About Ahmed Suria: He is a Growth equity and venture capital investor at KDT. Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) is the venture and growth arm of Koch Industries. KDT is a unique and flexible capital partner that invests in early to growth stage companies that disrupt and transform Koch’s core businesses, and expand into new platforms and capabilities. One of KDT’s unique differentiators from other venture capital firms is its “Koch Labs” capability, which creates mutual benefit by connecting principled entrepreneurs with disruptive technology to world-class capabilities and expertise within Koch. Through Koch Labs, KDT leverages Koch’s global footprint to offer entrepreneurs access to a global enterprise’s opportunities and capabilities while allowing Koch to transform through new technology.

Prior to KDT, he spent 4 years as a technology M&A investment banker at Evercore, the leading independent investment bank. Prior to getting his MBA at Columbia Business School, he was on the pre-IPO team at Pandora and also spent time at Wind River Systems (which was acquired by Intel for $900 million) and at KPMG. Previously, Ahmed attended the University of Arizona from his undergraduate degree and the University of Notre Dame for his Masters in Accounting.

Here are the topics/Questions

1. You have been an Accomplished M&A and investment professional who has advised on multi billion dollar acquisitions and investments in technology . Tell us about your journey from starting as an accountant to technology M&A to Growth Equity Investing at Koch Disruptive Technologies.

2. You recently led the $54M Series B investment in Network Cloud pioneer, Alkira, along with Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, GV (formerly Google Ventures), and others. Alkira has raised $76M to date. Can you elaborate on your investment process and the investment thesis at Koch Disruptive Technologies.

3. How do you look at diversity in the CAP Tables and in your engagement with your portfolios? ? And how Koch Disruptive Technologies is investing in diverse founders and companies.

4. It is said that venture capital is all about identifying patterns in time. Yet some of the bigger ideas are unpredictable. Can you please share some of your learnings from your recent investments?

5. Has your risk profile changed over the years especially more recently during COVID-19? How important do you feel time-diversification /vintage year is when thinking about a venture-oriented portfolio?

6. Venture Capital has power law distributed return. Many companies fail to raise growth stage rounds. Failure is a learning but no one set that as a target specifically in business. What does it take for a mid stage startup to build a growth focus mentality for a strong exit in years to come to avoid failing badly?

7. Investing is not a career, it is almost a lifestyle. How do you prepare your work life balance especially in this new remote-first environment?

Find more information: https://kochdisruptivetechnologies.com/

Koch Labs: https://kochdisruptivetechnologies.com/koch-labs/

Information about Alkira: https://www.alkira.com/

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