Category Archives: Wildcat In The News
Downturn Success Stories: Part 1
Written on May 2, 2020 at 1:29 am, by Wildcat IT
“Every decade or so, dark clouds will fill the economic skies, and they will briefly rain gold” – Warren Buffett, 2016 The COVID-19 epidemic has had a sudden and dramatic impact on financial markets. In the span of a few weeks, US indices plunged into a bear market – erasing more than 3 years of gains and $11.5T Continue Reading »
Busting at the Seams & Screaming for an Outlet: Data Liquidity in the Healthcare Industry
Written on March 24, 2020 at 10:25 am, by Amanda Maestri
Busting at the Seams & Screaming for an Outlet: Data Liquidity in the Healthcare Industry By Phyllis Whiteley, Partner, Wildcat Venture Partners, in conversation with Bob Bausmith, Founder, Accelerate Innovation The last few years have seen great strides in the FinTech market fueled by digital transformation and the embrace of new technology. FinTech’s wins—most recently Continue Reading »
Win or Learn: Four Questions That Help You Keep Your Job
Written on October 17, 2019 at 1:07 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Living in an Age of Disruption can be exhilarating, but it is also unpredictable. Forecasting during the early stages of a technology adoption life cycle is equal parts intuition, pattern recognition, and hope. Even well-established plans can go off the rails when a market disrupter enters the mix. The net of all this: sooner or later even the Continue Reading »
Bruce Cleveland on Follow Your Different Podcast
Written on September 30, 2019 at 3:34 pm, by Amanda Maestri
As we continue our run on legendary VCs, we feature today Bruce Cleveland, an entrepreneur, executive, venture capital investor and best selling author of Traversing the Traction Gap. We have a fun and insightful conversation today about the state of enterprise tech and why its the best place to create enduring value. We also touch important points on digital Continue Reading »
Five Things We Need to do to Close the VC Gender Gap
Written on July 19, 2019 at 10:58 am, by Amanda Maestri
As part of my series about “the five things we need to do to close the VC gender gap,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Jennifer Trzepacz (JT). JT is Wildcat Venture Partners’ Operating Partner and Chief People Officer, focused on operationalizing Wildcat’s proprietary framework — The Traction Gap; connecting talent and people strategies to Continue Reading »
Building The Enduring Startup: On Digital Oil and Trapped Value
Written on July 11, 2019 at 9:47 am, by Amanda Maestri
Digital Oil and Trapped Value are two key concepts we embrace at Wildcat Venture Partners, anchoring our mindset as we seek and evaluate investment opportunities. They define “what” we are seeking, “where” we are seeking it, and “why” we are prospecting in the areas we do. The terms Digital Oil and Trapped Value are nice catch-phrases, but we Continue Reading »
Silicon Valley in the Classroom: Babson College Teams with Wildcat Venture Partners & GreenFig
Written on July 9, 2019 at 3:53 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Range of classes to focus on formula for helping early stage startups scale and reduce risk of failure using Wildcat Venture Partners’ Traction Gap Framework® SAN MATEO, Calif., July 9, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — Wildcat Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm, and Babson College, a thought leader ranked #1 in entrepreneurship, have joined forces to Continue Reading »
Which Technology Will Most Impact The Future Of Investing? 17 Experts Share Their Insights
Written on June 30, 2019 at 3:29 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Anybody can trade stocks these days, whether from a computer or smartphone. But that doesn’t mean that they should. Certain things — financial investing top among them — should be left to the professionals. Also in that category is financial trend predicting, which isn’t a hobby or job for amateurs. That’s why we’ve turned to Continue Reading »
What Trends Are Shaping Investing In 2019? 17 Experts Share Their Insights
Written on June 30, 2019 at 3:18 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Unless you still bear the mental scars of the Great Depression, odds are you’ve got some money invested somewhere. Once you taste those sweet returns of the stock market or even the modest gains of a lower-risk investment vehicle, stuffing cash under your mattress doesn’t cut it. Many of us trust in financial advisors to make Continue Reading »
What’s The Future Of Investing? 17 Experts Share Their Insights
Written on June 29, 2019 at 3:35 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Without the ability to invest, who knows how long it would take the average joe or jane to reach retirement? Despite the inevitable, at times crushing downturns in the global markets, there are few phenomenons more rewarding than your money working for you. But investing today isn’t the same as it was in the 1930s. Continue Reading »
The Elephant in the Room: Startups, Enterprises, and the Current State of Digital Transformation
Written on June 26, 2019 at 2:48 pm, by Amanda Maestri
I spent the early part of last week speaking with enterprise thought leaders and executives from some of the world’s largest organizations at the Enterprise Transformation Exchange Summit in Denver, Colorado. The experience was revealing, and on my Tuesday morning panel discussion moderated by IDC’s Tim Scannell, I discussed some of the themes I’ve noticed recurring across industries. Continue Reading »
Truth, Lies, and Personalization: What Keeps CMOs Up at Night
Written on June 26, 2019 at 9:42 am, by Amanda Maestri
There has been a significant uptick in marketers’ efforts to prepare and deliver more personalized messages and experiences to targeted audiences across all channels. Forrester reports that 91% of marketers have included personalization on their 2019 roadmap. In a virtual roundtable interview with 10 leading chief marketing officers (CMOs) conducted by OneSpot, the company was Continue Reading »
Bruce Cleveland at the Lean Culture Meetup
Written on May 23, 2019 at 7:36 am, by Amanda Maestri
Bruce Cleveland of Wildcat Ventures (wildcat.vc) speaking at Lean Cutlure Meetup on Tue-Apr-23-2019. His talk was based on his new book “Traversing the Traction Gap” see tractiongap.com
Building Better: Wildcat Venture Partners & Obo
Written on May 13, 2019 at 11:58 am, by Amanda Maestri
Welcome to the NVCA Blog series, Building Better, where we celebrate the dynamic relationship between our VC members and their innovative portfolio companies around the nation. For today’s Building Better, we spoke with Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, and with Pete Sinclair, CEO of Obo, a Wildcat portfolio company. Learn about their Continue Reading »
How To Build a Startup That Doesn’t Flop
Written on May 8, 2019 at 11:22 am, by Amanda Maestri
This is the first in a three-installment series that is designed to help you understand the Traction Gap Framework® – a step-by-step survival guide for startups – developed by myself and my partners at Wildcat Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm we founded in 2015. If followed, we believe it can help startup Continue Reading »
Digital Transformation
Written on May 6, 2019 at 9:50 am, by Amanda Maestri
Finding Your Path “There is more than one way to skin a cat.” It’s a family expression that I used to love until I actually thought about what the words meant. But the point still holds, and it applies particularly well to executive teams who have embraced the need to digitally transform but are still struggling to Continue Reading »
Bruce Cleveland Guest Appearance on Products that Count Podcast
Written on May 3, 2019 at 11:10 am, by Amanda Maestri
Every entrepreneur dreams of turning their big idea into a real business. That said, 85 percent of startups end up failing to get off the ground. What should future leaders of “the next big thing” focus on to build success? Product Guru Bruce Cleveland talks about bridging the “Traction Gap” – providing a prescriptive how-to guide Continue Reading »
Will Microsoft Acquire Adobe?
Written on April 9, 2019 at 4:57 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Microsoft took advantage of the Adobe Summit in March to get in front of 17,000 marketers and tout its partnership with Adobe. Particularly, Microsoft and Adobe pushed an extension of the Open Data Initiative (ODI) partnership with SAP and their investment in Account-Based Experiences (ABX) with LinkedIn. Was it a sign of things to come? Is Continue Reading »
Follow The Money: Meet The Investors Of Conversational AI
Written on July 15, 2018 at 2:40 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Conversational commerce is exploding in chat, delivering what you want, when you want it. Get to know the VCs and angels making it happen. Hey Google, Alexa, Cortana, Siri and Messenger, 2018 is shaping up to be boom times. As AI investment soars to historic highs, there’s a renewed excitement among developers to create more Continue Reading »
Geoff Moore guest appearance on HR Leaders Podcast
Written on April 27, 2018 at 9:24 am, by Amanda Maestri
HR Leaders is a weekly Podcast Show where Chris Rainey chats with today’s most successful and Innovative HR Practitioners. Episode #64: How Do Companies Succeed in this Disruptive, Connected, Fast Paced World HRD Leaders were lucky to be joined by LinkedIn influencer; Geoffrey Moore Author, Speaker, Advisor, Wildcat Venture Partners In Episode #64 Geoffrey details Continue Reading »
Phyllis Whiteley On What the Amazon, JPMorgan, Berkshire partnership means for healthcare
Written on February 7, 2018 at 8:31 am, by Amanda Maestri
When Amazon, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway launched their partnership in the healthcare space, they left more questions than answers about their new venture. The announcement shared few details on how the companies would partner, but ultimately shared the goal of providing high-quality, lower-cost healthcare to employees and their families. All three companies are disruptors Continue Reading »
1Mby1M Roundtable January 18, 2018: With Bruce Cleveland, Wildcat Venture Partners
Written on January 18, 2018 at 9:46 am, by Amanda Maestri
During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, one of the early employees at Oracle, as well as Siebel Systems. Bruce is working on a book on The Traction Gap framework that his firm uses in its venture capital practice. He discussed the methodology at this Continue Reading »
Bruce Cleveland on Legends & Losers Podcast
Written on December 21, 2017 at 12:13 pm, by Amanda Maestri
A lot of people who come from big “category king” companies think they can automatically build a legendary business. How has history proven this notion wrong through the failure of a lot of start-ups? Why is it so important for founders to know how to sell and market, as much as they know their products? Continue Reading »
The Creative Workforce of Tomorrow: A Conversation on AI with Katherine Barr
Written on December 19, 2017 at 4:54 pm, by Amanda Maestri
A few weeks ago, I spoke with Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners, Katherine Barr, about ideas that disrupt markets. Katherine is a board member for WorkFusion, an automation platform that uses artificial intelligence as a superpower to reduce time and costs spent on rote and repetitive enterprise tasks and elevate people to complete more advanced, creative work Continue Reading »
Bruce Cleveland guest appearance on DisrupTV
Written on November 17, 2017 at 12:54 pm, by Amanda Maestri
DisrupTV is a weekly Web series with hosts R “Ray” Wang and Vala Afshar. The show airs live at 11:00 a.m. PT/ 2:00 p.m. ET every Friday. Watch the episode with Bruce Cleveland here.
Digital health investors don’t want your buzzwords
Written on October 6, 2017 at 2:14 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Venture capitalists at Health 2.0 explained what it takes to get noticed. Every day a cadre of PR pitches are created to hype the latest and greatest digital health companies. Unfortunately, many of them use the same buzzwords, rendering the reader tasked with figuring out what it is the company actually does. Every nascent healthcare Continue Reading »
Bill Ericson Featured in News and views from Health 2.0 2017
Written on October 6, 2017 at 11:46 am, by Amanda Maestri
This year was the 11th anniversary of Health 2.0, a yearly health tech conference that explores the newest in digital health with eyes for what’s still to come. This year marked the first Health 2.0 conference since the show was acquired by HIMSS, MobiHealthNews’s parent company. With the four-day event come and gone, MobiHealthNews has Continue Reading »
Scaling the Revenue Engine Webinar featuring Bruce Cleveland
Written on April 28, 2017 at 12:42 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Tom Mohr, Founder and CEO of CEO Quest, shares his research-backed insights and best practice advice for choosing channel partnerships that maximize company acceleration and profit growth. Choosing the right channels to reach your customers can utterly transform your trajectory. Guest Bruce Cleveland, Founding Partner of Wildcat Ventures, shares his deep experience as a world Continue Reading »
Katherine Barr Discusses Canada’s 2017 Budget
Written on March 23, 2017 at 9:44 am, by Amanda Maestri
Less than 24 hours after Finance Minister Bill Morneau had unveiled his second federal budget, Kurtis McBride was already taking and making calls to help position Waterloo Region as a beneficiary of one of its key initiatives — the Smart Cities Challenge. McBride is the CEO of Miovision, a traffic data and infrastructure company that helps Continue Reading »
Leadership Series Featuring Phyllis Whiteley, Ph.D.
Written on March 15, 2017 at 2:55 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Accelerating the Success of Next Generation’s Healthcare Entrepreneurs In this exclusive Slone Partners interview, Dr. Phyllis Whiteley, seasoned venture capitalist and life science consultant, shares her insights on the most promising areas of healthcare technology and exciting breakthroughs entering the market. She also discusses her work at Wildcat Ventures and her passion for mentoring leaders Continue Reading »
Meet Katherine Barr, Founding Partner at Wildcat Venture Partners
Written on March 12, 2017 at 3:47 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Venture capital used to be a cottage industry, with very few investing in tomorrow’s products and services. Oh how times have changed. While there are more startups than ever, there’s also more money chasing them. In this series, we look at the new (or relatively new) VCs in the early stages: seed and Series A. Continue Reading »
Wildcat Venture Partners Closes on New Fund to Help Companies Traverse the “Traction Gap”
Written on March 2, 2017 at 5:00 am, by Amanda Maestri
Wildcat Venture Partners Closes on New Fund to Help Companies Traverse the “Traction Gap” Four Established Founding Partners Share Operating Experience and Best Practices to Lead Early-Stage Technology Companies to Success SAN MATEO, CA – March 2, 2017 –Wildcat Venture Partners, a venture capital firm committed to enabling early-stage startups to build high-growth businesses, closed Continue Reading »
How women dominate the country’s most powerful advisory council — the one that pulls Canada’s economic strings
Written on December 7, 2016 at 10:54 am, by Amanda Maestri
With its stone chimneys and wooden verandas in the Queen Anne Revival style, the house that Thomas Willson, the Ontario inventor and industrialist, built on a cliff overlooking Meech Lake north of Ottawa a century ago is a grand, rustic summer estate. In the middle of May, the house, now federally owned, welcomed a gathering Continue Reading »
Canada’s Most Powerful Business People 2017: Beyond the Boardroom
Written on November 7, 2016 at 3:32 pm, by Amanda Maestri
When we built the 2016 Power List, we used financial records, corporate documents and analyst reports to help quantify the influence of business leaders. This approach allowed us to back our ranking with hard numbers; it also meant that we could only assess the CEOs of publicly traded companies. So here’s a list of politicians, Continue Reading »
Coupa Software investor on what its big IPO might mean to others
Written on October 10, 2016 at 8:23 am, by Amanda Maestri
Bryan Stolle is one of the happy venture investors who celebrated Coupa Software’s IPO success last week. He led the San Mateo startup’s Series D funding round for Mohr Davidow Ventures that closed early in 2011. The return for investors in that round was at about 25X at the end of the first day of trading on Thursday Continue Reading »
Podcast with Elizabeth Burstein
Written on August 20, 2016 at 3:24 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Elizabeth Burstein, Principal at Wildcat Venture Partners and Ex-PM at Linkedin sat down with host of Yours Productly podcast, Ravi Kumar. She discussed the Traction Gap framework, her transition from PM to VC, her product philosophy and how she led one of the biggest overhaul of the Linkedin homepage. Hear the full podcast here.
Top 7 Things I Learned at C100 48 Hrs in the Valley
Written on June 27, 2016 at 7:55 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Paul Teshima, Co-founder and CEO of Nudge, shares the top 7 things he learned at C100’s 48 Hours in the Valley 2016 5. Venture Capital is Still Funding Great Startups But… In a great panel with Arif Janmohamed, Lightspeed Ventures, Jon Quick, AIEST Capital, Katherine Barr, Wildcat Venture Partners, and Neal Sadaranganey, DoCoMo Capital there was some Continue Reading »
Wildcat Venture Partners launches, focuses on early-stage startups
Written on June 2, 2016 at 11:33 pm, by Amanda Maestri
Partners from two longtime Silicon Valley venture-capital firms said they are launching a third: Wildcat Venture Partners, a firm focused on the stage where young companies have products ready to put on the market. Mohr Davidow’s Bill Ericson, Katherine Barr, and Bryan Stolle, along with InterWest’s Bruce Cleveland, have quietly been making investments under the Continue Reading »
Catalyst Conference 2016: Interview with Katherine Barr of Wildcat Venture Partners
Written on April 19, 2016 at 3:28 am, by Amanda Maestri
Katherine Barr is one of more than three dozen leading executives who will be speaking at the Catalyst Conference. Read her interview with Girls in Tech <here>.