Battery Ventures’ Chelsea Stoner on the power of being ‘stage agnostic’ in tech investing
Episode publishedPodcast: Goldman Sachs ExchangesGoldman Sachs Exchanges
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Welcome to another episode of Goldman Sachs Exchanges, Great Investors. I'm Michael Brammeier, global head and chief investment officer of the external investing group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Today, I'm very excited to be sitting down with Chelsea Stoner, general partner of Battery Ventures, which has been investing in technology companies around the world since 1983. Chelsea joined Battery in 2006 and has helped build out the firm's private equity practice. She's been focusing on the ways in which software is transforming a variety of industries and is behind some of the firm's
for having me, Michael. You
grew up in a small town in Northeastern Montana, got a degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University, and now are one of Silicon Valley's leading growth investors. How did you find your way to venture? Not
a straight path from rural Montana to Silicon Valley growth. Yeah. I had a very circuitous path and just a a lot of people along the way who believed in me and gave me a chance. I think that, you know, is is really what it's all about. Just to start, I decided to do chemical engineering because I liked chemistry and math, not because I had any idea what chemical engineers did. Once I learned a little bit more about that, I decided I didn't want to do it. I did so many internships of being in dark labs with not very many people, and it just wasn't my personality. It
doesn't seem to say your personality. My
personality. So I ended up doing what a lot of college grads who don't quite know what they wanna do yet, and I became a consultant Mhmm. Which was amazing. It was a really great experience. I traveled the world. I was able to work with some really great clients on interesting projects. I had a lot of responsibility at a very young age and decided to go back and get my MBA. I had never taken an econ class, studying engineering. And so I chose Chicago, and I got a finance degree there, which is really where I learned about investing. I had no clue about investing before that. I mean, really at
It's funny. I I had a similar experience. So I think when I graduated from college, I was an international relations major, and I'm not even sure I knew who Goldman Sachs was back then. And then for me, it was in business school that I figured out about this thing investing, and I never looked back. Yeah. And so it's interesting and similar. I'm I'm curious. You know, one of the hallmarks of the the things you do is, at least among, I think, your LPs, you have a reputation of kind of going anywhere to find investments. Some people in the venture world will only drive along the 2 80 quarter in
think so.
You know, how does that inform your approach? I
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