# LP10X - Venture capital as a strategic play for corporations - Grady Buchanan, Co-founder & MD, NVNG

An episode of [VC10X - Investing, Venture Capital, Asset Management, Family Office, Wealth Management](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1632806986), 11 Mar 2025, 51 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/a453ddd4/podcast/play/99693175/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-2-11%2F396369448-44100-2-241c7889af33b.mp3

Grady Buchanan is a Co-founder & Managing Director at NVNG, a fund of funds with corporations as limited partners investing into venture capital funds. Before launching NVNG, Grady worked with the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s (WARF) $3B investment portfolio. Links: ⭐ Sponsored by Podcast10x - Podcasting agency for VCs - https://podcast10x.com NVNG website - https://nvngia.com/ Grady Buchanan on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gradynvng 🎙️ Hosted by Prashant Choubey Follow Prashant on X - https://x.com/ChoubeySahab Follow Prashant on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/choubeysahab In this episode, we talk about - - The investment thesis at NVNG - Why do corporations invest in NVNG fund of funds?\ - What's the strategic significance of having corporations at LPs? How does it help the portfolio companies of the portfolio funds? - Key things they look for in fund managers - Advice for GPs raising in a difficult fundraising environment - How they generate DPI in the fund of funds - Approach to portfolio construction & lots more Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction to Grady Buchanan and NVNG (02:46) Grady's background and journey into investing (05:30) Origin story of NVNG (Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained) (07:11) Corporations' need for innovation and startup exposure (09:33) Strategy of having corporations as Limited Partners (LPs) (13:15) Addressing concerns about outsourcing innovation (17:41) Value creation for portfolio companies through corporate connections (22:33) Key criteria for selecting fund managers (26:31) Assessing fund managers' long-term potential (30:14) Sector focus and corporate investment preferences (34:47) Generating Distributed Paid-In Capital (DPI) in a fund of funds model (38:32) Advice for VCs fundraising in a challenging environment (42:48) Portfolio construction strategy (45:42) Rapid fire round covering: - Themes and regions of investment - LP commitment size - Fund stages - Contact information - Follow-up channels For sponsorship or guest appearance requests, write to prashantchoubey3@gmail.com Subscribe to VC10X on Youtube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

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