“Friends — how many of us have them?” — Whodini Venture capital often looks like individuals or teams making astute and sometimes prophetic investment decisions into exceptional entrepreneurs who want to change the world. While in hindsight that is often the case, at defy we believe the crux of being…

“Hey Brian, I’m Luke. I liked your SaaS to Marketplaces talk, there are parallels to what we’re building at Perfect Venue. I’d love to tell you more about it.” It started like any friendly conversation with a new connection at a conference. Luke, the Founder and CEO of Perfect Venue…

At defy, we believe that special companies can be born anywhere. “Special” is the exact word that came to mind 10 minutes into our first meeting with Hamza and Saad as they pitched Bazaar. Their vision to build a lighthouse company in Pakistan, one that attracts top talent to help…

Said no one ever. Have you ordered Starbucks recently? Tried to buy a car? Already worried about your backordered Mattel toys? We feel you. As many of you know, we’re experiencing yet another ripple effect of COVID-19, the global supply chain crisis. While the pandemic has brought this crisis to…

The day Alessya Visnjic walked in our front door at defy is still vivid in my mind because we could not get a deal done. It was a sunny day in Woodside and it was my partner Madison’s first day at the firm. We had just been introduced to Alessya’s…

Today our Defy portfolio company, Nautilus Biotechnology, began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker NAUT after its successful merger with the Arya III SPAC. The event and financial outcome is much less important than what Nautilus hopes to achieve: leveraging technology to change the scale of what is possible…

Yesterday, a Defy portfolio company, Skubana, announced its successful acquisition by 3PL Central and its partner, Mainsail Partners. While it serves as a meaningful exit for Defy and the founders of Skubana, Chad Rubin and DJ Kunovac, the team will remain to build a next-generation end-to-end commerce platform that combines…

For years, the education market was persona non-grata for many in the venture capital community including myself. After 20 years of investing, it was difficult for me to understand the desire to deal with school administration, long sales cycles, difficult installations and (gasp) budget cycles. …

After more than 20 years in venture capital, I can happily admit that I am often wrong — totally and completely wrong. One of those times was when I became enamored with the idea of a common logistics platform across carriers — this should exist, right? After chatting with many…