The New World of VC and Building a Durable Firm with Category Ventures' Villi Iltchev

About this episode

In this episode, Samir Kaji interviews Villi Iltchev about the evolution of the VC landscape and building a durable firm in a crowded market.

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape. Welcome to another episode of Venture Unlocked. In this episode, I had the pleasure of welcoming Villi Iltchev , founder and managing partner of Category Ventures. Villi has had a long history in tech, both in operating roles at companies like Box and Lifelock, as well as investing roles at August Capital and Two Sigma, where he departed in 2024 to launch Category Ventures . We covered a lot of ground in our conversation, including his inspiration for starting a new firm and the experiences that informed his true north. We also spoke about the fragmentation of the market and what it means to win in early-stage investing in a heavily crowded market of dedicated seed funds & larger funds who are active in see and Series A. I really enjoyed the authenticity of the conversation and hope you do as well. About Villi Iltchev Villi Iltchev is the Founder and Managing Partner of Category Ventures, an early-stage venture firm focused on backing category-defining enterprise software companies. With over two decades of experience as both an operator and investor, Villi has…

People in this episode

Host: Samir Kaji

Guest: Villi Iltchev

Topics covered

• venture capital
• early-stage investing
• market fragmentation
• category-defining companies
• investment strategies

Keywords

• venture capital
• Category Ventures
• early-stage investing
• market fragmentation
• investment strategies
• Villi Iltchev
• Samir Kaji

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Category Ventures, Box, LifeLock, August Capital, Two Sigma, Salesforce, HubSpot, MuleSoft, Gusto, Zapier

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