20VC: Index's Danny Rimer on His Biggest Lessons On Price, Ownership, Board Dynamics & Building Consumer Businesses from Backing The Likes of King, Skype, Farfetch, Glossier and more...

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
You are listening to The Twenty Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and it would be great to see you on Instagram, where you can suggest both questions and guests for future episodes. That's on at hstebbings1996 with two Bs. But to our episode today, and what many do not know, is when I started The Twenty Minute VC almost four years ago, there were five names for me on a list that I most wanted to have on the show. Now, our guest today was absolutely one of those names, and it really is episodes like this that make me realize just how lucky I am to do the show, and just what a privilege it is. Therefore, I'm so proud to welcome Danny Rimer to the hot seat today. Now, Danny is a partner at Index Ventures, one of the world's leading venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Skype, King, Bird, Slack, and many more incredible companies. As for Danny, he's known for his investments in Dropbox, leading the companies Series B, Etsy, King, the makers of the world famous Candy Crush, Skype, and more recently, many retail and fashion businesses such as Farfetch, and two guests we've had on the show recently in the form of Glossier and Goat. He's also been on the coveted Forbes Midas List for more than a decade, and in 2017, Danny was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, OBE, for his services to business and charity, and the New York Times included him in its list of the top 20 venture capitalists worldwide. I do also want to say a huge thank you to Mamoun Aniliak KP, Henry at Glossier, Eddie at Goat, Bentley at GoodEx, and Shardul, Ari and Max at Index for helping me put together such a special episode for today. But before we dive into the show today, as a VC, making new investments and working with founders is your top priority. So instead of worrying about scaling your back office, you need a fund administration partner. Much like how Carter changed how private companies manage their cap tables and 409A valuations, Carter are now doing the same for fund admin. With Carter's new modern fund admin software and services, you get a real time dashboard of your general ledger. You can securely share info with your LPs and issue capital calls all from the same platform. You accept securities and request cap table access. So essentially Carter simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, fund admin and valuations. And you must check it out now at carter.com forward slash 20VC to get 10% off. That's carter.com forward slash 20VC. And speaking of special products there with Carter, I want to spend a minute to talk about Brex, the first corporate card for startups. Brex founders, Henry, Gay and Pedro built a payments business in Brazil, but found themselves rejected for a corporate card when they were in Y Combinator. They decided to build Brex with instant online signup, no founder liability required and limits 10 to 20 times higher than standard cards. Pretty incredible, I know. And you can sign up for Brex today and get card fees waived by entering the code Harry during signup. Honestly, it really is a truly special service. And last but by no means least, you must check out Start Engine. Start Engine is the leading and largest equity crowdfunding site in the US. On Start Engine, you can invest as little as $100 in private companies. And these companies range from early-stage startups raising their seed round to larger companies raising their A, B, C and beyond. And fun fact, now over 367 companies have raised capital on Start Engine from more than a staggering 41,000 investors. And you can check them out today at startengine.com forward slash 20VC to invest before the IPO. But you've heard quite enough from me. So now I'm very, very honored to hand over to Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures.
You have now arrived at your destination.
Danny, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. I have to admit, this is one I've wanted to do for a very, very long time. I've heard so many wonderful things. Mike, Shardul, Ari, Dylan at Figma, Eddie at Goat. The list goes on, but thank you so much for joining me today, Danny.

**Danny Rimer** (3:39)
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm really looking forward to the discussion.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:43)
Oh, so am I, but I would love to get started today with a little bit about you. So take me back, how did you make your way into what I always call the wonderful world of venture and really come to Found Index?