Growthcap Insights

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Vipin Garg, the President and CEO of Altimmune, a biotech company pioneering the development of intranasal vaccines and therapeutics, including ones that can prevent the transmission of and treat COVID. He has more than three decades of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries with a successful track record building and leading notable private and publicly traded companies. Dr. Garg was named a Top 25 Biotech CEO of 2021 by The Healthcare Technology Report.  He received his PhD in Biochemistry in 1982 from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and his Master of Science degree from IARI Nuclear Research. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we speak with Sunil Thomas, the CEO and cofounder of CleverTap, which is the leading customer engagement and retention platform that helps brands maximize user lifetime value. Consumer brands around the world representing over 8,000 apps—including Vodafone, Star, Sony, Discovery, Fandango LATAM, Carousell, and Gojek—trust CleverTap to help them improve user engagement and retention thereby growing long term revenue. CleverTap is backed by leading venture capital firms including Sequoia India, Tiger Global Management, Accel, and Recruit Holdings, and operates out of San Francisco, Seattle, London, Singapore, and Mumbai. We chat with Sunil about how CleverTap is helping companies optimize the mobile experience for its users as well as his experience building the company. We hope you enjoy the show.

When it comes to growth equity, Jon Korngold, Global Head of Blackstone Growth, is as good as it gets. Perhaps he can be considered one of the few who sets today’s bar in the asset class. His rapid rise began at Goldman Sachs and General Atlantic, but maybe it began even earlier, maybe it began with a piece of advice his father gave him when he was growing up. Blackstone recently announced the final close of Blackstone Growth (BXG), its inaugural growth equity fund. BXG was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap of $4.5 billion – with third-party capital commitments from a wide range of family offices, entrepreneurs, endowments, strategic institutional investors, pension funds, high-net-worth individuals, and other investors – making it the largest first-time growth equity private fund raised in history. We cover a lot of ground in our conversation from Blackstone Growth’s approach to growth equity to its unique platform capabilities to the importance of ESG. We hope you enjoy the show.

At over $100 million in annual recurring revenue, Amplitude has consistently scaled each year since its founding in 2012. The Company provides a product intelligence platform that enables businesses to optimize digital product innovation. It serves over 30,000 teams at companies like Walmart, Ford, Inbev, Atlassian, Microsoft, Twitter, Hubspot, and Procter & Gamble. Amplitude’s cerebral yet highly attuned founder and CEO, Spenser Skates, is largely to thank for the company’s rapid rise. He is not only a highly skilled entrepreneur, he is a global thinker and proactive leader stepping up in areas for the betterment of society. We cover a wide range of topics spanning Spenser’s source of inspiration, his early beginnings as an entrepreneur and his disciplined approach to consistent scaling. The company is backed by Benchmark, Battery, IVP, Sequoia and GIC. We hope you enjoy the show.

I’ve spoken to hundreds of private equity investors over the years, and after spending time with Nic, you can’t help but come away feeling that he would make for a great capital partner. Nic Humphries is the Senior Partner and Executive Chairman of Hg and Head of the Saturn fund. Hg, the leading european private equity firm focused on software and services, has over $30 billion under management and is supported by an investment team of over 140 people, plus a portfolio team of more than 35 operators. The firm is based in London, Munich and New York. Nic has led or co-led more than 30 investments over the last 27 years. He started his investing career in 1990 and has focused exclusively on technology and software since 1994. He joined Hg in 2001 as founder of the firm’s Technology Team. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we chat with Peter Holt, the CEO of The Joint Chiropractic, the largest franchised network of Chiropractic clinics in the world with approximately 600 clinics system wide. The Joint is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ based in Scottsdale, AZ. Previously, Peter was President and Chief Executive Officer for Tasti D-Lite where he transformed the NYC based licensed outlets into a complete business format franchise system.. He has been active in the franchise community for more than 30 years, helping iconic companies such as Mail Boxes Etc. (now The UPS Store), Tasti D Lite and Planet Smoothie manage their franchise systems in both domestic and overseas markets. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we chat with Matthew Safaii, the Founder and Managing Partner of Arrowroot Capital Management, a growth equity firm based in Marina Del Ray, California. The firm invests in growing and healthy, recurring revenue, software-as-a-service and internet-based businesses. Recently, Matthew launched Arrowroot Acquisition, a $250 million SPAC which focuses on enterprise software. Matthew was named a Top 25 Software Investor of 2020 by GrowthCap. He began his investing career at Platinum Equity and subsequently TA Associates in the Boston and London offices. He also served as a managing director and head of acquisitions at Actua. Matthew graduated from Boston College and holds an MBA from The Wharton School. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we chat with Dr. Ben Maruthappu, the Co-Founder and CEO at Cera, which is a technology-enabled home care provider using digital and data to improve elderly care services. Cera was launched in November 2016 and since then has grown to over $160 million in revenues and is EBITDA positive. The company now has 5,000+ employees, with 50 offices across the country, delivering ~30,000 care visits a day, making it the largest care company in Europe, if not beyond.  It has raised approximately $100 million of financing.  Dr. Ben is highly accomplished in the business and medical fields with degrees from Oxford University, Harvard University and Cambridge University.  He served as a Senior Advisor to Bain, Board Member of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and Operating Partner at Kairos, among other notable positions. We hope you enjoy the show.

Eliot Forster is the Chief Executive Officer of F-star Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing next-generation immunotherapies to transform the lives of patients with cancer.  To date, the company has built a comprehensive IP estate, with over 200 issued patents and more than 60 pending applications, many of which have blockbuster potential. In this conversation, we discuss Eliot’s career as a corporate executive in big pharma as well as his transition to and leadership experience in venture and growth stage biotech.  Before coming to F-star in 2018, he served as chief executive officer of Immunocore and prior to that, he held executive positions at Creabilis Therapeutics, Solace Pharmaceuticals, and Pfizer. We also explore the broader biotech industry in the context of private company investing as well as the specifics of F-star’s drug development programs. We hope you enjoy the show

In this episode, we chat with Rami Karjian, Co-Founder and CEO of Medically Home, an innovative tech-enabled clinical enterprise that is transforming the way hospital care is given globally.   Rami began his career with McKinsey & Company where he worked for over 13 years across multiple offices and rose to Partner.  Subsequently, he was the President of Flextronics, the largest global technology provider of post-manufacturing supply chain logistics and repair services.   Rami then went on to co-found Medically Home in 2016.  To date, the company has raised over $60 million from strategic healthcare partners.  It continues to succeed in bringing the virtual hospital to the homes of high and medium acuity patients with common medical diagnoses. We hope you enjoy the show.    

In this episode, we chat with Andrew Dudum, the founder and CEO of Hims & Hers, which is an online healthcare platform providing products and services to millennials and others. Hims & Hers recently became public through a SPAC transaction. It was acquired by Oaktree Acquisition Corp. in January of 2021, in a deal valuing the company at $1.6 billion. Today, just a few weeks later, the company’s market capitalization is approximately $4.5 billion. What’s incredible about the Hims story is that the company was founded just three years ago and in a very short amount of time it has grown to $140 million in annual revenue, has run more than 2 million telehealth visits and operates at a 70% gross margin. Perhaps what’s even more incredible is the seemingly unlimited runway for the company in the years ahead. We’re still in the early innings when it comes to online healthcare offerings for today’s connected consumer. As for the estimated market size? About $4 trillion. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we chat with Peter Arrowsmith, a General Partner of JMI Equity and a Top 25 Software Investor of 2020. JMI is a leading growth equity firm focused on helping founders and management teams in scaling their software companies.  The firm is well equipped to do so given its long and focused track record in software, which goes all the way back to its founding and lead backer John Moores, the founder and former Chairman and CEO of BMC Software.   Notably, JMI has raised over $4 billion since it was founded in 1992.  Over the years, the firm has invested in over 150 businesses, participated in 19 IPO's, and completed over 100 exits.  Peter and I chat about how the growth equity space has evolved over time, what they look for in investment opportunities and how JMI helps the companies it invests in. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode, we chat with Eric Partaker, a McKinsey consultant, executive and entrepreneur turned peak performance expert. After a life altering experience, Eric decided to refocus his priorities on the things that matter most and figured out a way to consistently and effectively execute on those priorities. In our conversation, we cover his insights into the power of identity, productivity strategies and anti-fragility. These ideas can enable individuals to excel beyond measure while still being in control and balance. We hope you enjoy the show.  To learn more about Eric, visit www.ericpartaker.com.

In this episode we chat with Kyle Griswold, a Partner of FTV Capital and a Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investor of 2020. FTV Capital is a growth equity investment firm that has raised nearly $4 billion since inception and has invested in 120 high-growth companies across enterprise technology and services, financial services, and payments and transaction processing. Kyle and I chat about some of the investment areas he is most excited about, how FTV Capital drives value for the companies it backs, and how FTV has built a strong firm culture over the years. We hope you enjoy the show.

Welcome to the GrowthCap podcast where we chat with CEOs, investors, and other key industry leaders to uncover insights and strategies for accelerating growth and succeeding in business. I am your host RJ Lumba. In this episode we chat with Jan Arendtsz, a former corporate software professional turned entrepreneur. Unlike many of today’s startup founders, Jan took a more methodical approach to founding and ultimately building his company, Celigo. Celigo simplifies the integration of business applications and data sources in the enterprise. Its integration Platform-as-a-Service or iPaaS solution allows both technical and business users to connect applications together quickly through an industry-leading guided user interface. Based in San Mateo, California, Celigo is backed by growth equity. In setting out as a software entrepreneur, Jan first identified a distinct need in the market through his client engagements as an IT services provider. He then began gradually transitioning to developing a software pro

Entrepreneurs who have built their business with no outside capital understand the skill it takes and greatly appreciate when seeing others who have done it. Sana Commerce has been growing 50% each year for the past 12 years and now has approximately 400 employees.  The secret to their success is a combination of favorable market conditions and a culture which emphasizes entrepreneurship and empowerment. We spoke with the CEO Michiel Schipperus who built the b2b ecommerce software company from the start.  It was hatched as a spin off from an IT services company that recognized the need for a productized solution from their existing client base.  The spin off ended up being wildly successful as ecommerce has continued to manifest as a megatrend.  Listen to Michiel as he describes more about the company today as well as what has contributed to their success. Welcome to the GrowthCap podcast where we chat with CEOs, investors and other key industry leaders to uncover insights and strategies for accelerating

In this episode, we chat with Nehal Raj, a Partner at TPG, which is a leading global alternative asset firm founded in 1992 with approximately $85 billion of assets under management. Nehal co-leads the firm’s investment activities in software and enterprise technology across its private equity platforms (TPG Capital, TPG Tech Adjacencies, TPG Growth, and The Rise Fund). Nehal shares with us the investment themes he’s currently most focused on as well as some of the keys to TPG’s success over the years. Today, the firm’s investment platforms span a wide range of asset classes, including private equity, growth equity, real estate, impact investing, and public equity. TPG aims to build dynamic products and options for its investors while also instituting discipline and operational excellence across the investment strategy and performance of its portfolio. We hope you enjoy the show.

In this episode we chat with Gus Warren, Co-Founder and CEO of Bindle, a company that is revolutionizing the way health data can be quickly and securely shared prior to entering a venue. A perfect confluence of events led to Bindle’s inception, allowing Gus and his five co-founders to leverage recently developed technology and domain expertise across multiple areas to solve a very timely problem. Bindle utilizes a self-sovereign identity network to allow individuals to share information, such as test results or vaccine certificates in the case of COVID-19, with stadiums, schools, or even family events that may require such information. The venue then has a certain level of confidence to permit entry, without actually having to view the source data. Thus privacy is maintained without the need for the Venue to attain HIPAA compliance. Gus shares with us the exciting implications Bindle’s platform has for both the current pandemic and beyond. He also shares his advice for other entrepreneurs looking to get the

In this episode, we chat with David Butler and Rick Firmine of Argosy Real Estate Partners, a fund manager with $1.3 billion currently under management. It has invested $5.5 billion in gross real estate investments since inception and operates out of three offices in Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco. Argosy has proven that a unique investment approach can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage over the long run. As one of the few institutional diversified real estate fund managers focused on the underserved lower middle market, the firm has created value for institutional investors, family offices and high net worth individuals over many years. David and Rick speak to their strategy, the trends they are seeing in the market and also share with us the tax advantages of investing in Opportunity Zones. We hope you enjoy the show.

Adaptability has long been a feature of thriving businesses and industries. Add in the impacts of a global pandemic, and now companies are being forced to adapt in ways they never imagined. Enter Plex Systems, a company that has not only been able to meet the changing demands of its own market but has also provided solutions that have helped its customers to do the same. CEO Bill Berutti chats with us about how Plex’s solutions use inventory, human capital, and process flow information, along with analytics and automation, to address inefficiencies in the manufacturing industry. Plex Systems offers a cloud-based, single instance, multi-tenant solution to manufacturing companies. The company boasts success stories across manufacturing verticals and the results speak for themselves, as their customers turn their inventories two and a half times faster, have a significantly lower cost of quality, and have between 15% and 25% more productive output than their competitors. Bill also speaks to the ways in which Pl