Episode summary
Rethinking the Venture Co-Investment Playbook
Swimming With Allocators
· · Hosts: Alexa Binns, Earnest Sweat · Guests: Juan Diego Briceno, Michael Podolny
Summary
The guest argues that family offices should treat venture as a cyclical, highly specialized asset class and build programs slowly across multiple vintages, managers, and strategies. He says many allocators make the mistake of being too theme-driven, too concentrated in hot sectors, and too eager to do venture directly, which can create adverse selection and exposure to subpar founders or companies.
He frames his firm as an “extension of family office teams,” built for sophisticated families that want dedicated alternatives support without replacing their internal staff. The approach is intentionally customized, but it starts with institutional discipline: clear asset allocation frameworks, a five- to six-year pacing window, diversified manager selection, and co-investment only where the venture dynamics truly fit.
The conversation also draws a sharp line between PE and VC co-investing. In private equity, co-investing is more standardized and information-rich; in venture, it is often rushed, opaque, and structurally hard to source because the best rounds move in days. The guest says allocators should instead ask for optionality, support continuation vehicles when appropriate, and think creatively about fee and carry structures that better align GPs and LPs.
On the market side, the guest says uncertainty is slowing some venture deals, concentrating capital into a handful of prized AI companies, and driving more consolidation, acqui-hires, and even an early return of SPAC conversations.
Key takeaways
- The guest says venture allocators should avoid narrow thematic bets because they add cyclicality and can lead to overpaying in hype cycles.
- The guest says family offices often overestimate their ability to outperform dedicated VCs and risk adverse selection when they chase direct deals.
- The guest says a durable venture program should be built over roughly four to six years, not one to three, to avoid bad vintage timing.
- The guest says venture co-investing is fundamentally different from PE co-investing because the best venture rounds are fast, competitive, and often not designed for LP access.
- The guest says structures like 1% management fees plus traditional carry can improve GP-LP alignment if the GP truly believes in its selection edge.
Notable quotes
“a lot of families learn faster than others, but I think a lot of the journeys that family offices take is that they they begin thinking they can do everything inhouse”
How the episode opens
Welcome to Swinging with Alligators, — The VC podcast from the LP perspective — With your hosts Alexa Bins — And Ernest. You ready? Let's dive in. — Thanks so much for being on Swimming with Allocators. — Thanks for having me. — Uh I think uh one thing I always like to do is start off with the person's journey. And so, um, I was so fascinated with like all the things you've done in our pre, uh, interview call. Could you just walk the audience through kind of your journey through private banking in New York and how you got into the world of family offices?
Yeah, happy to. So, I started my career in New York uh, doing wealth management uh, advising a lot of ultra high net worth families out of Latin America. So, I spent uh, three years at Credit Swiss and then Morgan Stanley.
actually acquired the division I was in and so we all transitioned to Morgan Stanley and that was just a great period uh really transformative for my career. we are bringing on new clients, growing really quickly. Um, and you know, one of the main things I learned from that team, which was one of the best performing teams in Morgan Stanley, was just how relentlessly advocating they were for their clients.
Um, and and just how they wouldn't take easy notes when you're in a very bureaucratic environment like a Swiss bank or or Morgan Stanley, you get uh bank pushing back on a lot of things and and they were just asking, you know, why is this the case? And and able to get like really good things for their clients. And so to start off my career, I mean uh wealth management was fantastic, right?
Because you're in terms of finance, you have access to to most things.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- venture co-investments
- family office venture strategy
- adverse selection
- ai boom and venture deal flow
- spac comeback
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Pomifer Capital
- Sidley Austin LLP
Watch the episode
Watch “Rethinking the Venture Co-Investment Playbook” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from Swimming With Allocators
Swimming With Allocators, this episode and its artwork belong to Earnest Sweat, Alexa Binns. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
