Sruthi Ramaswami is a Principal at ICONIQ Growth. She joined ICONIQ in 2018 and focuses on healthcare, collaboration, and data analytics among other sectors. Sruthi is also a co-founder at Neythri.org, a non-profit organization building a global community of South Asian women professionals with 2,000+ members today. Previously, Sruthi was an Analyst at Goldman Sachs’ Tech, Media, and Telecom Investment Banking group. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The University of Chicago and earned her B.A. in Economics.

Here are the topics/Questions:

Tell us about your journey into venture capital.

How your experience as an investor in Iconiq Capital helps you to empathize with early stage founders when you are writing institutional checks?

How has your investor experience shaped your investment thesis and starting Nethryi organization?

How do mid career women entrepreneurs should navigate such VC career aspirations. What are things they should do if they are coming into VC.

Venture Capital is one industry that has not been disrupted. As we are seeing more people bringing movement into this industry, how do you see biases and prejudices that played in the past come in effect for people like you who are catalysts for change?

VC/Investing is a relationship based industry and are highly transactional. Iconiq Capital has backed many powerful companies in the world. Can you tell us Iconiq journey and how they successfully navigated building such great platform?

LPs who provide capital to VCs need to start incorporating diversity mandates. There are very small pools of capital in diversity and focussed fund mandates. How do you navigate this discussion regarding diversity in CAP Tables both from Iconiq and Nethryi’s POV.

Tell me about Iconiq Impact and climate focus initiatives.

Not every investor is a right fit for a founder. I would love to know your take what is the right founder investor fit?

Let's talk about the valuation and your thought process on that.

Your take on future of digital health and challenges in future of work in light of COVID.

Challenges that you might face as a firm down the road in growth stage investing.

VC investing is all about identifying patterns in time. Yet some of the bigger ideas are unpredictable and sometimes those investment decisions can be non-consensus among Partners. To invest in such unpredictable big ideas one has to learn and see things differently, analyze markets that others are finding it non-sexy to invest in. VC is not a job but it is a lifestyle. What are the learning habits you have acquired during your investor days? How do you analyze various thinking models?

#venturecapital #startups #diversityequityinclusion