For the 158th episode of The VentureFizz Podcast, I interviewed Claire Fauquier, Principal at Highland Capital Partners.
I once read a blog post that stated an interesting fact. The number of professional athletes in the U.S. is equal to the number of positions in venture capital. Needless to say, positions are scarce in the VC industry and they are highly sought after.
For Claire, she was determined to land a position in venture capital after getting her MBA at Wharton. She devoted months of her time sitting in coffee shops researching and learning the industry, while creating a recruiting plan, cold emailing VC firms, and offering her research to investors in hopes of landing an open position.
Her determination paid off when she joined Corigin Ventures and she recently joined Highland to help the firm build out its New York office. Highland has a long history of success as a leading VC firm and their track record speaks for itself to the tune of 46 IPOs and 127 acquisitions.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- How living in Kenya for six months influenced her career.
- Her experience working in investment banking during the economic crisis.
- How dedication and commitment through cold emailing landed Claire a position in the VC industry.
- All the details on Highland Capital Partners and what she is targeting for investments
- How to get investors to respond to cold email pitches.
- What first-time founders can expect during the process of raising capital.
- And so much more.
Have you checked out our YouTube channel? It is loaded with lots and lots of great content from our interviews with founders, executives, and investors. You will find lots of advice shared from these podcast interviews, plus our popular Inside and CxO briefing series. Go to youtube.com/venturefizz to check it out.
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Keith Cline is the Founder of VentureFizz. Follow him on Twitter: @kcline6.