Episode 107: Investing At The Nexus of Computational Sciences with Grace Isford-Datacast

Show Notes

(02:02) Grace shared formative experiences of her upbringing - being heavily influenced by the financial sector from growing up near New York and getting an appreciation for diverse perspectives from studying abroad in Tokyo.

(03:47) Grace described her college experience at Stanford studying Management Science and Engineering.

(08:04) Grace talked about her participation in the Mayfield Fellowship and her service as a Co-President of Stanford Women in Business.

(12:34) Grace walked through her internship experiences as an investor at the Stanford Management Company, in product at ed-tech startup Handshake, and in growth equity at Stripes Group.

(16:20) Grace reflected on her time at Canvas Ventures - where she joined as a campus scout while still a student.

(19:11) Grace shared three approaches to prove her value upfront in potential deals and to form her investment thesis as a new VC associate.

(23:07) Grace dissected her Series A investment in Vendia, a blockchain-powered, real-time data-sharing platform that solves the growing inter-organization data collaboration problem.

(25:17) Grace examined her Series A investment in Robocorp, which offers the first cloud-native, open-source automation stack and orchestration platform to power any automation process.

(26:43) Grace shared three pieces of advice in hiring decisions, navigating go-to-market strategy, and growing product offerings that she had given her portfolio companies.

(29:49) Grace shared trends in the API-first economy that she is most excited about in the upcoming years.

(31:56) Grace unpacked key takeaways from her article "The Mindset of a Data Leader."

(34:02) Grace discussed under-hyped and over-hyped trends in Web3 - taken from her incredibly detailed deck on the Web3 World.

(36:31) Grace dissected the major categories of the Web3 infrastructure, including Decentralized Finance, Decentralized Apps, DAOs, NFTs, and Guild Education/Reskilling.

(41:43) Grace walked through her decision to join Lux Capital, a firm that invests in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible, as a principal investor in early 2022.

(45:12) Grace shared her mental checklist to evaluate entrepreneurs and make investment decisions at the nexus of web3, data infrastructure, and applications of AI/ML.

(47:10) Grace talked about her community-building work to promote women's voices in tech.

(48:59) Grace reflected on her consistency in adding value to every conversation with people in her community.

(51:26) Closing segment.

Grace's Contact Info

Lux Capital

Notes

My conversation with Grace was recorded back in April 2022. Since then, many things have happened. I'd recommend:

Additionally, Grace invested in RunwayML's Series C, a pioneer in the Generative AI space. If you are in NYC, be sure to stop by the upcoming first annual AI film festival powered by Runway!

About the show

Datacast features long-form, in-depth conversations with practitioners and researchers in the data community to walk through their professional journeys and unpack the lessons learned along the way. I invite guests coming from a wide range of career paths — from scientists and analysts to founders and investors — to analyze the case for using data in the real world and extract their mental models (“the WHY and the HOW”) behind their pursuits. Hopefully, these conversations can serve as valuable tools for early-stage data professionals as they navigate their own careers in the exciting data universe.

Datacast is produced and edited by James Le. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email khanhle.1013@gmail.com.

Subscribe by searching for Datacast wherever you get podcasts, or click one of the links below:

If you’re new, see the podcast homepage for the most recent episodes to listen to, or browse the full guest list.

About the show

Datacast is produced and edited by James Le. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email khanhle.1013@gmail.com.

Subscribe by searching for Datacast wherever you get podcasts, or click one of the links below:

If you’re new, see the podcast homepage for the most recent episodes to listen to, or browse the full guest list.