Top Decile Podcast

Most VCs talk about the future. New and emerging VC fund managers are actually funding it. Top Decile goes inside the minds of the new wave of venture capital. Three times per week, we sit down with the emerging managers writing first checks into the startups and technologies reshaping the world around us. Learn how they think, what they're betting on, and what they're seeing before everyone else catches on. For VCs, founders, and anyone who wants to understand where the world is going before it gets there.

Top Decile Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 32 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts Top Decile Podcast, a business show with 32 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Top Decile Podcast

  The VC Who Talks Founders Out of Raising VC | Jonathan Bragdon, Capacity Capital

  Aug 20, 202624 min

  Jonathan Bragdon founded or co-founded seven companies, two of which landed on the Inc. 5000 list twice each. Capacity Capital is his seed stage fund for founders across the Southeast, where 64% of investments have gone to women, founders of color, or veterans. His 50+ LPs are almost all operators who built businesses themselves, and a third had never invested in a fund before he taught them how. We get into why taking venture money too early can be a one way road, why he thinks deal flow should set fund size instead of the other way around, and why he only glances at total addressable market when almost every other investor leads with it.

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  Top Decile Podcast

  The Gap Where MedTech Startups Go to Die? She Funds It. | Fehmida Kapadia, Fay Ventures

  Aug 17, 202623 min

  Fehmida Kapadia has advised more than 150 medtech startups over two decades. Five went on to raise $50 million or more, and three exited. Along the way she built Amplify MedTech, an 800 person network of founders, clinicians, and academics that now sources most of her deal flow. Fay Ventures is her $1 million seed fund for AI enabled medtech founders stuck between a working prototype and FDA clearance. She explains the product market fit question most founders never think to ask, why only 3% of US venture firms will touch medtech at all, and how lived experience turns into the perseverance a decade long device company actually demands.

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  Top Decile Podcast

  The Best Canadian Fintechs Aren't Racing to the US | Tal Schwartz, North Exit Ventures

  Aug 12, 202620 min

  Tal Schwartz spent a decade building the Canadian fintech industry before he started investing in it. He founded the Canadian Lenders Association, now the largest financial services trade group in the country with every bank as a member, writes the Canadian Fintech Newsletter, and runs the Canadian Finance Summit. North Exit Ventures is his $10 million seed fund, backed by a roster of exited fintech founders and almost fully deployed two years in. Tal breaks down how he reads the US market to call which categories take off in Canada, what open banking arriving this year opens up against the big six, and why the best Canadian fintechs aren't always the ones racing south of the border.

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  Top Decile Podcast

  Forget the 90% failure rate - this VC wants 100% survival. | Javier Cueto, Imagine Ventures

  Aug 11, 202625 min

  Javier Cueto has reviewed more than 12,000 startups across Latin America. Through Imagine Lab, he backed 120 of them at idea stage and hit a 30% survival rate, including two acquisitions that tripled his investments. He now runs Imagine Ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund investing in the future of work and future of finance across the region, where four years in, every portfolio company is still alive. He makes the case for why the Silicon Valley power law breaks down in LatAm, walks through the M&A math behind targeting five or six 15X exits instead of one unicorn, and explains what emerging managers get wrong about fundraising timelines in the region.

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  Episode #30

  The LA MediaTech Fund That Banned a Word From Its Deck | Seth Hallen, Hallstone Ventures

  Aug 6, 202624 minS1

  The word: "Hollywood." Seth Hallen spent 25 years on the technology side of film and television, including leadership roles at Panavision's Light Iron, Sony and Pixelogic, plus nine years as president of the Hollywood Professional Association. He cut the word from every fundraising conversation anyway, and closed Hallstone Ventures oversubscribed in 12 months. Hallstone backs the infrastructure behind how media gets made, distributed and paid for, at a point when creators have multiplied and the systems that support them have not caught up. It's not just backing tech for Hollywood, It's backing the systems that helps how content is communicated everywhere on Earth (and beyond).

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