Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Over the years, Iguodala’s funded over 40 companies including , , and . As an investor and a board member, he helped the company grow and go public in April 2019 with a billion-dollar IPO.

In recent weeks, Iguodala has taken on new roles in both the basketball and startup worlds. He recently joined the with . And on Feb. 5, he was for Catalyst Fund, the venture capital arm of Catalyst’s focus will be on early-stage investments in companies founded by African American, Latinx and female entrepreneurs.

For ’ Head of Funds and Managing Director , Iguodala’s investment experience and network, combined with his “his passion for supporting entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds,” is a perfect fit for the firm’s Catalyst Fund.

Since its formation in 2011, the fund has backed .

Catalyst Fund Principal (a Muslim of Indian descent) told me the fund gives her and Iguodala a chance to help back founders who might not otherwise have access to capital and networks.

“We both come from unconventional backgrounds, and we want to be able to help founders who also come from unconventional backgrounds,” she told me. “We both truly believe talent and brilliance is equally distributed amongst individuals and that we can help get them the right level of resources.”

In a telephone interview, Crunchbase News caught up with Iguodala to hear more in-depth about his and Husain’s plans for the fund, and just how the NBA star got into startup investing.

CB News: How did you get into startup investing in the first place?

Iguodala: About 8 or 9 years ago, I started seeing a large return in the tech sector in the public markets. From there, I got interested and wanted to dive deeper into learning how I could invest before companies hit the public markets. I started seeing the growth in the private space, and that eventually led to where I am now.

Things I look at are: market size, does a company have a competitive advantage, can it fight off tech giants like , and ? I also look at founders and their vision–where they see themselves in 10 years. I ask myself, “How can I personally add value to a company, not just from a capital standpoint?”

CB News: What’s the most interesting part about investing in startups and helping them grow?

Iguodala: For Fatima and I, it’s really exciting. Look at technology, and how it’s changed our lives from everything to scheduling a flight or getting my son’s basketball game schedule. Everything is on my phone these days, and how we move in general is so much different than just say, eight years ago. Technology is doing so much to make our lives more efficient. So when I’m looking at that, this is an exciting time to be in this space. Not only for capital gains, but what you’re adding by having involvement in people’s day-to-day lives over the next 20, 30 or 40 years.

CB News: How does being a pro basketball player help you when it comes to making startup investments?

Iguodala: I just joined a new team, , in basketball, and one here at Catalyst. With the Heat, I was hyper focused my first couple of times on the court. While every team runs the same plays, each one has different terminologies for them. So I’ve been watching and learning on the fly, and having to figure out things fast.

It’s similar in the tech space. There’s different terminology and different acronyms for different industries and teams. Different companies have different vibes, some are more laid back and others are more buttoned-up. I have had to learn how to add value to different cultures within companies in the same way as I have with different teams.

There’s lots of egos on both sides. I thought it was just in the sports world, but I see it too in tech in other VCs, entrepreneurs or the best engineers. So I’ve had to learn how to deal with different personalities in both sports and investing. I’ve also learned to adapt and learn about different industries, from consumer to enterprise brands for example.

CB News: As someone with an unconventional “non-traditional VC” background, what skills or perspective do you have that make you a better investor and startup consultant than someone who may not have this diverse background?

Iguodala: I’m really excited because what we’re doing with the Catalyst Fund and what we represent is investing in underrepresented communities, and determining how we can put them in our ecosystem and help them grow in a responsible and sustainable way.

Being a minority, you have to have a grander scope in terms of the people you deal with on a daily basis. Many of us have that back against the wall mentality, and a passion and grit.

Every morning I wake up with a chip on my shoulder, and know I have to wake up with that passion and juice to go and prove myself. I’ve learned that I have to sacrifice, work hard and step up when it’s my turn. I’m ready to help other unconventional founders, and founders who are underrepresented in funding in the tech space, in their own journey.

Reporter’s note: For more on NBA players who are also startup investors, check out this article I wrote last summer here.

Blog Roll Illustration:

As a writer focused on female founders and executives, I was invited to cover the event. Yen noticed that the venture world tends to revolve around founders and VCs. Yet her experience as an early team member at and a co-founder at is that COOs and operators are critical but do not spend time connecting.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

For Gusto COO , “the real challenge of being an operator is you’re working all the time and your life is an empty plate that’s generally filled with — I work, I take care of my family, I see my friends, hopefully, and that’s kind of it.”

Before Operator Summit, there were no events focused on operators, or bringing operators of venture backed companies together in a way that is accessible and comfortable. A group of operators recognized there was a need, and came together to make this happen.

The 200-person summit was kept intentionally small. Attendees nominated others earlier in their career, and outside of these networks, who would benefit from career learnings.

For Yen, “operators are the leaders who build, grow, and run companies. They include c-suite executives, founders, and others who have the operational excellence needed to create enduring companies. They span all functions — from sales and marketing to product and engineering to finance, people, and beyond.”

But given the lack of attention given to operators in the space, it would be useful for us to define what, exactly, an operator compromises of in the C-Suite.

So what do COOs do?

For exec , the COO is a cultural steward, but also a balancing force. Founders are ambitious. They push the envelope. The COO can be a stabilizer, addressing the things founders want to achieve, and the organizational impact. When it comes to leadership teams, if the right people are in the room, and you get those people talking, it’s going to be powerful.

For Hughes Johnson the fire drills never stop. For a fast growing company with offices around the world, the main issues that come up are organizational leadership succession, or people crises. You get the wrong leader, and your culture goes sideways. And you are many time zones away from this experience. How do you get in there and get the right people in the right spots to stabilize that. People think of a COO as being good at operations. But the job is more about how to keep a healthy organization, while you go through all this.

Growing into the CRO role

When interviewed for sales leadership roles, with a 17 year sales career at Oracle, was often asked if she was “tough enough”? Fast forward and Schultz joined in April 2014 to build out enterprise sales. At that time the company was still private, with around 300 people and $50 million in revenue. Its business was driven from a ton of digital marketing, with developers from small and medium sized businesses buying directly from their website.

One of New Relics mantras is that “enterprise is a company sport.” Everyone has to operate a little differently when you get into the enterprise.

“You’re much more in a relationship with your individual enterprise

customers. So that’s an important mindset shift,” said Schultz who was promoted to CRO over a year ago. New Relics’ marketing mix changed dramatically, from being digital marketing driven. It grew a product marketing team, a field marketing function, and a customer advisory board. It built mechanisms to get customer feedback and signals. Product managers became more outbound focused.

For Schultz, a learning mindset can be a competitive advantage. When doing this for the first time as a team, the team that runs the fastest, and applies what they learn, wins.

Going public in 2019

Founder and CEO interviewed CEO . Both executives took their companies public in April of this year. For Tejada the morning of the first earnings call is when you realize that nothing will be the same.

For Tejada, a company is always recruiting and never done building its team and thinking about what it needs in three years. In her experience, one can never start soon enough working themselves out of jobs. For high growth companies, she suggests leaders think about what they need in two years.

Tejada does think about creating access to different kinds of people in her industry. If every PagerDuty employee had to have certain degrees or go to certain schools, she believes the company would have missed out on some of its best developers, salespeople, and managers.

Make the Pledge 1%

Tejada joined as CEO soon after PagerDuty had raised its Series B. At the time the company was doing less than $40 million ARR with 170 people. PagerDuty made the one percent pledge after raising their Series C, which meant diluting Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz directly after taking money from them.Tejada’s advice is that if you are an early stage venture backed company (and can convince your leadership) seriously think about donating one percent of equity. The earlier you do it, the less painful it is. She encouraged those in the room to approach at or PagerDuty’s team to assist in this. When her company’s IPO lock up releases, this will fund about $20 million dollars which PagerDuty will be able to put to work in areas to support people in the community.

On a different note — Tejada conceded that she is not great at the work/life balance and believes that asking for help is important. , an early investor in Salesforce profiled in ‘s book “” said, “there is no definition for work life balance. That could be anything from never, never missing a day of work to never working outside the home. I think we need to stop judging ourselves harshly”.

For Claire Hughes Johnson a sentiment that keeps her motivated is “can I care enough to do a great job, but not care so much that I lose all perspective. What keeps me motivated is that I can walk away. Then you are really choosing what you do every day. Be intentional about what you are going to do with your time”

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

Late Wednesday evening, PagerDuty priced its IPO at $24 per share, which values the company at roughly $1.8 billion. If all the shares allotted to the offering get placed, it could net PagerDuty and some of its extant shareholders up to $250 million in the offering.

Earlier on Wednesday, the SF-based developer of incident response tooling for software development teams filed an with the SEC which raised the share price it’s targeting for the IPO.

According to the filing, PagerDuty is slated to offer 8.5 million shares of common stock in a de novo offering, alongside 570,000 shares of common stock held by existing shareholders. The company also granted its underwriters the right to purchase up to 1,360,500 additional shares at the IPO price to cover over-allotments. “We anticipate that the initial public offering price will be between $21.00 and $23.00 per share,” according to the filing.

That’s up from an initial estimated range of $19 to $21 per share.

But then, in on Wednesday, PagerDuty priced its offering at $24 per share.

Today, PagerDuty’s CEO Jennifer Tajada rang the bell on the NYSE. This piece was published prior to the first trades in PagerDuty, but shares may start trading at between $30 and $32.

We will update this article once the first trades go through, and again at the end of the trading day.

�������ܲ��ٰ����پ��Dz�:��

���������

Last night, Reuters that Uber will seek to sell about $10 billion worth of stock in its initial public offering and “will make public the registration of the offering on Thursday.” The $10 billion figure is inclusive of secondary offerings; not all $10 billion will find its way to Uber’s coffers.

Subscribe to the Crunchbase Daily

The company, which surely must be hoping for a better public debut than its rival , is expected to launch its investor roadshow during the week of April 29. This puts Uber on schedule to price its IPO and actually begin trading on the NYSE sometime in early May.

Among the most critical Uber questions is its worth. Lyft’s IPO set a precedent for ridesharing revenue which we explored here. But Uber’s audited growth, GAAP results, and final gross margin results will set its price apart from Lyft.

But what Reuters reports is interesting all the same — the that Uber may aim for a “valuation of between $90 billion and $100 billion.” If that’s the case, it’s a retreat from prices rumored to be as high as $120 billion. If those figures were ever serious is still a question.

PagerDuty

Now, let’s take a (short) break from the “-sharing” IPOs and turn our attention to .

The San Francisco-based SaaS unicorn is to raise up to $240 million at a price range of $21 to $23 per share. PagerDuty had to offer the same number of shares (10.4 million) at a range of $19 to $21. As we noted last month, PagerDuty sells a service that alerts developers when things break, sold on a recurring basis

Its new price range means the company could have a non-diluted market cap of around $1.7 billion at the top end.

has raised a total of since it was founded 10 years ago. Its latest funding was a $90 million round raised in September 2018 at a post-money valuation of nearly $1.3 billion, according to Crunchbase data. Backers include , , and , among others.

PagerDuty is following video-conferencing startup lead in not being deterred by ride-hailing company Lyft’s thus-far bumpy road as a public company. The company is slated to start trading Thursday on the NYSE under the ticker “PD.”

Illustration: