Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Reflections on 2020: Kelly Perdew, Moonshots Capital
Every year, we feature the year end reflections of founders, CEOs, investors, and others in Southern California's high tech community. We'll be posting these throughout the next two weeks. Today, we have Kelly Perdew, Co-founder and General Partner of Moonshots Capital. You will be able to get to all of these posts on our 2020 reflections here. Are you a founder, CEO, or investor who would like to participate? Contact our editors for details.
What was the biggest news for you/your company this year?
This year ushered in the successful launch our second fund at Moonshots Capital, further validating our thesis that investing in extraordinary leadership produces exceptional companies. Despite the challenges that COVID has presented to the broader economy and startup ecosystem, we remain optimistic about (and in awe of) the resilience of our portfolio companies and their Founders. Two new additions to our portfolio companies stand out in particular: NextCar (Scott Painter’s latest disruptive LA-based automotive market play) and Transmute (Karyl Fowler’s Austin-based supply chain identity and credentialing platform). The ability of these two companies to improvise, adapt, and overcome the challenges for 2020 anchors our Fund II portfolio with a strong base and we’ll continue to make smart investments into extraordinary leaders who are building high growth, disruptive industries.
It's been a tough year for many due to the pandemic; how have you or your company adapted to the business environment?
Our servant-leader mindset and military DNA have been instrumental in our ability to weather the storm. Fundamentally, we believe that people are our greatest asset. To that end, we have made it a priority to focus on the well-being of our team, and to maintain communications and relationship building with our portfolio companies and investors. We also continue to maintain fiscal discipline - extending our capabilities, sophistication, and ability to execute without overextending our cost centers. This ability to do more with less will pay dividends post pandemic as we focus on growth. These are fundamental to how we are coaching our portfolio companies as well – we practice what we preach!
What was the biggest lesson you learned this year?
Being grateful. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, we remain grateful for our health, our families, and the opportunity to "come to work" every day to invest in amazing founders and their companies. We find that founders and executive teams that share the abundance mindset do the best job of conveying the trajectory and vision for their companies, making our jobs easier as we evaluate opportunities on daily basis.
What are you most looking forward to in the technology/startup world in 2021?
We look forward to seeing how AI and ML will continue to disrupt finance, CPG, big data, and SaaS. We believe that there is momentum in the container storage application marketplace, and that this will create a paradigm shift in how developers create new products - similar to when many companies shifted from hard IT infrastructure to the cloud. ESG and sustainable technologies are also areas we are excited to see opportunities in as conscious companies are radically changing the world for the better.
Kelly Perdew is the managing general partner of at Moonshots Capital. Perdew has founded or held senior executive operating roles in ten companies and some of his notable investment/ advisory/board roles have included: LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P), TrueCar (TRUE), Active Networks (ACTV), ID.me, Scopely, Fair, Olive, RideScout (DAI), Harvest.ai (AMZN), Ustream (IBM), Klout (Lithium), Fitmob (ClassPass) and Bitium (GOOG). Perdew earned a BS from the US Military Academy at, West Point and served in the US Army as a Military Intelligence Officer after he and completed Airborne and Ranger training.