Nicole Friedman is an investor at Blue Collective where she invests in early stage companies (pre-seed and seed) in all sectors. Prior to joining Blue, she was an early employee at a proptech startup. Nicole graduated from Williams College where she majored in Psychology and played on the varsity squash team. She currently lives in NYC.
EVCA: What is your favorite thing about working in venture capital and why? How about your least favorite thing and why?
Nicole: My favorite thing about working in venture capital is getting to meet with people who are extremely smart, passionate, and energized about what they are building and how they are innovating. I love that this industry is people-oriented and enables me to build genuine, long-lasting relationships.Meeting with these passionate and energized founders is a ton of fun, but also leads to my least favorite part of the job: passing on founders, which investors have to do 99% of the time. We know it’s tough to hear it and it’s tough for us to give it, but at Blue we’re committed to getting back to every founder we speak with.
EVCA: What is your most contrarian view on an existing or emerging technology trend?
Nicole: My most contrarian view is that technology trends are a dime a dozen but great entrepreneurs are really hard to find. That is, finding great investments, especially early stage, has little to nothing to do with identifying technology trends (or taking a contrarian view of them), it’s about finding great entrepreneurs.
Cedric Char is a Senior Associate at Fifth Wall's Climate Tech Fund, investing in all things in and around decarbonizing the Built World and increasing climate resiliency. Before joining Fifth Wall, Cedric was at BMW i Ventures, where he focused on transportation, industry 4.0, and climate tech investments. Outside of work, you can typically find him in the ocean trying to catch waves, getting lost in the outdoors, or hunting for new and delicious restaurants.
EVCA: What is your favorite thing about working in venture capital and why? How about your least favorite thing and why?
Cedric: My favorite thing about working in venture is learning about new technologies, some of which seem to be science fiction, on a daily basis. Being at the forefront of emerging technologies always keeps me on my toes and never provides for a dull moment. My least favorite thing is probably having to say no to founders, especially if we've spent a decent amount of time with them doing diligence. I've never been good at breakups!
EVCA: What is your most contrarian view on an existing or emerging technology trend?
Cedric: This may be less of a contrarian view and more of a consideration around an emerging technology. While I am excited and quite bullish about the impacts that web3 can have on climate, particularly the carbon markets, one concern is that given the number of protocols being built to tokenize carbon offsets and bring them on-chain, we may end up right where we started with fragmented carbon markets and little standardization, transparency, and liquidity. Although these protocols were designed to bring efficiency to voluntary carbon markets, there may be a future where these markets remain inefficient and flooded with various climate protocols.
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