Meet Yash Patel, GP at Titanium Ventures

Yash Patel is a General Partner at Titanium Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage, inflecting companies. Yash grew up in Moraga, a small town in the Bay Area known for its pristine parks, rolling hills, and foggy mornings. Yash had always been the worldly type, the relic of holding dual citizenship--an American passport by birthright and a UK passport through his father. At age 18, he decided to leave the U.S. for undergraduate studies at the University College of London in the UK, receiving a degree in mathematics with a biology concentration. After college, he launched his early career with two investment banking internships--the first one at Lazard and the second at Credit Suisse. He then decided to return to the U.S., joining the investment banking tech team as an analyst for the tech investment banking team at Jeffries. While there, Yash was tasked with pitching digital media / ad network companies to employ the bank. In the process, he ended up joining Adknowledge, a known venture-backed player in the space, to lead the company’s corporate development and strategy. By then, the ad network industry was undergoing consolidation amid the emerging duopoly led by the tech giants Facebook and Google. Yash’s mandate quickly evolved into helping orchestrate a sale of Adknowledge to potential acquirers. He began talks with the big telecom companies like Telstra that were strategizing their potential entry into the digital ad space and in the process learned more about Telstra Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Telstra, which had opened an office in downtown San Francisco, right next door to the Adknowledge office. Yash saw a job posting for a Senior Associate role at the fund and secured a warm intro to the founding Managing Partner, who had recently joined. He landed the role as the second hire in their San Francisco office. Over the last ten years, Yash climbed the ranks within the fund, seeing its eventual spin-out of Telstra and rebrand into Titanium Ventures. Today Yash is a General Partner at the firm, leading investments in consumer internet and enterprise software.

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Sam: What areas of investment make you excited as an early-stage investor?

Yash: I'm really excited about several areas. When I first joined Telstra Ventures, now Titanium Ventures, we focused heavily on enterprise software and infrastructure technologies because those were core to Telstra's interests. Early in my career, I invested in a lot of vertical SaaS that Telstra could potentially leverage for reselling to its SMB and enterprise customers. Companies like OpenGov in the GovTech space, BigCommerce in e-commerce infrastructure, and Singular in marketing analytics were some of my early investments.

As time progressed, I saw an opportunity to lead our consumer tech investing efforts, which we hadn't done before. My first foray into consumer investing was a later-stage investment in Snapchat, which led to several investments in the gaming and interactive media space. I've been fortunate to be involved with companies that have either sold or gone public in mobile gaming, such as Skillz, or in the digital lottery space, like Jackpocket, which recently sold to DraftKings. I’ve also sourced investments like Sleeper in the daily fantasy sports space, Swish Analytics in the sports betting analytics space, and Super.com which is a fast growing savings super app in the US.

Currently, I spend about 50% of my time on consumer investments and 50% on enterprise SaaS, with a focus on vertical SaaS. This includes leveraging AI and workflow efficiency tools to create real stickiness with customers and solve significant pain points. For example, we are looking at construction tech, fintech (B2B and DTC), GovTech, and gaming infrastructure. It's fascinating to see companies leveraging data thoughtfully and creating interesting network effects, not just on the consumer side but also in enterprise businesses.

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Sam: Two common themes across your investments are gaming and sports. Would you consider yourself more a sports enthusiast or a gamer?

Yash: I'm a little bit of both, but I'd say I'm a huge sports fan. One of the things that excited me and led to my investments in sports is seeing how fast sports teams and leagues adopt cutting-edge technology. Whether it's networking technologies at Levi's Stadium or fan engagement technologies to better manage their relationship with fans and improve lifecycle marketing, sports teams are often early adopters of innovations that later spread to other industries.

I started spending a lot of time at incubators, meeting with sports teams and leagues, and talking to their venture arms. For example, the Golden State Warriors are very proactive in adopting new technologies, partly due to their DNA of their ownership group. The San Francisco 49ers and the LA Dodgers are also very active in this space. In fact, I sourced one of our fastest growing companies, Switch Analytics after hearing about their partnership with the LA Dodgers incubator that I attended as well as through other sports investors. Partnering and spending more time with sports teams and leagues, along with the corporates and vendors surrounding them, became a great source of deal flow for both consumer and enterprise investments. It’s not just consumer tech, but we see a lot of cybersecurity, DevOps, and infrastructure tools being adopted by these teams and leagues, which then scale into other industries.

Sports is definitely a passion of mine. I've been a huge Golden State Warriors fan for a long time, long before it was popular to be one. On my profile on our website, I mention my favorite NBA player of all time, Antawm Jamison, who isn't widely known, but I take pride in that. Combining my passion for sports with making thoughtful investments has been personally rewarding and has helped sustain my enthusiasm for the venture grind. It's a tough space with long sales cycles, but building a strong pipeline, executing well and making my job as fun as possible, keeps me motivated.

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Sam: From your many investments over the years, what would you say are the top qualities that you look for in a founder?

Yash: As VCs, we are servicing founders. I focus on founders who are a bit quirky and unorthodox but exhibit three key traits: creativity, persistence, and open-mindedness. Creativity is essential and can manifest in various ways, such as product roadmap, hiring, strategy, or exploring new markets. Tenacity, though sometimes hard to judge early on, is critical for pushing through challenges and typically can be validated through strong reference checks from my network. Open-mindedness involves being coachable and willing to learn new things. These three traits are pretty common across the founders of all my portfolio companies. Fun fact: over the 10.5 years I’ve been at Titanium Ventures, I’ve actually noticed that some of the best performing companies in our portfolio have been companies whose CEO responded to cold emails from myself as a fresh-faced investor from a corporate venture fund with a relatively unknown name at the time. I think this points two of the traits I value in founders: creativity and open-mindedness. 

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Sam: What lessons from your career would you share with the next generation of VCs?

Yash: For aspiring partners or general partners, proving that you can not only source great deals from your network but also provide DPI (Distributions to Paid-In Capital), aka real cash, is crucial. In 2021, I became a GP after two companies I sourced had liquidity events with Skillz, which went public, and BigCommerce, which also went public. Providing liquidity through M&A or IPOs is vital, vs. just having a great TVPI (Total Value to Paid-In Capital) which is largely unrealized gains on paper. It's about materializing cash for the GPs, LPs, and all stakeholders involved.

Another important lesson is getting enough shots on goal. If your firm does one deal a year, aim for two or three. In five years, this will significantly impact your DPI because you'll have more opportunities for liquidity events.

Personally, I think 2024 and 2025 will be excellent years for investments. The current macro environment is unclear, but there is light at the end of the tunnel, and valuations are more reasonable. I'm trying to invest more now because this favorable environment won't last forever. For the younger folks, seize the day and try to get as many thoughtful deals done as possible.

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Sam: What would you say has been the hard part of venture capital for you?

Yash:  For me, VC can be a very lonely job. You're often on the road, attending numerous conferences. While VC is a team sport, you also need to meet the benchmarks set by other partners and investors, which can be competitive but in a good way, similar to sports.

However, the nature of the job can feel isolating, especially for extroverted individuals. The best way I've found to counter this is by becoming extroverted within your domain of focus. For example, if you're interested in construction tech, network with all the entrepreneurs in that field, host events, and build relationships with external stakeholders. When I started in San Francisco, it was myself and our managing partner, but now we've grown to eight people in San Francisco and NYC and 18 globally, which makes it more enjoyable internally.

Another challenging aspect I didn't fully appreciate initially is the need for exits and IPOs to advance your career. It's not enough to have great deals on paper; you need to strategically think about ways to achieve liquidity for early investors and your firm. This is crucial for career progression in VC.

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Sam: What's your favorite part of the job?

Yash: My favorite part of the job is learning from meeting thousands of companies. The pattern recognition you develop can be applied to both your existing portfolio and new investments. We're in a unique position to see various business models, products, and strategies, and to try to predict the future by partnering with people who might blaze new trails.

Trying to predict the future with these pioneering entrepreneurs is incredibly exciting. Even though no one, including the entrepreneurs, knows exactly what the future will look like beyond the next couple of years, you have a sense that they'll figure it out. Combining your experience and pattern recognition with the entrepreneur's creativity, tenacity, and open-mindedness is a powerful mix. Part of being in VC is meeting all sorts of brilliant minds. Even if you don’t end up investing in them, learning from them is incredibly rewarding.

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Sam: Where do you see yourself in 10 years from now? How about in 20 years?

Yash: Going back to why I joined Titanium Ventures 10 and a half years ago, it was to make an impact. I really want to build this firm. I’m kind of joking but I’m in too deep, and I love what I do. In 10 years, I hope to continue to be here and build the firm for the next generation of leaders at Titanium. We're raising our fourth fund soon, and with a $1B in AUM right now, we expect to continue to grow and continue to evolve in this constantly-changing venture ecosystem. For me, it's about driving strategy, making a bigger impact, and being innovative in how the venture asset class evolves while I'm at Titanium Ventures. This isn’t too dissimilar to how the Golden State Warriors continued to evolve over the years and create a dynasty.

Looking further ahead, 20 years from now, I get excited about hyper-local politics and politics in general. As the son of two immigrant parents who came to the US back in the 1980s, I am eternally grateful for everything the US stands for and the opportunity it gave my family. I love the US and I think it would be really great to give back by advancing America’s interest oversees. I want to share the best of America’s ideals  through what I know - promoting venture / tech innovation throughout the world. Maybe that’s as a diplomat / ambassador? Who knows, but it would certainly be an amazing experience.

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