firm helped our marketing and sales teams for go to market strategy, marketing surveys. She brought numerous contacts to our firm. About one of the general partners leaving � I can only say that even though his background was very relevant, we hardly got any feedback. He sat in board meetings with no inputs. In fact John Hamm, their new General Partner was most informative, helpful and contributing to the Board meetings. In my last 14 years in Start-up world, I was most impressed with Joanna as a VC. Lastly � Joanna treated me with lot of respect. I knew going in, that in second and third round of funding, my team and I are going to be wiped out in terms of dilution, but Joanna along with other board members treated me and early team members fairly.
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Lynne Jolitz said:
A signed personal recommendation from someone who’s done business with Ms. Rees-Gallanter is worth a lot. Is there anyone willing to go on the record to substantiate the claims made against her? Isn’t it still innocent until proven guilty? Just wondering where this is all leading.
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Andie said:
Regarding “going on the record”. The record speaks for itself. Since the inception of VSP in 1996, no less than six general partners have left the firm. The number is higher if you include venture partners and other executive team members. The high turnover rate speaks a lot as to how it’s really like to work with Rees-Gallanter. Unlike the above poster whose company benefitted from the millions that VSP invested and saw her only every 6-8 weeks at a board meeting, the departed partners worked with Rees-Gallanter on a daily basis and I would guess, did not leave the firm because it was a collabrative work place.
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Auren Hoffman said:
I’m a huge fan of Joanna’s. We’ve worked together on various projects for the last four years. Joanna is a dynamo and an incredible leader. she’s also an honest and ethical person. i also know six of the CEOs that are VSP portfolio companies and they are all extremely happy with Joanna and her team. She’s got a great marketing perspective and an amazing network — i certainly hope to have her on the board of my next company.
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Matt Marshall said:
We’ve take down three subsequent comments because they contained negative personal allegations, were all anonymous, and in one case, we knew the claim to be untrue. We don’t want to whitewash any particular story or theme, but also want to make clear we won’t stand for mean-spiritedness. We’ll remove comments in the future if they contain such personal allegations.
